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Airports Dev Diary #2: Airport Progression & Public Transport Links

Welcome back to the second Airport Dev Diary! Today we invite those of you looking to create large airports to the front of the line as we begin this Dev Diary concerning Airport Progression and Public Transport Links.

Next level airports​

A level 1 airport is comparable to the base game airport - it’s a basic connection to the outside world - but with a lot more flexibility in terms of layout. It consists of a terminal, at least one plane stand and a runway with connecting taxiways, and can accept small planes. Decorative buildings are available and needed for the airport to level up, unlocking larger planes, more buildings and additional connections to the city.

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Airport Areas can be compact like the regular airport - but expanded when your city’s needs grow

To reach level 2 your airport needs to service 500 passengers and have an Attractiveness Score of 200, which is reached by placing decorative buildings in your airport. Decorative buildings have their own menu filter and can be hotels, hangars and parked planes. Once your airport reaches level 2 you unlock the medium plane stand and your airport can start receiving medium planes, which can carry more passengers. Furthermore, you unlock large terminals, more decorative buildings, and integrated metro in the form of Concourse Hubs and the Elevated Airport Metro Station.

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Decorative buildings make your airport more attractive

Level 3 is the highest level your airport can reach and requires 5000 passengers and an Attractiveness Score of 1000, but in turn unlocks not only large planes, but also cargo planes, the Airport Train Station and the Airline Headquarters Building, which lets you found your very own airline - more on that in the next Dev Diary!

Once an airport reaches a level, it cannot be lost even if you make changes to the airport. However, any new area created in the city will always start out as level 1. And yes, that means you can have multiple Airport Areas in your city if you want!

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A well-established airport

Link to the city​

Among the new airport buildings are options for integrated bus, metro, and train so you can easily connect your new airport to the rest of your city - or create shortcuts within your airport if it spans a large area!

The Airport Bus Station is available from level 1 and can be placed anywhere along the concourse network. It has 11 available stops for buses making for a perfect opportunity to use the two new buses! The Articulated Airport Bus is able to carry 50 passengers, while the Doubledecker Airport Bus can transport up to 60 passengers, making them ideal for busy routes headed into the city!

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New bus options connect your city to the airport

When your airport reaches level 2 you unlock metro connections in the form of Large Terminals, the Elevated Airport Metro Station and Concourse Hubs. Like the bus station, they connect directly to the concourse network, but do not need a road connection! Simply connect them to your metro network and set up a line carrying passengers between your airport and the city. Keeping with the theme we added an Airport Express Metro, which can be selected using the vehicle selector when viewing the line details.

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Don’t miss your flight with the Airport Express Metro

At level 3 you are able to build the Airport Train Station. This modern ground station is placed along the concourse network and does not require a road connection either. You just connect the train tracks to your city and set up a train line. We also included an Airport Express Train, which can be selected from the Line Info Panel to add more variation to your train lines!

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Integrated train station makes long distance travel in the city even easier

We’ve arrived at the end of this Dev Diary and hope you have enjoyed what we had for you today. Monday at 4 PM CET / 7 AM PST we take a closer look at the Airline Headquarters Building, which unlocks at level 3 and lets you set up your very own airline!

Last but not least check out the video tutorial by City Planner Plays and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more!



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Looking good so far, but I have one question, what about the main airport building? Can they be plopped anywhere or they behave like the vanilla seaports, where it already contains a pre-built two-lane road?
 
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It's kinda disappointing that hangars and fuel stations are relegated to just decoration buildings to increase attractiveness. And judging from the livestream, it looks like spamming them is enough to level up your airport to level 3 in under an hour. It really seems that this expansion doesn't offer much in terms of gameplay mechanics and simulation.

It would've been nice if these buildings actually had purpose in how your airport functions. What if planes needs to be refueled and catered before they can take off? When a plane lands, a fuel tanker will spawn from the fuel station and drive to the plane at the stand. Additionally, the fuel station will have to be supplied with fuel from your oil industry. The same would go for a catering facility, but that would require being supplied with food rather than oil. Once the plane's been serviced, then it can take off ontime. Hangars could be used to maintain planes from your own airlines, much like a bus depot. Failure to service planes ontime will result in delayed flights and lowered attractiveness, thus providing consequences for not building a well-designed airport.

Also, it's weird that taxis were mentioned in the City Planner Play's video, even though that's part of the After Dark DLC.
 
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Looking good so far, but I have one question, what about the main airport building? Can they be plopped anywhere or they behave like the vanilla seaports, where it already contains a pre-built two-lane road?
They behave like the seaport.

I recommend the Network Multitool Mod.
 
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Question: How do the mentioned hotels for levelling up the airport work? Are they just decoration or do visitors stay there and generate taxes like hotels outside the airport do?
 
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In my cities, I have been replacing passenger rail as an intraregional transit option with monorail. I see integrated metro and rail stations here. Wondering if an attachable monorail hub might be in the works.
 
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In my cities, I have been replacing passenger rail as an intraregional transit option with monorail. I see integrated metro and rail stations here. Wondering if an attachable monorail hub might be in the works.
I honestly doubt it. CO have an aversion to cross DLC content. Even if it's really appropriate (taxis man! And show the trams some love!)
 
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Has anything ever actually been said from Colossal Order or Paradox Interactive about this?

Because i feel that this is a massively missed opportunity here.
I think there was some bull about not wanting to lock content away or something, but I can't remember exactly what was said.
 
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I honestly doubt it. CO have an aversion to cross DLC content. Even if it's really appropriate (taxis man! And show the trams some love!)
1) In the past, I actually understood this and I had no problem with that. DLCs were quite new and they probably didn't want to mess with cross DLC content, with what is unlocked by which DLC or by releasing DLC content which requires another DLC which was released just months ago. However, this argument simply makes no sense now. DLC we are talking about are now so old (for example, Snowfall will be 6 years!!! old next month!!), they were on sale dozens of times, literarly everyone ownes them now. Keeping those DLCs still strictly separated after all those years, even if newer DLCs touch the same area, is just stupid.

2) Paradox grand strategy games also used to follow this "keep DLCs strictly separated" policy years ago (CKII in its first years), but they realized it has so many problems that they change it. Now, they actually sometimes change older DLCs, add some content to them or even move something from DLC to the base game. I think CO should do the same.
 
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Paradox grand strategy games also used to follow this "keep DLCs strictly separated" policy years ago (CKII in its first years), but they realized it has so many problems that they change it. Now, they actually sometimes change older DLCs, add some content to them or even move something from DLC to the base game. I think CO should do the same.
Stellaris' Custodian Initiative is the best thing to ever happen to the game.
 
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No parking lots? Its something every Airport has! Such a lost opportunity...

1000% agreed.

I remember during the live stream this question came up however they said that they cannot answer why this is the case and instead said it might be answered in one of the dev diaries or something. If I'm remembering this correctly.

I would love to know if there is an actual reason as to why they are not adding parking lots because it makes no sense to me for this to not be an option. Plenty of vanilla building have one or two or more parking spaces built in. It's perfectly possible to build your own parking lots in game through the asset editor. There are loads of mods to add parking lots. The only thing they are achieving by not adding parking lots to the default game is making the console gamers have to miss out.
 
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