Hey folks. We're working on the 0.5 release for Airship Commander. On our original timeline, 0.5 would be roughly half-way to the full release, and we're excited to be nearing such a milestone!
The team has been spending a lot of time playing the game, and it's looking like we're going to take February to develop a "hardening" version. The goal isn't to add very many NEW features in a release like this, but rather polish, solidify and improve what's already present. We're thinking of a couple of angles of attack:
- Audio: The sound experience for Airship Commander has a huge amount of room for improvement. Some features are working great like the High Pass Filter on the explosions (gives distance ones a cool "booom" effect). Others work but don't really accomplish much (UI SFX for example). Lastly there's loads of SFX that are just missing (mine explosions, robot VO).
- AI: The AI still does lots of dumb stuff. We've discovered that with the addition of being able to order friendly squadrons, we inadvertently made it EASIER for the players to put the AI in positions where they don't do what's expected (3x squadrons attacking same fleet == clipping airships).
- Performance: General performance has been fairly decent, 50% due to game optimizations and 50% due to new features provided by the tech companies (async rendering, single pass rendering). That doesn't mean it can't get better!
With those being the major areas to target, we feel the entire experience will vastly improved by making these better versus adding new prototype features.
That isn't to say that a few new things won't make it into 0.5. Integrating the remaining mission types into the strategic campaign has a lot of appeal (escort, interdiction, minefield, and bombing). As does replacing some of the prototype art with assets closer to the final version (capture point tower for example). As we get closer to release we'll cover in detail what's brand new.
Airship Commander couldn't exist without your interest and support. The team continues to be deeply grateful for your attention and thanks for taking the time to read this update!