Hi everyone! It's been a very exciting launch week! It's very wonderful to see people having fun with the game, hearing how you also see the potential the game has, and it's very validating seeing how many people have wanted a game like this for a long time. I'm gonna do my very best to do it justice.
Since many people are curious, I wanted to share a sort of roadmap for the game. Listed below is what I'm going to tackle first, and the likely order I'll tackle bigger future features. The biggest disclaimer of all time: All of this is subject to change, and has no specific dates, not even goals or estimates. I'd hate to over promise and under deliver, or be constantly pushing back release dates.
Features may change priority, and the order here is for the core of each feature, not the fully fleshed out, content filled completion of that feature. Everything is inter-connected, and some major sections of the game can't be built until most of the core features are implemented at a basic level. This list doesn't include bugfixes, or bits of extra content I'll add along the way.
Roadmap
Short Term Priorities
These items are my immediate focus. Mainly some changes I wanted to make since the pre-release playtest, but couldn't do before launch.
Input system refactor and improved peripheral handling
Many people have reported issues with their flight sim peripherals, and the core issue is that the Unity input system I'm currently using doesn't provide as much built-in support for yokes, joysticks, throttles, rudder pedals, etc. as I'd hoped. (I've seen the most issues reported with Saitek, Thrustmaster, and VKB devices. I'm personally seeing issues with my CH controllers.) I remain 100% committed to supporting as many different peripherals as possible.
The fix for this is probably to make a big change in what input system I'm using. I need to do more research, and I'm investigating 3rd party options. This is essentially my highest priority, and I'll be dedicating a lot of time to it this week specifically. As you might imagine, user input is pretty core to a lot of the game code, and is woven throughout many scripts. I've organized things in a way that should reduce the effort to swap things over, but it still has the potential to be complex. Your playtesting and bug reporting has been critical for me for this fix, so thanks! I'll get this fixed, one way or another.
Boring technical stuff
I've got some technical debt that I need to take care of as early as possible. There's a few different core scripts that are functional, but need some refactoring to allow me to expand their functionality and optimize things, and just make those parts of the game more maintainable. Primarily, the script that manages a lot of how parts connect and describe how the player can interact with them needs a big refactor. The longer I put this off, the harder it's gonna be, and the more extra effort I'll spend adding new things.
There's some internal tools I need to build for myself to make it easier to expand and change locations in the game world without breaking save files. I've got some ideas for some new locations to add soon, but better tools have to come before that. Neither of these will change anything about the game that's visible to you, the player, but they'll be very important to building new things that you will see!
Other bits
I'm gonna be doing plenty of other bugfixes. I've got some fixes ready to roll out with the next update, but I'll aim to make the overall experience smoother, and tackling bugs and game design issues that only seem to appear once you've got many, many people playing the game. Keep those bug reports coming!
I'd like to get Steam Cloud Saves set up. Just nice and convenient to have, and shouldn't be too tricky.
There's more I want to do to improve the native Linux build. There's likely some lurking memory issues that I need to diagnose and haven't been able to fully track down just yet, but I'm on the case! There appear to be some Linux specific peripheral issues, and I'll be making sure my other changes help out here as well.
Near Future
Now to the good stuff. This is generally the order that I'll tackle the big features in the game, without any specific dates. There are just too many unknowns for me to make any specific promises. These aren't the only updates that will appear, and each Phase won't be added all at once in one huge update. These are just sort of the phases I have in mind for where the focus will be, and they'll probably overlap.
Phase 1
A first round of new content that advances the game's features and acts as a good first test for future content to be added.
Plane #2: I'm planning to add a single-engine floatplane as both an alternate starter plane, and one available in the world to change between as desired. It'll need a few new parts, but many of the same parts that already exist will be compatible with the new airframe. I've already got a prototype for this, but it needs more modeling details, an interior, new parts, and fine tuning of the plane config and flight profile. This will be a good starter plane for those less familiar with flight sims, multi-engine planes, or flying boats. It flies slower, is single-engine, has a water rudder, and will be simpler to manage for new pilots. It turns out that a heavy multi-engine flying boat with high mounted engines without a water rudder is a LOT to handle, even for experienced flight-simmers. It's a rewarding challenge, but it's a pretty steep learning curve.
First alternate parts: I designed the entire building system of Lakehopper from the ground up to support for alternate parts and systems. The way parts are structured and function is defined by the parts themselves. I'll be adding a first round of alternate parts that add some interesting player choices. For those who like planes that go BANG instead of BZZZ, I plan to add a hydrogen powered radial engine made up of a LOT of individual parts. They'll be hydrogen powered so they fit in with the world lore I have in mind, but otherwise they'll look, feel, sound, and behave like radial engines that are more familiar to the real world. Seriously, it's gonna be a lot of parts, while also being less fuel efficient. (Sorry, that's how physics and thermodynamics works.) But for those willing to work for it, it'll be a fun challenge.
Some new locations: I'll add some more places to fly to in the world. I've got a few things in mind, but don't want to commit to anything specific just yet. No matter what ends up getting added here, the world will expand and get more interesting. In general, flight times will still be on the shorter side, (think Manypeaks to Nest Lake, rather than the longer flight to Test Island) but there will be more places to go.
A few new jobs: Definitely not the full range of jobs and quests I want to add, but at least a few new interesting things to do.
Charts: With more places to go, pilots need more info, so that'll require an update to support proper charts and sectionals.
If you're interested in modding Lakehopper, it's probably worth waiting until around here to dive in, as many of the underlying systems will probably change to support this Phase. I can't promise any specific modding support here, but about here is when the core game logic around parts and planes becomes ever so slightly more stable.
Phase 2
Making the world more dynamic, and giving the player some interesting choices to make.
Weather: One of the most important decisions a pilot can make is about whether the weather is safe to fly in, both in general, and for their personal minimums. In a game that's all about consequences of your piloting and decision making, that makes the weather all more important. My goals for the first pass at weather are to add wind systems (seaplanes REALLY care about which way the wind is blowing), make the clouds and visibility dynamic, add changes in temperature and air pressure, as well as a first pass at precipitation like rain. That barely scratches the surface, but it's a good place to start. Along with the weather changing, I'll be adding ways for the player to forecast the weather. Whenever I add a big feature like this that adds challenges, I also want to give players the tools to deal with those challenges. Just adding weather would be extra difficulty without any way of anticipating it, and would feel frustrating and punishing, rather than a fulfilling game mechanic that rewards good decision making and planning.
Day/night cycle and time passage: Pretty simple to explain. Time should pass in the game, especially if you suddenly need to be able to wait for the weather to clear. Landing in the dark on water is exceptionally difficult, dangerous, and generally inadvisable, so now you've gotta plan to get to your destination before dark, as most places won't have any "runway lights". My concept for how time will pass is that the day will go by quickly on the ground, but slower once you're in the air. Something like 1 game day = 1 real hour on the ground, but closer to 4 game hours = 1 real hour in the air. This is so it feels like you can do a few legs of flying in a single game day, without locking the player into a real time only slog where you have to play for 20+ hours to reach a new day in the game. There's balancing to be done here, and I'll probably make it something the player can set for themselves. You'll have the ability to sleep and pass time without having to just wait in-game.
Terrain refactor: The current terrain is functional, and looks alright from a distance, but could use some more details and variety. Unfortunately, there's some technical challenges that are preventing me from reaching the level of fidelity I want. (My last attempt to add trees knocked 20 fps off the framerate. No thanks.) I have some plans to tackle this and make the world of Lakehopper look nicer in general, but it's a big technical hurdle.
Phase 3
What fun is an empty world? Why does your flying matter if you never see who you're doing a delivery for? Therefore, we've gotta add some people.
NPCs: Hoo boy, this one is a big one. There's so much unknown here that I don't have too much to say. But, my logic around prioritizing NPCs is that they'll be tied into so many other parts of the game, I need them to exist in the game loop sooner rather than later. NPCs tie into the jobs you do, how you get new parts, how you find new planes, how you recover from crashes, any story and dialogue, passenger missions, the quality and character of every place you visit, game lore, repairs and maintenance, docking the plane and departing, and so much more. They're very important to the core feeling of the game I want to create, so you'll probably see some NPCs in the game earlier than you might otherwise expect.
More locations: With adding NPCs, they need more places to live, so this is another spot I'd expect the game world to open up even farther.
More jobs: With NPCs in the game, there's more options for the kinds of jobs that make sense. Some of those will be added here.
The Far Future
These 3 phases are really just the beginning. Once we've got a dynamic world with NPCs, the amount of content that can be added explodes. We can really dig into adding more planes and parts, more jobs, it'll be properly worth digging into localization, and how players can customize their planes. It's sort of not worth me planning past this point until I have a better idea of the state of things. Most of the exciting stuff lives here, but I will be adding more and more to do in the game as we move through the previous 3 phases.
I hope this gives you some idea of my priorities for the game. Keep in mind that this is not a complete list of everything that I'll be adding during this time, so if you don't see your most wanted feature here, it doesn't mean it'll never happen! If you have any feedback, please let me know! I want to factor in what players are interested in seeing, while still planning for the long term future of the game.
If you've read this far and are interested in following the development of the game, I stream a large portion of the game's development on Twitch: View game page I don't have this link posted on the game's main page, just because I keep things extremely chill there so I can stay productive. It's also not the place for bug reports or feature requests. Those are best submitted via the Steam Discussions page. But I figure if you've read to the bottom of a vague early access roadmap, you might be interested in seeing how the sausage gets made. Just be polite and kind if you come check out the stream. Thanks!
Happy Skies!