Version 1.0.2 is out and finally adds keyboard configuration to the game. Let me know if there's any improvements I can make to how it works, or other accessibility improvements you'd like to see.

Next up, I'll be working on the additional issues described here.

And this is the bugfix release for the bugfix release! The game should now no longer constantly crash in the editor. My apologies about this.

The first bugfix release is out!

• Double clicking to load and save in file screens works correctly now.
  
• Pirates that have captured a landship they can't use no longer get stuck in an endless cycle of re-attacking.
  
• Strategic AI values have been tweaked.
  
• When reinforcements are moving towards a fleet, it will now wait for them to arrive before attacking.
  
• The strategic AI should be much less likely to constantly re-attack the same location.
  
• The strategic AI will no longer build pure boarding ships and then immediately scrap them again because they have no guns.
  
• Strategic conquest now starts out stopped both when starting a new game and when loading one. This only applies to single-player.
  
• Imperial cannon is more accurate and reloads more quickly.
  
• Rockets and bombs are less accurate.
  
• Hitting space in spectator mode no longer crashes the game.
  
• Fixed some rare crashes in map generation in archipelago mode.
  
• Small Suspendium chambers now get lift bonus from lozenge heraldic charge, like the other chambers.
  
• Damage that's too weak to penetrate armour now has a chance to do 1 damage based on relative strength, instead of always doing one damage.
  
• Spiderlings have longer "grappling hooks".

This was the first tranche of bug fixes. More issues that I am aware of, that will get fixed:

• Some AIs need bigger building designs to build.
  
• Robot spiders fail to board buildings sometimes.
  
• Repairing damaged buildings causes their position to shift into the ground.
  
• Melee combat AI vs buildings and low-flying ships is bad.
  
• Module info should show troop stats.
  
• Ability to flip and rotate decals and modules where appropriate.
  
• In rare cases, a crewman can be still part of a ship when his module is gone, causing him to appear to float in midair next to the ship.
  
• Muskets look identical to rifles.
  
• The game doesn't work if your Windows home folder has the letter ö in it.
  
• Some rare multiplayer desyncs.
  
• More balancing and AI improvements.

I have returned from gamescom, an event of truly biblical proportions. Launch week has ended, and I'm now pretty much caught up on email and tech support, so it's time to see what's next for the game.

Here are the things I plan to do, in order of priority:

1. Bug fixes. The launch was mercifully low on bugs, actually. I feared much worse, because each new player is a new opportunity to find bugs no one's noticed before, so usually a large influx of new players means lots more bugs discovered. But there are a few issues, which I want to fix first.

2. Balance issues and user interface improvements. For example, I had to cut key configuration from the game to make the launch date, so I'm going to put that in ASAP.

3. Popularly requested features. Probably the things people want the most are multiplayer coop and some sort of diplomacy system. I can't guarantee that I can put those in, because there can be game design or technical difficulties, but I know you want them. :)

4. Content I really wanted to put in and had to cut. Some more techs. Monsters. Some other fun little surprises.

5. Finally, I will get started on developing an expansion pack for the game that will introduce sea ships. So the game's called "Airships", but I ended up putting in landships. This added most of a year to its development time, so I wanted to avoid repeating this with sea ships. Instead, I will take my time to do a proper job of adding water, sea ships, submarines, buoyancy, drowning, sea monsters and all that, and put it into a $5 expansion pack.

And in parallel, I'm starting pre-production on the next game project, which is going to be about flying saucers...

Printing gold on T-shirts is kind of hard, but the Airships logo is gold-on-black, not yellow-on-black. Because of heraldry. So I've partnered up with Teespring to give you a one time only run of cost-price official Airships T-Shirts.



The way this works is that you pre-order the shirts with Teespring and they do one print run and send them to you. So if you want a T-shirt, order one now. Get them here:

Printed and shipped from the US.

Printed and shipped from Europe.

So by cost-price I mean that I am making zero money from this, to make them as cheap as possible, to let the most people who want one, get one.

So I think the launch went quite well! Nothing caught fire, we had a good time streaming on the Steam page, and reviews are looking good.

I'm now mopping up, making notes of things to fix, and answering questions.

The one thing that didn't go well was YouTube. It's the main way people find this game, and I know a lot of you have found it through Stuff+ or more recently EnterElysium, Frazzz, or GamingFTL.

Before the launch, I did my best to contact more YouTubers who do construction-type games, but it's just really hard to get through to them. I know that YouTubers receive literally hundreds of emails a day from devs and marketing people, so my attempts just got lost in the noise.

I also know that they may listen to their viewers. So if you're a regular viewer of a channel, here is something very helpful you can do for me: post a comment, or send a tweet, asking them to play Airships: Conquer the Skies. If they can see there's an audience for the game, they may have a look.

In the meantime, I'll be over here making the game better. :)

After five years of development, Airships: Conquer the Skies is out!

It started as a quick prototype inspired by FTL and Cortex Command, and was rapidly met with a lot of interest. So I... kind of kept working at it, and along the way it acquired a community, mod support, a soundtrack, landships, tentacles, and more.

And speaking of this community, I am immensely grateful for it. You've helped me with finding bugs, making suggestions, creating mods, but seeing people enjoy the game has also just been a huge morale booster.

So, what's next? Well, because no software is ever bug-free, I'm sure there will be a whole bunch of patches. I also ask you to be patient with me - if a lot of people buy the game, a lot of people will have questions at the same time.

There's still some bits of content I'd like to add, too. Beyond that, I have plans and prototypes for the next game...

It's the day before the release!

I've pushed some final fixes and improvements over the last few days: editor performance, better support for saving and loading files with Chinese letters in, and updated missions. The 1.0 version will not really be any different gameplay-wise, but it *will* feature five new tracks by Curtis Schweitzer.

So now I'm running around getting the house in order for the launch. The launch trailer's cut and ready, I have sent out emails and press keys, and I'm about to revamp the store page description.

The Call for GIFs has concluded, and you can see the winners here. (Steam doesn't much like large GIFs, which is why I didn't embed them here.)

See you on the other side!

Version dev 10.1 is out! This is the last few features I managed to squeeze in before the release. From now until the 16th it's going to be bugfixes and maybe some work on the tutorial.

That said, I would be very grateful if you could try this one out, especially the new multiplayer features, and let me know if there's any problems.

So, new multiplayer features:



You can now collectively decide on what speed MP conquest should run at. If all players agree to pause the game, the game is paused.

And you can now edit ships in MP. There's three new little buttons for ship/landship/building editing. The state of the editor gets preserved and the design autosaved when you leave it, so you can work on ships alongside doing other things.

With the game gearing up for release, I’d like to show people all the cool things about it. For this, I’ve put a GIF creation tool in the game’s replay system. So when you replay a combat, you can hit the GIF button and record a short animation.



Now it’s a question of finding some cool-looking GIFs, and this is something you can help me with.

Anything that shows off the game, the details, the combat, the designs - modded or not. Make them, share them in places, link me to them. Of those I get sent in the next week, the creators of the three I like best will get a custom coat of arms and a sticker, and the very best one will also get a gold-print Airships T-shirt.


To create a GIF, select “Replay” from the main menu.



Pick a combat to replay.



You can play back the combat, and move the camera freely using the usual WASD/Arrow Keys/Right Drag to move and Scroll Wheel/+- to zoom.



You can click on the playback bar to move forwards and backwards.



To make a GIF, get the playback and camera to where you want to start.



Click the GIF button.



Click the OK button. The combat will start playing back again. It won’t be moving at full speed, but that’s just because it’s recording the GIF - the GIF will play back normally.

You can move the camera during recording but note that a moving camera may be confusing to viewers.

Hit the Escape key to finish recording. A 3-6 second GIF or so is good. If it’s too long, the file will be too big.

The file will be saved automatically to the Desktop.


Share them on Steam, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Imgur, etc. The purpose of this exercise is to let people know about the game and get new players.

Message me with the things you’ve posted, and you’ll be added to the giveaway. Note who gets rewards will be entirely at my discretion. Void where prohibited. Note that I may re-use your GIFs in other places to promote the game.

The Call For GIFs ends at midnight GMT on Monday, August 13.

OK, but what’s a custom coat of arms? Well, you can register a coat of arms for yourself in the game. The custom arms means I’ll draw a custom symbol of your choice - a heraldic charge - for you and link it with your account. Only you will be able to use it. (And yes, obviously, nothing obscene or awful, and nothing that someone else already has.)

Here’s some examples:







So yeah, no super-fancy pixel art, but it’s all yours, and yours alone - and a grant of arms is the traditional reward for a service rendered.