Greetings Skyfareres!
It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since the eventful launch of Airship: Kingdoms Adrift on September 23rd, 2023. It's been an incredible year for Revolution Industry and our community as we proudly launched our first game, introducing a world that we will continue to nurture as long as you embrace it.
You may have noticed that there's been a sale running for the past week without major announcements, except for Update #6 being pushed to Beta. That's because we've been holding off on the new version release announcement for the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest, which kicks off tomorrow.
The Anniversary Celebration
To celebrate both the anniversary of our release and the festival, we're offering Airship: Kingdoms Adrift at a 50% discount for the first time! Additionally, from the end of September through late October, we will be participating in three shows back to back: Tokyo Game Show (Japan), Level Up KL (Malaysia), and Gamescom Asia in Singapore.
We will share more details about our participation in these events in upcoming updates, where we will also gradually reveal our plans for the new title—a continuation from Airship: Kingdoms Adrift with added flair to how the whole franchise will present itself in the years to come!
While we haven’t officially started working on the new game, in May, we had the chance to tease you with some screenshots that our designer created during their spare time. Many of you might have missed this image, as it was part of a minor announcement. Today, we’re excited to show it to you again, side-by-side with the new ship editor design. Please note that these are just concepts we used to attract business interest, and we're committed to ensuring that the final product will be even more impressive!
On top of that, we're excited to release the highly anticipated Version 1.6, the “Anniversary Logistic Update," which includes many quality of life improvements and more customizable game start options.
For those who have already completed the game, we’ve also added new achievements for the harder game modes that are now available. There's much more to explore, and you can find all the details in this article. So, let's dive in!
Update Note for 1.6.0.4
Status:
LIVE NOW: 15th September 2024
Older Saves: Safe to continue
New Features:
Feature #1: The Automated Logistic
Here’s the backbone of this update, designed to alleviate most of the logistical challenges you've faced when moving goods and managing production and warehouse supplies. Since we first announced the automated freight feature in April, the community has been eagerly providing feedback and speculating on how it would turn out—and now, it’s finally here.
To assign a freight order, you’ll need an empty and idle ship at the port of origin, which also requires a hangar slot at that port. Once you have that, you can select the cargo amount for the order and even set a partial cargo volume. This allows the ship to depart without waiting for a full load, which can be very handy for keeping your operations running smoothly. You can set these parameters for both the outbound and return trips.
Since you’re likely to have multiple freight orders and ships running them, we're introducing a new menu to help you keep track of everything related to your logistics. You can access it using the button located between the quest journal and the storyline objective, or by pressing the hotkey "L."
On this screen you start with the list of your freight route and their status. You can turn the cruising preference on/ff and mark certain routes favorite. You can hit the “Change” button here to go to the hangar with the ship carrying out the order selected and reassign them.
To complement the freight system, you can now instruct shops to deliver supplies to your local warehouse as soon as they become available. You can set the order to either request a specific amount every restock cycle or maintain a supply level at a certain amount. The first time you place an order, the shop will deliver the initial batch with the currently available amount. After that, deliveries will occur at every restock cycle. You can pair this with your freight route to ensure your manufactories are always stocked with the necessary supplies.
Which brings us to the second page of the logistic menu, here you will find all your auto-buy orders listed down and could direct access merchants with the order along with bookmarking them for future references with ease.
The third and final tab in the logistics menu is the Production Order. While the production feature has been available since launch, there was no efficient way to manage it—until now. This screen allows you to view and manage all your production orders from one centralized location..
As long as we are here, we will continue gathering your feedback and further improving the quality of life in the production aspects of the game.
Feature #2: Difficulty Levels Adjustment and New Achievements
Since the release of Kingdoms Adrift, we've continually adjusted the game's difficulty based on player feedback, and we're pleased with how things have shaped up. However, there are elements we believe would have been more engaging had they remained more challenging. That's why we're introducing new difficulty settings in the updated game start sequence.
Players can now choose from several modes: Story Joyride for the easiest experience, Challenging for an average level of difficulty, and Kingdoms Adrift as the ultimate test. Additionally, you can customize specific penalties and bonuses, such as enemy damage potency, boarding capture rates, quest rewards, and starting funds.
Once a difficulty level is selected, it will be tied to your save file. Clearing the game at different difficulty levels will unlock new achievements that reflect your accomplishments.
Improvements:
Resupply Your Fleet Automatically
From the settlement’s resupply screen, you can now choose to have your fleet automatically resupplied.
An Improved and More Compact Shop Screen
It’s now much easier to browse through a merchant’s inventory—we’ve increased the number of items displayed per page from a mere 12 to 48!
Befriending a Faction to Remove Your Hunting Marks
You can now clear your misdeeds against a faction by handing in each faction's hunting marks at their respective commission stores. Once you have made friends with eligible factions, you’ll be able to visit their commissioners to remove your misdeeds. Please note that certain factions, like the Le Faucons cartel or Sunvale’s infamous Free Traders, will never issue pardons for your actions.
Apply a Color Scheme to Your Fleet
When applying colors to your ships, you can now easily apply the same color scheme to your entire main fleet, ensuring a consistent look.
Added 2 extra tiers to Cadenza and Helmut’s workshops for increased production capacity.
Other Changes:
- Reduced raiders' integrity by 35% across the board.
- Increased the fire rate of pivoted cannons.
- Reduced self-hardening thresholds on some armors.
- Increased bonus performance of inertia balancers.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where capturing a ship could reward 3 ships instead.
- Fixed trading hint items being added to cargo instead of the treasury.
- Fixed an issue where selecting a parley tribute cargo would reset the cargo screen pages.
- Fixed an issue where disabling production notifications sometimes did not work.
- Multiple under-the-hood stability improvements.
Thank you very much for your support and be safe out there.
Fair wind and clear skies,
- Jay