Hey Everyone,

Today we are excited to deliver our biggest update yet to Airborne Empire.
This one is a full on expansion; we’ve added a new biome that comes with new quests and new enemies (Pirate Cruiser, Barrage Balloon and Tractor Beam). We’ve also added a weather system to the game that, while specifically featured in the new region, also impacts the other regions as well. We also added several new buildings (Turbine Engine, Birdcage Bar and Ferris Wheel) and customization options for the player's city. In addition we did a lot of combat tuning based on player feedback and the impact of the new enemies. Many bugs were also fixed!




To celebrate the occasion, Airborne Empire is currently on its historically lowest discount at 30% off:

New Biome

First, let’s talk about the new biome; The Tropicos Islands. 

Normally the Tropicos Islands are a popular vacation destination but lately they’ve been having a tough time. Not only is the area completely overrun by pirates but the weather is also out of control! The entire region has been plagued by never ending storms for months now. Visit the city of Costa Tropicos and unlock a new quest, which will help unravel the mystery of what’s causing the storms and why they won’t stop. There are also a number of side quests available from the new characters you encounter at Costa Tropicos, which is located just West of the Blackspine biome.

New buildings

We’ve also added a few new buildings that players can discover and add to their city:

• The Turbine Engine: This is a large heavy duty powered turbine that provides a massive amount of Lift for your city, more than any of the other Lift buildings currently available. It’s a bit of a coal chugger but can, of course, be upgraded and optimized. You can purchase the blueprint for this building from the Academy at Costa Tropicos.

• The Bird Cage Bar: A similar building to the Tavern, this building provides Morale and can be purchased at the Academy at Costa Tropicos.

• The Ferris Wheel: Another fun Morale building that can only be unlocked by finding and completing a hidden quest within the Tropicos Islands biome.

Combat

Ok, time to talk about Combat. First off, there are two new enemies that have been added to the game with this update and we’ve also completely reworked how the Pirate Tesla Cannon works:

• (New) Barrage Balloon: Hidden on the ground until a player’s city moves in range. Then the balloon quickly flies to altitude, pulling a cannon up in the air with it. Their strength is the element of surprise. 

• (New) Pirate Cruiser: A Water based ship with a cannon on board. Constantly moving, but in simple patterns. Players will have to carefully aim their shots to lead their target.

• (Redesign) Pirate Tractor Beam: The Pirate Tesla Cannon is now the Pirate Tractor Beam. It now uses electromagnetism to create a electric burst that pulls the player’s city towards it. This sets the pirates up to be able to move the player’s city into position where more ground weapons can attack it at once. If the player destroys the Tesla while being pulled their city will immediately stop. I think this creates more interesting gameplay (and compliments the new player cannon range well) and adds a layer of strategy; the player will want to take better stock of how the pirate fortresses are setup, and what the best approach angles and attack priorities are.

These two enemies are seen in the new biome but have also been added to the Blackspine and the Desert. These, in combination with our already existing enemy types (and some additional changes to them listed below) have created some very fun and more dynamic combat situations which players can deal with using a variety of strategies. I don’t think we’re done with combat by any means but I think this will open up some fun new strategic choices.

Combat Tuning Updates:

• The range of the player’s cannon has increased. A fully upgraded cannon can now outrange the pirate ground cannons, which helps balance out some of the new abilities the pirates have.

• The range of the player’s barrage cannon has also changed. Rather than do massive damage to an area directly beneath it we’ve changed the angle so that it projects that same area damage out in front of it a little more. This increased range will hopefully make it more viable. It still doesn’t have the range, or recharge rate, of the regular cannon but it can take out multiple targets with one shot, very useful for the more dense pirate setups and against the Tractor Beam.

• The Player Freeze Cannon and Tesla Coil also got some small tuning updates; The Freeze Cannon effect now lasts longer. The Tesla Coil got a slight range and duration boost.

• A lot of the pirate combat setups in the original three biomes have changed. Many pirate weapons were moved around or added. This means if you already beat the game and you go back there might be a few random enemies floating around. You have to start a new game after this update to really see the new intention for some of the combat setups. That being said, these changes won’t invalidate any saves, it’s just that we changed a bunch of combat encounters that you may have already beat, so you won’t see the changes. Play the game again is what I am really saying… or maybe wait until the next big expansion that will conclude the main story…

Other Updates and Bug Fixes:

• 3X speed is now a bit faster is now truly 3X speed, so you can progress time a little quicker now

• New Relic: The Eye of the Valkyrie - all workers in range of this relic cannot be injured. Get this Relic by completing the main quest in the Tropicos Islands region.

• New Achievement added for completing Tropicos quest line

• Allow selecting pirate loot that fell inside forests and other resource mines

• Fixed projectiles hitting their targets less consistently at lower fps and/or faster game speed

• Quick saving now only overwrites quick saves for the same playthrough

• Updated the footprint of the Scales of Aelius wonder to make it more compatible with symmetrical cities

• Fixed rebuild button not working sometimes

• Fixed lift showing up as 0 from buildings in research tree and city academies

• Fixed quest ruins not showing from Orrery after they are mined

• Fixed quest radius not showing in some cases

• Updated FSR 2 version for better upscaling quality on AMD GPUs

This was a long update, thanks for reading. We're looking forward to your feedback!
We would love to see you on our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/sgYxeyu

Thanks!

The Wandering Band