Ground of Aces News

The Alpha 3 update for all alpha supporters is here. And that means, we have updated the free demo of GROUND OF ACES as well!

See what is new in our Alpha 3 overview video:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

KEY UPDATES:

• Four new aircraft
  
• - Bristol Beaufighter
  
• - Gloster Gladiator
  
• - Avro Lancaster
  
• - Bristol Blenheim
  
  
• New missions and mission types
  
• - fighter missions
  
• - surveillance missions
  
• - bombing runs
  
• - skill missions
  
• - transport missions
  
• - stealth missions
  
  
• Expanded mission systems
  
• - stats and modifiers logic
  
• - mission consequences logic
  
  
• Plane maintenance system
  
• - manage fuel, integrity, health of plane
  
• - multi seat plane logic
  
• - pilot class and task system
  
• - fuel as new resource
  
  
• New building blocks and assets:
  
• - hangar floor, walls and roofs
  
• - fences
  
• - metal shelves
  
• - water pumps
  
• - fuel tanks
  
• - two new sizes of parking spots
  
  
• Gardening system
  
• - gather seeds from wild plants on map: tomato, potato, grain and beans
  
• - assign gardening zones
  
• - grow plants and harvest your own food and seeds
  
  
• 3D preview of aircraft when ordering a plane
  

Other improvements:

• more metal wrecks on maps
  
• parking spot no longer needs to be adjacent to runway
  
• improved path finding of planes from runway to parking spot
  
• particle effects for workbenches and work animations
  
• particle effects for damaged planes
  
• trash now degrades in storage zones and disappears
  
• easier way to select zones via left click
  
• new category of airplane maintenance tasks
  
• cheaper costs for metal projects
  
• tweaks to UI window management
  
• mission timers stop once every pilot is seated
  
• faster runway building
  
• faster destruction rocks
  
• runways keep their previous tier when being upgraded to larger sizes
  
• adjustments to the game's credits
  
• and more bug fixes and balancing adjustments
  

NEXT STEPS

Our team is working on the next alpha update right now. Here is what you can expect as the main features for Alpha 4:

• relationship system with HQ & victory points
  
• weekly resource delivery system
  
• wall and floor decorations
  
• improvements to airplane takeoff, taxi & overall game performance
  

THANK YOU & TELL US YOUR FEEDBACK

Thank you so much for playing the Ground of Aces demo! Your feedback as fresh players is critical for the ongoing development of this game.

And a special thank you to all our alpha supporters! Your support and input helps us so much and together with you, we can make the game better for everyone.

We want to know from all of you what you think of the new features. Use the survey link in the options menu and the feedback button in the game to send your feedback directly to us. With your input, we know what is most important to the playerbase, and we can keep improving the game.

And we also want to know: What will your new airbases look like? What does your dream WWII airbase look like? Share your best screenshots of your airbases with the community here on Steam so we can see what you built.

LIVESTREAM ON THE 4TH OF DECEMBER

We want to play and discuss the new alpha with you! For this, we are planning a livestream on our Twitch channel for the 4th of December, 7pm CET. Get game design insights, ask questions and learn more about what’s to come.

Follow our channel here and get notified when we go live.

- The Blindflug Studios Team

Ground of Aces is featured in the «Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest» on Steam! Discover other games for aircraft aficionados and play first demo if you haven't already!



[h2]PLAY THE DEMO
[/h2]

To all the alpha and demo players who already participated: Thank you so much for playing and for all the phenomenal feedback we’ve received from you! We are very happy with how many people we were able to reach with our first demo and the input we collected.

We also want to take this chance and tell you a bit more about the upcoming alpha phase of Ground of Aces - which fittingly involves more plane-related features.

[h2]WHAT IS NEXT FOR GROUND OF ACES[/h2]

Two weeks ago, our whole team got together in Zurich for a team retreat, during which we held several workshops about the further development of Ground of Aces. We discussed the Alpha 2 feedback that we gathered from our Alpha backers and the fresh demo players, and the roadmap towards Early Access. Our dev team is now working on Alpha 3, and we want to share with you what we intend to achieve in that phase:

The Alpha 3 update will focus more on the tactical management aspects of the game, especially the management of planes and the mission system.

Our goal is to bring more meaning and complexity to missions and make them more rewarding to players. Factors like the state of your pilot, the type of plane and its condition will have a bigger impact on mission success. We are planning to introduce different types of specialized planes for different kinds of missions, including planes that will need more than one crew member, and the maintenance and repair of your aircraft.

More mission complexity and adding more plane types means there will be new logistical demands for your airbase. You will need more workers and pilots on your base, which in turn means you will need more food for the inhabitants. Here, we plan to implement a farming system, so your crew can feed themselves more efficiently and stay self-sufficient. The expansion of the mission and aircraft management also means that a system that lets you build more runways will be needed.

The question of how we will incorporate fuel management into the base life and how exactly missions can give you rewards will also be part of the Alpha 3 development process.

To look even further ahead, we can also give a quick preview of what we have planned for Alpha 4: focusing on enemy attacks and making them more impactful on the gameplay. This includes adding defence features that you can set up for your base. Furthermore, we plan to implement the relationship system between your base and HQ.

All of this is subject to change and adjustments to the plan of these alpha phases can still happen.
We are looking forward to sharing more of our progress in the coming months, testing the new features and getting your input along the way!

If you haven’t already, you can join our community on Discord for more discussions about Ground of Aces, similar games, WWII and aircraft topics:

GROUND OF ACES is featured in the SIMFEST! And with that, you have the chance to try out our demo for the whole week of the festival.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2308690/Ground_of_Aces/

This demo is based on our Alpha 2 version, which means this is a WORK-IN-PROGRESS version of the game because we are currently in the alpha development stage. Please keep in mind that many systems are incomplete and that more content is yet to follow. You can expect around 2-3 hours of gameplay in this demo, depending on your experience with base building games. The demo will be available for a limited time.

Hello commanders, we have big news!

For the first time ever, a free public demo of GROUND OF ACES is available on Steam!

This is because our game is part of TactiCon 2024, a Steam digital festival all about strategy games. We are very honoured that Ground of Aces is part of a selection that includes titles like Hearts of Iron IV and Manor Lords.

[h2]PLAY THE FREE DEMO NOW
[/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2308690/Ground_of_Aces/

This demo is based on our Alpha 2 version, which means this is a WORK-IN-PROGRESS version of the game because we are currently in the alpha development stage. Please keep in mind that many systems are incomplete and that more content is yet to follow. You can expect around 2-3 hours of gameplay in this demo, depending on your experience with base building games. The demo will be available for a limited time.

[h2]CHECK OUT THE WHOLE TACTICON FESTIVAL
[/h2]

[h3]We also have a new trailer:[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We hope you enjoy this Alpha 2 demo and we can't wait to hear your feedback!

A big thank you to our first batch of alpha players! For playing the alpha, for filling out the main survey and for giving us so much useful feedback for the further development of GROUND OF ACES.

Our team member Ben has been going through ALL OF IT – the main survey results and all the direct feedback from the in-game-form – and made an extensive overview for the dev team. Our dev team immediately started working on the first improvements based on your feedback and they continue to focus on getting Alpha 2 ready for you. The plan is that we can release Alpha 2 around the start of summer (exact date tba). We are also working on a roadmap that we want to share with you soon.

[h2]Introducing characters to our GROUND OF ACES journey[/h2]
Meanwhile, our communication team and Dave, our 2D artist, have been working on something new. We want to start introducing key characters and bring more storytelling into our communication about Ground of Aces on social media sites, with the idea that these characters will also be part of the game at a later stage. This concept is very fresh and a work-in-progress, so we are asking you for your feedback and your thoughts while introducing these characters. We have been posting the profiles of the first four characters on our social media channels and we still have a few left to reveal. You are welcome to leave your feedback in the comments.

INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | TIKTOK



[h2]See the progress of the development of GROUND OF ACES[/h2]
Ben will keep you updated about changes in the latest internal game version in his Base Builder Monday videos. You can find the videos on our YouTube channel. Here you can see the latest episode about the new terraforming feature:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


You can find more episodes with more insights into how the game is evolving HERE.