One of the nifty features of Airships is that you can create your own coat of arms. You can do this for your single-player empires, selecting a symbol (a charge) to give you a particular bonus. And you can design and register a coat of arms for your unique use in multiplayer. The system hasn't really changed since the initial release with the exception of a few added charges, but with dev 6 - the update of prettiness - I want to improve on what's there.
Currently, a coat of arms is defined by selecting a layout, a charge, and two or three colours. This leaves some coats of arms looking rather bare, though. In a quartered coat, only the top left quarter contains anything, whereas it would be much nicer and more realistic if all quarters could contain charges.
In the new system, each layout has between one and four slots that can be filled with different charges. I'm also adding a whole bunch of minor charges such as stars and wings that don't have a bonus effect in the single-player game and can be added freely. You will be able to combine multiple major charges (say a scales and a lion) on your arms, too. In single-player, the most prominent major charge (the one closest to the top left) will be the one that provides the bonus.
This opens up a whole lot of options for much nicer-looking arms:
Your already-registered arms will stay unaffected by this change, of course, though you might want to look into upgrading them. As always, do join us on the forums if you have questions or comments.
