7.0 Update Preview

Navigata07 said:

Meh I would rather the game focus on other things than alliance in-game chat. Too much would need to go into that feature...maybe if somehow G! and this forum can reach an agreement to allow this forum to be advertised in the game? No need to invent the wheel when we already have one (and it was just updated too

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Dave said:

It's a great idea. We would love to be the unoffical offical forum for the game. Unfortuantley I can never see it happening as GI have some kind of support forum on their website.

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Free2Play said:

And, anyway, thanks everyone for your feedback about things we've worked on for the last year. I hope we deliver the update that will be worth your time!

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Navigata07 said:

I appreciate you sharing, and interesting enough, that's a pretty good idea with the depot building. Have you brought up that idea of the depot building to those implementing a limit? I think all forum members would agree that it would be a good compromise, even if you have to pay greenies or gold tokens for it.

But about the "stocking up fuel" for maps, don't you think that there is actually strategy involved with current map flights? Remember, even with a limitless inventory, we still have a limit on passengers. People have to ration out their passenger use and use bonuses to either boost pax production or reset pax availability, while using another bonus to help improve drop rates. I highly doubt any map flyer just opens a map and just flies without any form of strategy. While implementing the limit would certainly make things more difficult, map flying was already one that required great strategy and planning, even with a limitless inventory. Not criticizing...just throwing thoughts out there.

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Pit1024 said:

@Arggers I believe it is not your first post when you reply to someone without quoting the original message. It makes all other forum members wondering which comments you are replying. Is it @Bob69bob's one, @dtaylor1972's one or anything else?

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Arggers said:

I'll use reply when I'm replying in particular to one post.

Otherwise I'm using the wider-casting 'you' and preaching to the masses.
There's so many similar misconceptions in this thread that it's easier, and doesn't come across as picking on anyone in particular, to reply in general.

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KingJJ said:

So that means we don't need hangars anymore?? I just spent over 1M coins on upgrading my hangars!

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Free2Play said:

Hi!

About a year ago we’ve thought for a while about Airport City’s future. What could be a major new step for it going forward? What could we do to both please most of our current players and hopefully attract lots of new ones? Of all things, which one should we focus on?

It took a few months of pre-production to figure this one out. First art assets for this update went into production in May, 2018. By late August we had the game design documentation mostly done and some of the art, so our engineers started working on the update in September. It certainly took longer than expected for a variety of reasons: we never did such a big update before, it’s built atop existing game (and we supposedly will not break it for everyone with update’s release), and we did a major alteration of art assets midway through, because the whole thing didn’t look good enough when we’ve started to put it together piece by piece.

Anyway, we’re finally getting close to completing it. Right now we’re targeting late June or early July for a beta release, and August for a release for all players. Below are the in-game screenshots from the latest 7.0 test version with only UI being hidden.

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Update 7.0 Highlights

• There’re now three areas in Airport City: the city on top, the airport in the middle, and tech area on the bottom. The city part remains the same: a sandbox to build a city of your dreams the way you like. Key airport buildings have moved to airport area and are now pre-built or there's a free space reserved for them at certain places so the airport operations can run pretty much like they are run in real airports. Tech area houses the rest of airport buildings, power plants, and other infrastucture buildings like oil refineries and flight catering facilities;
• All planes are now 3D planes, some of them got a major redesign;
• All new Terminals, Control Towers, and Runways, although some of them got to keep their designs;
• Planes will now use a bit of pathfinding to determine who comes and who waits in line, and it’s done in accordance with general rules of aircraft traffic in real airports; no hassle, though, after you start a flight your air traffic controllers will take care of everything for you, so there’s no chance of plane crash (Airport City is a casual simulator, and we want to keep it that way).

Gameplay Changes

• You can build Boarding Bridges to speed up loading of passengers for big planes;
• Terminals can now be expanded with Terminal Sections that speed up the servicing of planes by ground vehicles that are stationed within;
• Terminals can be further expanded with Parking Lots to increase maximum amount of passengers;
• We now have ground vehicles to service planes! If there’s no Terminal Section next to a Stand, those vehicles come from a Service Vehicle Park which takes some time;
• Hangars are no more (except the Reserve Hangars), all planes, both your planes and guest planes, now use the same Stands on the ‘first come, first served’ basis;
• Control Tower is now responsible for a max number of active planes (i.e. planes in use);
• Rebalance of the XP progression through levels: it will be more smooth in the mid game; the total amount of XP needed to reach level 80 remains the same;
• Rebalance of the reputation XP with new reputation levels; the amount of free gifts you can send daily will depend on your reputation; the max amount will be more than 20;
• 100 per item type limit will be enforced for everyone, as I’ve told you previously;
• One level of Runway per plane type, so there’re more levels of runways;
• By default, you need to tap a plane to refuel it, to load passengers, and to start a flight (three taps overall), like it was in the first years of Airport City; however, you can automate it by building a (cheap) Ground Control building, so you just tap a plane once to start a flight — like it works on live version now.

Other Changes

• UI Updates: main UI, neighbor visiting UI, neighbor visiting loading screen, and possibly some more;
• Updated terrain in all areas;
• Some nice looking tech: Terminals and Control Towers now reflect the clouds passing above, and planes have shader effects;
• Some of the older planes got new names in line with newer ones;
• One new level of Terminal and two new levels of Control Tower;
• The number of Runways is now maxed at two (a tech limitation), so if you have more than that, there’ll be an in-game compensation in coins for the runways you lose after the update; your two highest level runways are to stay;
• Special event planes will move from hangars to inventory until we update those events to be compatible with 7.0.

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Of course, we’ll try to make the transition from 6.x to 7.0 as smooth as possible. You keep your fleet and all your airport buildings at their current levels whatever they are at the moment of update.

And... That's all for now! There’ll be detailed guides about everything coming later from @Ur-quan on our official Facebook page, but right now most team members are very busy with bringing this update to you, and the rest do some smaller ones with special events.

Cheers,
Ivan.

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ArGi1981 said:

Actually, it would be a great new feature I think: A reset-button that will reset your game to the very first day except you keep all your inventory: Coins and Greenies, silver + gold tokens, buildings / bonuses / planes in your inventory. I'm sure there would be people who like this option.

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Bob69bob said:

Ivan, on a not overly important note, when I worked hard to buy my 13 level 7 runways (I can hear the “boo hoos” pouring in) the 13x1.5m=19.5m coins were extreme

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Madge59230 said:

Hopefully they will be refunded on a full cost basis not 10%

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Pit1024 said:

So in order to stop some players moaning about the 100-limit you began moaning about the people who moan

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dtaylor1972 said:

Its a different game than it was a few years ago...not in a good way!

Fuel was pretty easy to get with the many launches going on...and it was easier to get bonuses to help..<before the stupid weather bonuses were added to the duke chests> Drop rates were poor, but with a gold dice and sky capt it was bearable.

Now... There is less launches, less fuel, hard to get bonuses, and generally crappy drop rates even with bonuses!

100 limit will be the death of this...as others have said the long time players will mostly quit, or play much less...Meaning even less launches/ fuel.

I may stick around... It does look like some cool changes, but just with the changes in the past few years...its no longer as much fun...and almost a chore to play...Ill not spend a dime more on it...Thats for sure!

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DJones007 said:

You know, for the level 80 players, it would be nice to add a airline cargo feature. To build an cargo airline with materials and cargo you produce at your factories. It would be an nice added feature to this game. Any comments???

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Bob69bob said:

I have no doubt that anything removed will get a 100% credit, whether it be coins or greens. The point is that when I accrued them, I worked hard to do so - now I wouldn’t miss them at all if they were not credited.

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