AeroMogul Update #18 (2025/07/20)

Greetings everyone! I wrote this 2 days ago, but keep forgetting to post it!

I have been able to return to working on AeroMogul after the launch of the latest GC and GC:2G updates. I resumed updating the existing UI elements to get them into a more releasable state. As mentioned before, I am working right to left, top to bottom. I left off with the in-game settings panel. I didn't do much work on this panel, besides fixing some bugs previously in the settings system. I don't recall when I did that, and I may have reported it or left it out. Anyway, I mostly skipped the in-game settings aside from adjusting some scroll bars and panels.

After that, I touched on the music player. Previously, the music player in the game listed all the tracks in a dropdown box—not a good solution. To maintain a compact look, the playlist is still hidden.

   

You have to click the button that contains the title of the currently playing song to reveal the list.

   

I also added a new config file that contains the metadata for the music. In the future, I may allow the music player to play music from external files, like your own MP3 collection. But it’s not a high priority, especially since most people stream music rather than buy and store it.

Note the in-game music is still placeholder from GearCity. I'll change it sometime in the future. I keep it muted anyway.

I also addressed a few minor UI issues in this section, such as the music control buttons staying on.

Moving on, next we have the end-turn system. From left to right, the first ends a week (1 turn), the second ends 4 weeks, and the third ends 12 weeks. I will probably make the second one end on the first Monday of the month, and the third one on the first Monday of a new quarter. But it's good enough for now. What wasn't good was that the button UI would stick on after using one of these until you clicked on another UI element. That’s fixed now.

In the center is our quick focus dropdown (I think I had a better name for this before). This dropdown should contain Your Company, Your Branches, Other Companies, and Countries. I implemented your company and others' requirement before—it shows the routes of the selected company. This time, I added countries to the dropdown. Selecting a country from the list will center the map on that country. All references to countries now have their most current flags. I still need to fix a few nations, remove some territories, and add historical data to the country systems.

   

Finally, the Quick Financial Information panel. This panel contains information about yourself and your company. One issue I ran into is that the server was not recording past company financial data, even though the framework was in place. I fixed that. I also found out that I forgot to implement a system to record past route data. I fixed that too. I haven't done any save game testing yet, but I suspect these two things will increase save game sizes. Hopefully, our compression system will counter the size gains. And if not, I can make some tweaks to both the .json files and the compression format.

   

As you can tell from the picture, Palm Beach Aerotran is running all $0's for now—which is correct, because I only have a few expenses set up, and I still need to expand the rest of the UI to allow me to buy planes in the new system. I did test these systems to show AI numbers, just to make sure it's working—and it is. The framework for personal financial info is also in place, but again, we're not generating the data yet, so there's nothing to send from server to client. I have a couple of tiny things left to tweak (missing money symbols, misaligned header, etc.), but that panel is mostly done.

Next, I'll be working on the chat bubble in the upper left. This button opens up the in-game chat for multiplayer games. (Which I finished the UI last night, but that was after I wrote all this stuff. It will not have functionality until the lobby servers are up.)

After that, I will work down the list on the left, starting with the changes needed for the aircraft procurement systems. Around that time, I will add all the new aircraft, manufacturers, and engines I’ve been doing data entry on. Then I’ll work my way down to routing, etc.