Airport Master Early Access Public v. 0.3.0a RELEASED!

Changelog follows

Game workflow

• Added Service Contracts Mechanics: service contracts (available in game UI via Contracts button or F8 key on keyboard) present the market of aircraft servicing contract offers. It currently works like this: 1) upon starting the new game (regardless career or free play mode), each aircraft gets initialized with its current service state including date of last Form-A, Form-B and Form-C technical servicing timestamps; 2) upon certain time interval, the technical state of all aircraft is re-evaluated against very complex probability randomizer, which is set up in such a way that aircraft serviced longest time ago has higher chance to malfunction in one of the several categories (airfoil, mechanical, hydraulics, engine, electrics, operational fluids etc.) – if such a malfunction is reported by a pilot (e.g. magneto on piston engine), a corresponding service contract appears on the market – i.e. Player’s airport along with nearby airports (an airport must provide hangar services and lie within reach distance of one flight); 3) when contract is formed by aircraft owner, it may include one or two additional services required (e.g. [eng] 100-hours engine check (hence time has come) + [hyd] hydraulics line check (probability ~32,5%) + [elec] right landing light lamp change (probability ~12,5%, which does not stack with previous random roll); 4) Player evaluates offered contract against hangar(s) he or she has available and against servicing capabilities said hangars have (i.e. cannot accept service contract for customer aircraft with wingspan larger than that of largest hangar, cannot accept contract if the only hangar doing computer diagnostics is already occupied and the contract requires that service etc.); 5) if Player accepts a contract – corresponding ARR and DEP flights are scheduled, if Player rejects contract a decrease in rating with operator Airline (or Private Pilots Association) will be applied; if Player does nothing (does not accept the contract, does not reject it) – the contract has expiry time (about 4 to 8 hours for smaller aircraft and about 22-37 hours for larger aircraft), upon hitting the expiry time – the contract is automatically rewarded to some other Service Hangars operator on the market leading to minimum negative rating change and customer aircraft in question not available in the game world for any purposes while it’s servicing is complete plus some time more; Note: at any time between 30 minutes Service Contract is available on the market and its expiry time, if not accepted nor rejected it may be awarded to a competing airport with Service facilities; a notification is displayed upon new Service Contract becomes available and first 30 minutes are guaranteed to hold contract available for Player to accept\reject; Added
• Added capability for an Airline to cancel one, several or all flights for its Aircraft for given day (without affecting Player’s Airport rating with Airline) due to several possible reasons: weather, aircraft malfunction, re-scheduling purposes; added
• Added new rules for Airlines ratings changing when dealing with Service Contracts: for accepting a Service Contract – owner’s Airline rating change is +0.5%; for rejecting a Service Contract with owner Airline: -1%; for completing a Service Contract with owner Airline: +1,5%; thus by accepting and then fulfilling a Service Contract Player can totally increase Airline rating up to +2%; note: by not rejecting a contract but letting it expire or be picked up by another Airport’s FBO it is possible to escape -1% penalty to Airline rating but at the cost of new Service Contracts not appearing sooner; added
• Added ATIS\ATIS-D: the ATIS (Automated Terminal Information System) message is generated in Appleton airport every hour at all times; a new weather observation is included in ATIS message if one or more of the following conditions are met at any given time: 1) mean measured steady wind speed and\or sporadic recent wind gust speed changes more than 7 knots between two recent observations; 2) prevailing mean measured wind direction changes 20 or more degrees between two recent observations; 3) visibility changes more than 1000 meters on surface level straight line between two recent observations; 4) QNH local air pressure changes 5 or more hectopascal (mbar) between two recent observations; 5) temperature changes or dew-point fluctuates more than 5 degrees C within last 30 minutes – in such case a new ATIS message containing the latest observation is generated; pilots are required to specify ATIS info designator\letter when requesting clearances and ATC is required to confirm the latest ATIS information onboard aircraft is correct; ATIS messages are transmitted on CommBox ATIS channel\tab with every update, also upon switching to ATIS tab the new fresh ATIS message readout is loaded regardless if ATIS itself changed or not; added
• Added weather descriptive blocks – instead of previously used fixed variables defining current weather set, new implementation is used from now on – WDB (weather descriptive block) – this expandable information block contains mandatory weather info (such as visibility, temperature, pressure, cloud coverage etc.) and may contain other non-mandatory properties such as weather area-specific differences (example: thunderstorm west of Appleton, transitioning north to south, not passing Airport itself), corrections to existing weather data (example: cloud coverage is 4 octants in general in TMA area but there is an ‘opening’ above the mountains area, where cloud coverage measures 1-2 octants) – the major benefit of this new system is capability to freely mix WDBs, measure differences between 2 or more WDBs etc. – this is a very important step towards full-scale weather engine coming in version updates 0.3.x a; added
• Changed how completed flight ops are removed from current Time Schedule – now the actual removal happens when both flights ops in a pair (ARR + DEP) have been completed; changed
• Added support for various helicopter rotor types configurations (Fixed Ratio Single-shaft with all possible tail-rotor ratios, gearbox-reduction type, 2-,3-,4-,5-blade main rotors with blade tip speeds all subsonic and NOTAR-specific configuration are implemented; Tandem- and Coaxial- specific configurations – to come in future versions); added
• Added support for single-strobe light and single-beacon light on helicopters; added
• Added support for blended night-lights over distance – previously the only setting for night-lights of game-world background objects (buildings lights, far lights, road lights etc.) was pre-configured intensity of light, from now on the new setting (will be actively tweaked in following versions) for dispersion of lights facing camera with distance to active camera and eventually taking into account atmospheric characteristics (compatible with both Rayleigh and Mie atmospheric scattering models) is used; added
• Fixed helicopter engine module not respecting time-freeze \ time-speed \ time-skip conditions; fixed
• Modified number of positions taken by hangar specialists and mechanics on initial game start to 10 per each hangar, 3 shifts per day; changed specialties of mechanics and engineers in accordance with new service hangars system; changed
• Fixed owner Airline being reported as 3-letter airline code instead of Full Airline Name and vice versa, sometimes causing incorrect depiction of data in various UI screens; fixed
• Fixed Flight Strips not always displaying aircraft taxing to parking after landing; fixed
• Fixed Service Hangars colliders blocking mouse clicks on Aircraft inside hangars; fixed

Aircraft

• Added new helicopter - Rovertzone R55 Crow II (real-world prototype: Robinson R44 Raven II) – a classic low-cost private helicopter produced in vast numbers (about 6000 to date including all modifications), a helicopter that one can encounter at almost every heliport or G\A airfield around the World, cost-efficient, reliable and number one choice among helicopter flight schools; Helicopters in the following liveries were added CS-OGJ, DS-PNL, LE-PUM, N401Y, N910R, RGSTA, SVRZO; added
• Added new aircraft – Viper 32 Vajano (real-world prototype: Piper PA31 Navajo) – this twin piston-prop with more than half-century history of upgrades and improvements is flying around the Globe in large numbers, for many private pilots it’s the aircraft they use to get their multi-engine rating and also this aircraft is still very popular among private owners; Aircraft in the following liveries were added DA-VOL (operator: Airforce Flight Academy), N120Z, OL-CAF, PE-RTN (all three privately owned and operated); added
• Fixed gear up and gear down sound effects were swapped on VE58 aircraft; fixed
• Fixed some prop blades materials not having matte-gloss component; fixed

Sound

• Added new sounds for R55 helicopter, recorded from actual real-world prototype; added
• Added new sounds for VA32 aircraft, including specific sound-blend of PT6 engine and Hartzel triple-blade prop found on genuine real-world prototype; added

Visual enhancements

• Added Tier 3 Airport Upgrade Segments airport structures visual models: 3-1: new runway 16-34, 2530m x 44m, taxiways E (connects runway 17 end to runway 16 end) and G (connects runway 35 end to K taxiway); 3-2: Apron 2 main taxiway P, taxiways H, N (link to runway 16 end, link to Cargo terminal area), J, K (Passenger Terminal 2 entrance\exit taxiways), L (link to runway 34 end); de-icing pads on taxiways L and H; 3-3: Passenger Terminal 2 apron, inner main taxiway R, inner taxiways J and K, Large Service Hangars area taxiway O; Note: Tier 3 Airport Upgrades will be separately purchasable Airport upgrades, each with its City Mayor quest and upgrade cost, each upgrade segment of Tier 3 will unlock specific gameplay: 3-1: capability to accept largest business and medium regional aircraft; 3-2: Cargo operations and capability to accept all categories of aircraft; 3-3: capability to accept Medium, Heavy and SuperHeavy passenger aircraft; added
• Added Apron 2 taxiways designator signs (all lit at night); added
• Added Cargo Terminal building; added
• Added sub-pixel lighting to all new surfaces used on Apron 2; added
• Added new segment of MTMLB-detail textures to the area surrounding Apron 2 area, runway 16-34 and infield connecting taxiways; added
• Changed Terrain resolution to higher definition in mountains areas to the West and to North-East of Airport; changed
• Changed terrain tiles in Airport area for better blending with new Apron 2 area and new city-side blocks of buildings; changed
• Changed how Terrain pre-loader treats texture tiles: from now on – first a master tile is loaded in 8192x8192 px resolution and the pre-loader informs game loading module that ‘terrain is in mode 0’, indicating that all meshes calculations are complete and master-tile is loaded, immediately after that loader proceeds with loading all subsequent layers of 3D-objects, while Terrain pre-loader uses multi-threading capabilities of a CPU to continue loading detailed terrain 8192x8192 px tiles in lower-priority threads until all needed terrain tiles are loaded into memory, it then checks whether a high-detail tile(s) need to be loaded at current camera position and does so, however if not – the Terrain pre-loader starts caching detail tiles closest to Player’s Airport into video memory; this new algorithm may significantly speed up game loading (and re-loading from saved game while still in game world) on multi-core CPUs, additionally camera-switching renders more fluently and GPU-buffering micro-stutters are far less likely to happen even on older GPUs and even when using significantly larger number of tiles layers than there are currently in public builds of the game; changed
• Added Appleton Expo Center building to the city-side, creating more lively look especially when viewing helicopters on visual approach and departure; added
• Added 2 new city buildings types, currently can be seen in various static locations around Appleton city, in later versions will be used for auto-generated procedural blocks of City buildings; added
• Adjusted night time lighting of many houses and large city building for better look at dusk\dawn\night time; changed
• Detail Draw Distance parameter now is limited on lower side to pre-configured value, below which any limitations imposed on Detail Draw Distance by option is Settings window, are lifted – this is done to ensure proper drawing of large and tiny objects in batches affected by Detail Draw Distance; changed
• Added support for both normals and sub-pixel lighting to ground tiles in service hangars; added
• Fixed missing emission map on G\A Apron Service Hangars lamps; fixed
• Fixed weird bug occurring randomly on some non-16:9 screen resolutions when some game screens would have a tiny `running line` on pixel-coordinates x0,Yinfinity – this was caused by double division error in render camera high-pass shader when it encountered non-standard division and would round up to incorrect value; fixed

Cameras

• Added capability for Airport Overview Cam to instantly move to a specific position and view angle; added
• Tweaked default movement and rotation speeds for the following cameras: Airport Overview, In-Tower View, Pax Terminal 1 Inside Cam, General Manager’s Office – all ‘move-and-turn’ style cameras are now smoother and faster by default; changed

User Interface

• Added Airport Upgrade Tier Preview selector to GM tab in Airport Admin screen: the lowest possible setting is currently implemented Airport Upgrade Tier, the highest is Tier 5. At any time the Player can switch the display option on GM tab to reflect any stage of Airport Development; if for some reason Player does not wish to see currently non-functional parts of future Airport Facilities or if Player wants to preview the steps in which the system of Airport Upgrade Tiers will allow him or her to expand the airport – he or she may switch to any Upgrade Tier Display mode at any time; the selection is saved with each individual savegame; added
• Added new behavior of Airport Overview Cam button in main UI to display a set of pre-configured specific positions depending on current upgrade tier of the Airport, the following quick-views were added: [T1]: runway 17 threshold, runway 35 threshold; [T2] heliport, helipad; [T3-T5]: runway 16 threshold, runway 16 threshold; added
• Added Contracts Screen (available via main menu button or F8 key on keyboard); added
• Added Hangar Contracts tab on Contracts Screen, displaying currently available service contracts, currently accepted service contracts, hangar stats, equipment and facility data as well as availability state icon and button to go directly to hangar in question with Airport Overview Cam; added
• Added Operator classifier to Flight Schedule Editor for easier ‘first-glance’ identification of operatiom type and operator specifics; currently the following Operator Classifiers are supported: General Aviation, Regular Operator, Flight Training, Cargo Operator, Military, Government, Has Service Contract; added
• Added color and bold text markup to Time Slot Editor in Flight Schedule for better readability of data; added
• Added new coloring for Flight Strips displaying aircraft currently in hangars, added
• Fixed internal logics when CommBox being minimized to a Comms icon would be ordered to start flashing while main UI is not visible (hidden by user or some other UI is visible instead – e.g. Flight Scheduling screen), this in turn would throw an unhandled exception, not crashing the game but effectively disabling Comms icon from flashing in future; fixed
• Added mechanism to remove all notifications of the same type (e.g. “New service contract available”) when Player clicks on one of them and gets to desired UI screen (Service Contracts in this example); added