itch.io

Yep, designed engines still improve with time. Both thrust and fuel efficiency improve. This should be fixed

Please take a look at engine parameters in compare tool and variant comparison (engine design screen). They are still inconsistent. The thrust of my older jet engines increased again when I started to design a new turbofan generation of engines. I know that for sure since I typed thrust in the engine names specifically to check if this takes place. It seems the designed engines account for jet engine efficiency increase as years go by, or something similar. And they suppose to stay static. 

You can try to design some new engines in the save I sent earlier. I name the engine something like 55CTJ57-30, where the last number (30) is the thrust at 0 altitude. This particular engine gave around 30000N of thrust in 1955 when it was designed. Now I design a similar turbofan engine in 1962, and when I compare the new engine with that one, it shows thrust around 32000N for some reason

I'm going to check if other values are affected as well

No pressure on the updates. The heat is trying to kill me too)

Here's a link to the save for 2 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_WwJyS7uzHcepT85zYLMPLinrw7Cgph7/view?usp=shari...

4. Please check if the New Version button is working properly. I have found that I could design new versions of some of my planes, but not all. It might be linked with the family type, though I'm not sure that is the issue - I could design new versions of planes from high wing families (2, 3, 4 engines) but not from the low wing families (1 and 2 engines)

Hi. The payload selector and free aircraft designations are an awesome addition, nicely done. I personally like the aircraft families update the most, it is much more interesting to manage them now. You also have to think ahead what type of family you are going to need. Very nice. Thanks for the update)

Here are some things I noted (will probably add more later)

1. The 'can profit' filter is very useful. But it can be even better. From what I gathered, it compares the whole sum of the order and filters out anything negative. I think it would be better to make it compare individual aircraft cost vs. specified contract cost instead (since required amount is just a modifier here). This way, it would also include any orders that you don't have the required number of planes for, and you could see them immediately, as it would show such contracts with this filter

2. The engine thrust and total thrust values in plane compare tool (when designing a new aircraft version) appear wrong. I designed a new generation of engines with same thrust output and lower fuel consumption, put them into a new aircraft version, and the comparison with the previous model showed lower thrust for some reason. The speeds were lower too (probably linked to thrust calculations), though new range value appeared correct - they were greater as one would expect from having same power but better fuel consumption. So I think there is a bug there somewhere

3. I think you should make a 'test wing area' toggle (similar to the load capacity toggle). This option would enable the player to test different wing area / range / load combinations without having to edit or update any families without need, and we could better plan for the future families in terms of wing area values. This would be a test tool, of course, so it must not link into actual plane calculations if you do design the plane with it enabled

I would rather wait for the fixes and updates than having a quick but raw new versions

6. The aircraft design screen has a list of designs at the bottom. If you tap on them, you just select whatever you tapped on. It would be nice if it also loaded that design in the designer. This will save you a visit to the My Machines tab when you make a new plane or a new variant

7. The Type Designer button in the My Machines tab does not always work correctly. It is supposed to load the design in the designer and switch to it, but it does not always do it; it's a bit buggy. When it fails to work, it still loads the design but does not switch tabs and does not update the name (the name remains whatever it was earlier

8. When you load a design, the family name field (in the designer) loads a design ID, not the actual name you gave that family. The family works correctly anyway, so it's a very minor bug

9. When you design a new version of the plane, the biggest change you can make is switching to a new engine, which has the largest impact. But the New Version function in the My Machines tab blocks the change of family and engine. Family is pretty clear, it is a basis for a plane, but I'm not sure about the engine. You could implement a check that allows you to switch to a different engine of the same size (diameter). This way, switching to an entirely different engine would require redesigning the plane from scratch, but swapping for an updated version of the same engine would be much simpler and take less time to complete

Hi. I have played 0.54 a bit and have some things to note:

1. Can you make the notebook window (the one with contract requirements) scalable? I often want to make it bigger. And the game should remember its size for the duration of the game session, so you don't have to alter it all the time

2. Can you add an additional filter to show contracts that only offer price better than the cost of your plane suitable for that order? I tend to build too expensive aircraft and sometimes struggle with making a profit. It would be nice to filter out contracts that would gain a loss rather than profit

3. How do government contracts generate requirements? I can't fulfil most of them, the ones with high range, high maneuverability especially. It seems you can do either but not both. Is there a trick to this or are the calculations flawed?

4. Maneuverability. How does it work? You can only improve it by increasing wing area, reducing payload / range, and adding flaps and slats. Does engine thrust supposed to be a factor? Also wing type and overall speed - I suppose a slower plane with straight wings is much simpler to make maneuverable than a high speed interceptor with delta wings. Guess we will have more tools to play with it in future as you flesh out the designer and add more content. But what can we do with the current options?

5. Compare tool and engine performance - I compared two planes using the very same engine (same plane basically, the newer one could fly further with less payload). The compare tool showed the engines (the same engine, mind you) having different power, the engine in the newer plane having better thrust. I know that engines become more efficient and powerful with time, there is a progression. It seems that the game does not know the engine parameters suppose to remain constant after you design it. Or it is a bug in compare tool that shows wrong values   

Nice to hear about) 

Have you had the chance to make any new updates yet? No pressure, just asking

Sure. Here's a link to the save file on the google drive

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ys1Khh7WXCWwChG6SGwvf5Zuv-kCt8Ez/view?usp=shari...

About the speed bug - it seems to be connected with turbofan engines. It appeared when I designed a new fighter and put in a new turbofan in it. When switching back to the older turbojet engine, it reverts to normal values

They are quite random (inconsistent), that's the problem. I started the 1946 campaign and first noticed an immediately available design (stated as ready, not pending) around the 1970s. I used an earlier family (airframe?) researched earlier, but used different newer engines and fiddled with fuel load a bit. I designed a new turboprop, regional jet, business jet, and a special civil in one go, all based on previous models. And I had to actually research the regional jet only, the others appeared as ready, and I could build them immediately. I don't think it had to do anything with specific date, but rather a reused family, maybe some values didn't clear that were supposed to

Similar thing with the speed - it just started to appear at random. I remember designing a fighter when I first noticed this issue. I tried swapping engines, but it had little effect, the speeds changed all at the same time but not too much. This also happened around 1970s in the same campaign. I think it might be connected with the total number of designed planes (that gets bigger the longer you play); or the engines are not applied properly (some values are not cleared properly or overriden). I would also check is higher engine powers (in terms of numeric values) are at play here - it might be the 'too high number freaks the system' type of thing

Sorry for not giving you the exact reproduction steps, I just don't have them. The dreaded floating bugs...

And I'm pretty sure thrust and wing type do not affect maneuverability, only wing area and flaps do

I also noticed that when designing a plane, some planes appear as ready (can be produced immediately) while others need to be 'researched' (designed) first. This looks like a bug

And I think there is a bug in speed calculations - about 2/3 of the planes I design have the same 0 / 5000 / 10000 altitude speeds. These speeds shouldn't be equal, so this is likely another bug

I also find it hard to design airplanes with high maneuverability. The only way to increase it is to increase the wing area, and that tanks the range. So I don't know how to build high range high maneuverability planes. Any hints here?

So there are several things that can be improved here:

1. The contract list (the right part) shows all of the completed contracts. This list can become very long if you play for an extended period. And the same screen also shows the available contracts making the overall contract list very long. You can hide the completed contracts behind a 'contract history' screen - if the player wants to see those, he can do it somewhere else

2. Add a 'Scrap' button in the factory screen so we can remove the airplanes that we don't need (obsolete, most likely). This will have to be a per type function since we might want to remove some aircraft and not our entire stock

3. Add the production amount for each production line. We know how many staff we assign per each line but we also need to know how many aircraft that line can produce per turn with that specific number of workers

4. Add 'Reject contract' function for government contracts. There are some contracts that we don't like or don't want to do. This could save screen space (when we have many models to offer), for when the previous contract is still active (it goes to the bottom of the list)

5. The Research tab is a bit confusing, I think 'Engineering' or 'Design' would be a better title for it. I think players tend to expect a list of researchable techs in a Research tab (materials, engine techs, aircraft design improvements, new armaments, new avionics, etc). I think you might have designed that tab with tech research in mind, but until there are actual techs to research in the game, the title is a bit confusing

6. Color code the contracts that we have planes in stock for (give them a green background, for example). This would make spotting the contracts we can actually fulfil much easier

7. Add production target input for production lines. This is the amount of planes this production line must build (if 0 - no limit). Once this target is reached, the line should automatically remove itself. This should make aircraft production much more precise and waste less money building planes you don't need because you forgot you had an active production line

At any rate, you made a very nice game; it is quite interesting to play even in this early stage. I've been looking for a game like this for a long time. Thanks for the effort