Changelog for patch 9.1 / GOG-5 (Windows) / GOG-4 (Mac) / GOG-5 (Linux) (added 13 March 2017):

GUI Features

- GUI scaling: The game's user interface will now pick from three different sizes based on the size of the screen or window. You can also override the automatic scaling in the settings.
- Scroll bars now have scroll thumbs that indicate the visible area.
- More clever module search in the editor. Search using multiple words or by initialism, e.g "hea ca" or "hc" for Heavy Cannon.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed crew job assignment bug that causes crew to repeatedly pick up and then abandon ammo and coal jobs.
- Fixed lighting system bug if screen was resized mid-game.
- You can now set a custom multiplayer server address in launch_settings.json.

Modding

- Difficulty levels and map sizes are now moddable. Note that super-huge maps may require very powerful computers!
- Removing modules with mods once again works, even if they're referenced by ConstructionAffinities.

Balancing

- Grapeshot cannons are slightly more accurate.

Performance

- Approximately 20% CPU performance improvement for combats.
- Up to quadruple CPU performance improvement in very large battles versus AI opponents.

Changelog for Patch 9.1.1 (added 28 March 2017):

- New audio system: sounds loop better, move around better, and can shift in volume and pitch. (Note to modders: this means you have to update how sounds for engines and Suspendium chambers are specified, sorry.)
- Reworked the way modules catch fire. Small arms are no longer much better at causing fires than big ones.
- Reworked the way fire spreads. Fire is now much more likely to spread between modules that are connected by a door.
- More messages pop up in the bottom left to inform you of various things like incoming torpedoes and fog.
- Added option for fullscreen window mode in the resolution settings.
- Button for disabling all mods at once.
- Dragon fire arc increased from 60 to 90 degrees.
- Heavy cannon reload time decreased from 8 to 6 seconds.
- Collisions between big ships do more damage.
- Night is a bit less dark yet.
- Saved combats now store the mods the combat used. Opening a combat will load in the correct mods.
- Brigands and mad scientists no longer spawn in road-less nest locations.
- Fixed some crashes and improved some minor GUI stuff.
- There are now instructions in the install directory for running your own multiplayer server.

Changelog for patch 9.2 / (Windows) / (Mac) / (Linux) (added 07 July 2017):

After a record number of beta iterations, Airships v9.2 is out! It introduces small flying units and troops:

- Air Hussars, small one-person airships launched from a Hussar Bay. They're strong against light- to mid armoured ships that lack anti-unit weapons (see above) but are very vulnerable to anti-unit weapons and planes.
- Triplanes, fast-moving heavier than air flying machines. Strong against light-armoured ships, and a bit better at dodging anti-unit weapons.
- Biplanes, light planes that move very fast and are excellent at shooting down other small units like Air Hussars, Triplanes or boarders. Quite hard to hit, but their guns are pretty harmless against decent armour.
- Bombers, heavy planes suitable for attacking ships and buildings. Vulnerable to flak fire and smaller fliers.
- Air Dragoons, boarding troops equipped with a Suspendium-based float harness. Unlike Marines and Grenadiers, no careful positioning is needed to board enemy ships, as they can just fly over, but they're fairly expensive for their boarding strength.
- To compensate for these new threats, small ship-based weapons like rifles and gatling guns are now able to directly shoot down small flying units and troops. This also allows ships to better defend themselves against existing boarding troops like marines.

9.2 also introduces two new monster types using the same code as the dragoons: clockwork wasps and giant bees. You can read about them in the new bestiary pages:
http://zarkonnen.com/airships/bestiary_clockwork_wasps
http://zarkonnen.com/airships/bestiary_giant_bees

- In an ongoing effort to make it easier for people to find others to fight against in multiplayer, 9.2 introduces regular multiplayer hours, one-hour global time segments where people are encouraged to go into the MP lobby and find someone to fight against. I will be present in those times as much as possible, so if nothing else, you can fight against me.
- Other improvements include various bugfixes and balance changes, massive performance and pathing improvements for boarding troops, and a rewritten audio system.
- What's next? I'm planning on two more 9.x releases. The first one will tackle some of long-running user experience issues and finally make explosions behave more realistically. The second one will round out the bestiary of monsters, finally making use of the Sky Kraken and introducing some other menaces like cultists.
- Then it's on to version 10, the final major development cycle before the release! Version 10 will focus on improvements to strategic conquest mode. And then - to victory!

Changelog for patch 9.2.2 / (Windows) / (Mac) / (Linux) (added 19 July 2017):

- Massively reduced memory use for multiplayer battles.
- Removed 50000 and 100000 points options from multiplayer. Added 20000 option.
- Removed multiplayer chat overlay. It was badly written and caused crashes. A replacement will arrive in a future update.
- Reduced Aerial Hussar hit points.

Changelog for Patch 9.2.3 (added 03 August 2017):

- Fixed incorrect memory warnings.
- Can discard ships in-flight if needed to eg get rid of landships that block the fleet from moving.
- F2 now properly hides multiplayer chat.
- Prevented "AI uses player ship designs" feature from using lots of memory.
- Explanation that your registered coat of arms has no bonus.

Changelog for patch 9.2.4 / (Windows) / (Mac) / (Linux) (added 15 September 2017):

- Rewrote network code to be faster and more reliable. The new network system connects to a separate server, and the old one will be shut down in a while.
- Reintroduced the multiplayer overlay. You can now seamlessly chat with other players in the multiplayer lobby while playing single-player games, designing ships, and so on.
- Timestamps for messages.
- Recent chat history when logging into the multiplayer lobby.
- Combat playback speed adjusts dynamically to keep the game running smoothly and lag at acceptable levels.
- The game now runs in the background, so you should be able to alt-tab away and have multiplayer chat, etc continue working.
- Prevented undo handling from eating up all the RAM and crashing the game.
- Fixed issue where ships would be non-loadable when they were made with a mod that uses custom bonuses.
- Prettier Suspendium chambers.
- Game stutters way less after big explosions

Changelog for patch 9.4 / (Windows) / (Mac) / (Linux) (added 16 October 2017):

- Folder support for ship designs and save games.
- Build queues for ships and buildings.
- You no longer get the cost of your ship refunded when it's finished building!
- Fixed crash when loading modded strategic game.

Changelog for Patch 9.4.1 / (Windows, Linux and Mac) (added 18 October 2017):

- Fixed missing explosion overlay tooltip and repair ship text.
- Explosion overlay uses new explosion damage calculations.
- Zoom to fit shortcut key has been removed to no longer conflict with undo.
- Errors and warnings now move out of the way of the overlay chooser.
- Can now delete files in subfolders.

Changelog for Patch 9.5 (added 06 November 2017):

New Monsters
Turtledoves - You have probably seen these float past in the background. It's frankly unkind to call these creatures monsters. They're peaceful and mostly harmless. You can simply let them be, or you can hunt them for their meat and shells.
Aerial Jellies - The giant, flying version of a Portuguese Man o'War. This one has a lot of tentacles and will rapidly devour your crew.
Cultists - These questionable clerics set up temples in remote regions and acquire followers with promises of a new morality, unshackled from common mores. Plus, they practice magic, which while rare, turns out to be real and very dangerous.
Stone Guardians - Gigantic animated stone statues that stand watch over certain sites. Are they protecting treasure or ritual sites? They come in a huge array of shapes and project glowing orbs of magical energy to pulverize your fleet.

New construction options
- Shell Armour - Made from the remains of those poor turtledoves you hunted. It makes your ships float better.
- Acid Spitter - Created by harvesting the acid produced by giant spiders or other... certain rare creatures. A short-range armour-penetrating weapon.

To round it off, as usual, there's a bunch of bug fixes and performance improvements. And with that, we leave the dev 9 development cycle behind and get started on dev 10, focusing on strategic conquest.

Changelog for Patch 9.5.1 (added 16 November 2017):

- Increased rifle damage from 4 to 5 but decreased clip size to 20.
- Upgrading monster nests now keep their fleet and coat of arms.
- Having lots of monster nests no longer causes performance problems.
- Fixed pirate king income and missing upgrade warning message.
- Fixed weird stone guardian shot display.
- Fixed inability to design ships from defences.
- Fixed incorrect width of city menu when building things.
- Raid progress bar no longer overflows.
- Raid panel no longer hides weather info icons.
- Fixed incorrect reference to grenades in German crew shouts.
- Stopped particles stuck on ships from vibrating weirdly.
- Fixed scroll wheel hot areas for editor and ships list.

Changelog for Patch 9.5.2 (added 27 November 2017):

- Fixes a problem with massive lag in multiplayer games.

Changelog for Patch 9.6.1 (added 07 December 2017):

- Move troops commands work again
- Fixed rare crash when AI uses reserves in combat
- Hitting space now toggles between stop and the most recent combat speed, instead of stop and 1x speed

Changelog for Patch 9.6.2 (added 12 January 2018):

- There can now only be one Pirate King and Elder Dragon in a game at any given time, and they take longer to spawn.
- The AI can choose to stand aside and let pirates and dragons plunder its city rather than lose its fleet in a hopeless defense.
- The MP overlay now shows the most recent chat message next to the number of people online.
- The grand ram now renders correctly on enemy ships when zoomed out.
- The game now tells you when a save failed due to disk space issues.
- Fixed a playback divergence issue caused by ramming tree trunks.
- Made clicks and beeps obey the volume settings.
- Fixed various rare crash bugs.

Changelog for Patch 9.7.1 (added 01 March 2018):

- Version 9.7.1 fixes a few crashes and introduces three massive new weapons

Changelog for Patch 9.7.2 (added 20 April 2018):

- Redid a bunch of ship editor graphics and displays to make things (hopefully) clearer.
- 64-bit Linux users (most of them, I'd guess) can now use the bundled Java in the game. So if you've been selecting "Launch with System Java" all this time, try the default launch option.
- Greatly reduced the frequency of dragon attacks in conquest mode. Do note that the correct way to deal with elder dragons is to shoot them before they grow that big.
- Increased rocket reload time and decreased giant rocket splash radius.
- Fixed a bunch of crashes mostly related to loading conquest games.
- Some tutorial message fixes.