For the first time in quite a bit, I’ve opened my Private Airport kai map, watching tangos climb up a drain pipe today was a good memory jogger ^_^.

Almost everything I had worked on was complete, except for the question of what to do with the terminal buildings now accessible roof. I need to redo a lot of the maps original layout there, because of how the fake backdrops were done (creating distant scenery for unreachable areas). The amount of work all that represents, means I need to decide whether or not to make the second tarmac area and associated grounds accessible to the player. Well, technically it is accessible since you can walk through a fake backdrop but the HOM effect isn’t welcome lol. I’ve also modified a few things to reward an inquisitive player, rather than making it as obvious as first planned.

I’ve added a set of rooms on the terminals roof, meant to simulate a small office like environment that is rather missing from the stock maps architecture. Minor tweaks to the backdropping there, extra spawns, and some finishing touches in the administrators office, then my map is basically RC ready.

Today I also had a rather interesting idea: while adding that office space, it occurred to me that it would be practical to put a small catwalkesque bridge over to the air traffic control tower would be a nice idea. The ATC of course, is just a big static mesh, which is fairly normal (modern) practice for such scenery – but surprising for raven shields level designers. That means there is no way to make a habitable ATC without building one from scratch. Since the fake backdrops in the area are associated to the ones near the new offices, there is a fair bit of work to be done in that area anyway. The only problem with building a proper ATC however, is the fact that I’ve never had to climb one before lol.