Tonight brings the next default branch patch which contains a large & varied array of additions, improvements, bug fixes, and general quality-of-life enhancements. The full changelog can be found below, and we're also trying something new this time around -- for the first time, we've put together an update video to accompany the release. The update video is a bit longer than we had initially anticipated, and it's our first time doing something like this (go easy on us, we'll get better at it!) so it's not perfect, but we hope it's something you enjoy & find insightful. Let us know your thoughts on it! It's something we definitely enjoyed doing and we'd like to continue doing them for each of the monthly updates going forward, especially if it is something that you all enjoy. If there's anything specific you'd like to hear us talk about just let us know and we'll definitely try our best to work it into the next video! We'll be kicking off the next cycle this coming week, we've got a lot of great stuff coming this round and as usual we'll be shipping it to the Edge branch incrementally as soon as things ready for you. Thank you for your continued support -- we hope you're all enjoying SimAirport so far, there's still a lot more to come and we hope you're as excited about the future as we are! Thank you! View November 2017 Update Video on YouTube

NOTABLE CHANGES

• Flight Crews

  
  
  • Crews will sometimes deplane and then be replaced by a new team of pilots & flight attendants.
  • Flight crews must be onboard for the aircraft to begin boarding.
  • Crews are required to go through security.
  • Chance of crew change is based on aircraft type & size.

• Allows queues to be designated as multiple types

  
  
  • Adds new 'Flight Crew' type, in addition to the existing Coach & First Class types.
  • Dequeues will still happen from the queue with the highest priority designated type (i.e. FlightCrew > FirstClass > Coach), and then (in case of ties) by wait time.

• Intersecting Runways

  
  
  • Runways are now drawn with the new Runway drawing tool
  • Runways can now be arbitrary length in either asphalt or concrete
  • Runways can intersect perpendicularly (requires research)

• Security Flow & Remote Bag Scanners

  
  
  • New Remote Bag Scanners can be assigned to new monitoring stations, which can be operated by a single security staff member (more than 5 assigned at once results in slower bag scanner usage)
  • Security objects can now be assigned to one another, allowing you to to specify precise security flow & custom configurations

• Misc.

  
  
  • Substantially improves overall performance while construction projects are active
  • Fixes Foundation tool ("double walls" and other quirks)
  • Adds new "Staff Only Door" object
  • Adds a number of various "Fancy Chairs"'" and similar seating objects
  • Adds One-Way Taxiway tool, can set Taxiways as one-ways for improved tarmac traffic management
  • Adds property & income taxes, several related research items
  • Many retail objects now allow their prices to be set (e.g. vending machines, retail kiosks, etc)
  • The base layer of the tile map has had its texture updated
  • Passenger AI object selection/re-selection substantially improved
  • Adds default lighting to all aircraft gates

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

• Minor price & construction time adjustments to several raw materials
• Adjustments to passenger AI heuristics and behavior based on player feedback
• Fuel & LRT financials recategorized more appropriately
• Personal passenger vehicles (including taxicabs) chance has been increased
• Refuel request chance has been increased
• Dirty floor chance has been increased
• Retail objects (food/cafes) will now start out with empty inventory. When dismantled, available inventory will be sold at cost.
• Adds a variable for tracking average basis (paid amount) on fuel purchases. This is a weighted moving average so will be inaccurate at first if you own any fuel already.
• Replaces “Send Home” with “Abort & Reconsider”
• Triples the maximum keyboard scroll speed
• Multiple new research items (construction foreman, bank loans, tax-related)
• Larger default map size
• Reduces deplaning duration
• Revises alignment on Office Desk & Ticketing Desk with respect to chairs
• Research progress now shows time remaining
• Queues will now display a pendant instead of coloring the graphics
• Fuel deliveries will now occur at 11PM
• Taxes will now be deducted at the end of current day instead of the following day
• Land expansion parcel availability is now by total airport area instead of a fixed number of allowed expansions
• Land expansion parcel cost significantly increased
• Adds additional validations for detecting airport problems; revises wording
• P&L report now includes a ‘net’ line item column that matches the totals found on cashflow chart
• Passengers will no longer wait to cross the tracks when LRT trains are inbound
• Deactivates a routine that would auto-dismantle decorative objects (trees, bushes, statues) when doing any construction over their tiles
• Fixes some takeoff-related aircraft sound effects cutting out prematurely
• Removes animation for underground utility endpoints
• Cancels flights that still haven’t landed within 20 minutes of their scheduled departure time, to complement the existing “within 90 minutes of scheduled arrival” validation
• Fuel market price now slightly less volatile
• UI-related
  • Placement indicator fixes and optimizations (e.g. the dimensions text being occluded by main text)
  • In-game windows will now retain their size and position between game sessions
  • Adds a ‘Delete Save’ button to the Load Game menu
  • Operations Menu is now a resizable window
  • Adds a fuel HUD that can be optionally enabled; includes yesterday's demand + forecast for tomorrow
  • Adds a configurable hotkey for enabling the Planning Mode layer (default "L")
  • Various button icons updated
  • Adds dock icon notifier to top Weather UI, alerts when all runways are closed due to weather
  • Transit capacity report now includes 2 additional series for demand broken down by departure/arrival status
  • Human-readable task description for hangar vehicle tooltips
  • Adds 'Autofocus Build Menus' Preference (page 2), off by default. When on, opening a build menu will auto-focus the search field.

BUG FIXES

• Reduces periodic GC from the functional object manager
• Various minor UI bug fixes and improvements
• Fixes an uncommon but reproducible crash that happened at midnight
• Various edge scrolling issues resolved; expands hitbox area & exempts navbars
• Fixes "resume game speed" not working when autosave invokes while paused
• Graphics Setting improvements; should resolve any quirks on both OSX & Windows and generally be more reliable and better able to detect native resolution
• Toilet Stall ‘abort’ issue fixed; could cause stuck passengers and similar issues
• Ensures that when objects are marked for dismantle any agents will stop using it
• Various optimizations to the abstract road graph cache and enables threaded vehicle pathfinding
• Fixes a bug that could result in operations/transit services failing to spawn when running at very low frame rates
• Fixes a bug that would prevent deserialized demolish conveyor tasks from completing successfully
• Various performance optimizations (object pooling, functionality validation, map cache)
• Demolishing fuel pipes will now update neighboring sprites
• Fixes outdoor baggage claim resulting in stuck passengers and workmen tasks
• Fixes a race condition that often resulted in pax using garbage bins twice per ‘hasTrash’ invoke
• Fixes agents sometimes not facing the correct direction
• Fixes ’NaN’ passenger satisfaction bug
• Fixes a bug that could rarely cause passengers to partially oscillating between object targets when too many attractive options are present
• Standby gates
  • Bug fix: sometimes failing to invoke when it otherwise could
  • Bug fix: sometimes invoking when it otherwise shouldn't (e.g. wait for busy runways; layovers past end of allowed standby period)
• Fixes P&L report (should be limited to most recent 30 days)
• Fixes cashflow report (datapoints not grid-aligned)
• Fixes an issue that could result in vehicles spawning even if spawn nodes were occupied
• Fixes an issue that could result in stuck agent if despawned and pooled closely after deserialization and then immediately reused
• Fixes a deadlock when sharing a queue between 2 or more Gate Agent Desks assigned to different gates (now prohibited)
• Fixes fences not added when reloading a game more than once during land expansion
• Game loading (including land expansions) will now attempt to free up additional RAM as well as include detailed logging information
• Fixes a stuck baggage cart, mid-turn, by fuzzy resolving its start node if it’s mildly “off road”
• Fixes a bug that would allow pax to use any ticketing desk (when assigned desks are present) after editing a flight’s schedule
• Fixes a chance that agents could be pushed past staff-only doors by separation forces of nearby neighbors
• Fixes a runway validation that could incorrectly allow ‘off map’ runway drawing
• Optimizes rendering of queues & fixes minor view-state bugs
• Fixes a bug that could result in player preferences not being committed
• Fixes a thread related race condition during map invalidation
• Fixes aircraft spawn/despawn points not far enough off the map
• Fixes grass underlay size
• Fixes the marquee sound not stopped when resizing flight layover
• Fixes an object pooling bug on food items which would eventually result in abandoned preparation task chains and idle staff
• Fixes object pooling bug on passengers (various behavioral and needs-related bugs)
• Fixes agents scooting into chairs that are flagged as not moveable
• Several minor aircraft pathfinding related performance improvements
• Fixes underground endpoint arrows not disappearing after aborted object placement
• Fixes a sprite flipping aircraft during takeoff
• Fixes an issue that would result in fuel resale to airline failing to generate an income transaction if the truck already had enough on board
• Fixes a bug that could be exploited to sell fuel at a higher price than demand warranted
• Fixes an issue that could temporarily cause agent hit boxes to not work (related to queue drawing)
• Fixes income from airline refuel requests not working recently
• Fixes an issue that would prevent aircraft undocking from the gate
• Fixes baggage disappearing from carousel after deserialization
• Adds a new command line option that can be used to assist in portability of saved games across different platform library runtime versions