Version 8.2

Airships: Conquer the Skies
16 Jun 2016, 7:11 p.m.

Airships version 8.2 is out, with a massive list of improvements, such as aerial torpedoes, a prettier map, more interesting strategic conquest, and new translations. More on the details of some of these later - for now, enjoy the improved game.

New features

  • Chinese and Japanese translations!
  • Aerial torpedoes: devastating but slow-moving and with a limited field of fire and a minimum range.
  • Ship paint that adapts to the coat of arms of the ship's owner.
  • Hold fire command.
  • Explosion damage overlay in ship editor.
  • Doubled the width of the combat map and increased ships' service ceiling by a third.
  • Can drag the right mouse button to pick up multiple modules in the editor.
  • The strategic AI now aborts attacks and reinforces its cities when needed. If an attack on a city fails, it will build up its fleet, so the next attack will be stronger.
  • Can place multiple ships of the same type in one go during combat setup.
  • Can now press X to flip the selected module.
  • File screen now remembers your filter and sort settings and indicates when items have been filtered out.
  • Quarter-speed option for combat.
  • Weapon targeting no longer picks target tiles that are too well-armoured to damage.
  • Ships try harder to target enemies that are close enough to hit.
  • Can choose higher cost limits for multiplayer combat
  • though note this may do bad things to performance.
  • Can now mod the music used by the game.
  • Airships now automatically specify what mods they use in their description.
  • You can now add tags to mods and ships in Steam.
  • Incremented save version. Saves in 8.2 are incompatible with earlier versions because the size of the combat area has changed.

Balance

  • Cities in strategic mode generally have a bit more money, leading to bigger ships faster.
  • You can no longer go into debt in strategic mode, but you can't move fleets while you have no money, and you are more susceptible to enemy spy actions.
  • Buildings are now 20% cheaper to build and 30% cheaper to maintain.
  • Increased deck gun reload from 1.8 seconds to 2.4 seconds, and increased accuracy by 20%.
  • Increased dorsal turret and ventral turret accuracy by 20%.
  • Decreased saw blade cost from $80 to $50.
  • Increased gatling gun reload from 96 ms to 125 ms.
  • Increased heavy cannon damage from 120 piercing to 150 piercing and reload from 7 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Increased suspendium cannon damage from 55 piercing to 75 piercing, reload from 3.5 seconds to 4 seconds, and accuracy by 20%.
  • Increased brick wall damage absorption from 0 piercing, 0 blast to 2 piercing, 1 blast.
  • Increased stone wall damage absorption from 1 piercing, 1 blast to 3 piercing, 2 blast.
  • Increased massive stone wall damage absorption from 2 piercing, 2 blast to 4 piercing, 4 blast.
  • Decreased cannon fire arc from 90 degrees to 70 degrees, and increased accuracy by 20%.
  • Increased rocket fire arc from 180 degrees to 210 degrees, and increased accuracy by 30%.
  • Increased rifle reload from 1 second to 1.3 seconds.
  • Increased guard HP from 6 to 7 and damage range from 1-7 to 2-8, and increased number of guards from a guard barracks from 3 to 4.

Fixes

  • Combat performance improvements.
  • Landships no longer randomly stop moving because they're afraid they'd collide with their own feet.
  • Refitting a ship now centers on it properly.
  • The AI in conquest mode now actually has affinities for different styles of ship.
  • Scrolling no longer causes random clicks in Linux.
  • Fixed a bug where the info panel in the ships screen would report the wrong price.
  • Fixed world generation crash.
  • Fixed a crash caused by modding crew members.
  • Correct bonuses now applied when loading a ship into the editor.

Cosmetic

  • Prettier, tidier maps.
  • Prettier, tidier fleet list.
  • Made ship colours look better.
  • Fixed blurry rendering of legs and tracks in the load/save ship screen.
  • Fixed secret police text overlapping with bonus text in strategic screen.
  • Crew walking on top of a ship no longer flicker.
  • Legs are now split into ones in front of and behind the ship, and rendered accordingly.
  • Better-looking explosions for exploding weapons.
  • Shots can now be animated, and are lit using the lighting engine like everything else.