News

The new Beginner's World #2 scenario has been just opened.

This game series is aimed for all newbies and other players wishing to test different playing styles in an easier environment. The two beginner scenarios follow always the standard easy settings and same time frame as the previous beginner scenarios, and they restart about once every month.

AirwaySim servers will be offline today for about 30 minutes. The maintenance will start at 09.50 UTC (in 50mins from now). Games will be paused during this time.

The second game world featuring cargo and the new City Based Demand system is now open. The Cargo Challenge Europe is a short-duration regional scenario where you can build an airline in Europe and fly also cargo on board your planes.

The settings are similar to the earlier USA cargo game world.

You can read more about cargo here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,72396.0.html

Join the game here: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/?gView=244#game244

Please also read the games notes here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,72728.0.html

The next cargo themed game world, Cargo Challenge Europe, will open in a week (Tuesday August 8th). The Europe's cargo game will be played in the modern era with all aircraft and airports available, in a similar manner to the US cargo game world.

Since there are some tuning and fixes needed for the cargo model, we'd like to take our time and make sure everything works like we intend to and that's why a bit more time is needed in relation to the original plans. More cargo aircraft will be also added during this time (to both game worlds).

The scenario will be available for pre-joining during the weekend.

The first public game world with full cargo features is now available at AirwaySim.

The mini-game Cargo Challenge USA is just opened and you can try out your skills with the new features here. This game world is limited only to USA and has a small player capacity of 150 players (since the new background calculation systems need some stress testing and at this point 600 airlines might pose problems and some performance work needs to be still done). Overall play time is a bit over two months.

Once some settings related to border crossing rules and other tweaks are done the plan is to launch also 'Cargo Challenge Europe' game world with similar specifications than the USA game. So if you find this first cargo game full, please sit tight and the next one is planned to open before the end of July.


Cargo in a nutshell

Cargo can be transported in the baggage holds of the regular passenger aircraft, together with passenger bags, but also with dedicated freighter aircraft. The belly cargo in the freight holds of normal passenger flights is the most common option.

In AirwaySim cargo has been divided into three different classes:

• Light Cargo - Small bulk packages like mail.
  
  
• Medium Cargo - Heavier and larger cargo, usually in containers.
  
  
• Heavy Cargo - Special and oversized cargo.

Cargo is an additional revenue for your airline (approximately 4-15% more income), and it by itself is not a major game changer. However cargo is using the new City Based Demand system as the basis of all calculations and this is the very important step and feature for the future.

Please read the manual page about cargo: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Cargo/


City Based Demand

This is a fully new system on how the demand values are created. The demand is no longer tied to airports but is instead generated by the areas and cities and airports serve only as the gateways.

We'll introduce this new system to you later on in more detail but you can already learn about it from the manual: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Demand/

Please note that the new system only calculates cargo's figures so far. Passenger demand systems remain in the old "static" system until further development takes place.


Release notes

There are still some things that are not fully satisfactory to us, and remain to be worked on. Here's a brief list of our notes:

• Route Planning page's "Estimated daily cargo demand" chart displays the "Potential Cargo Demand" bar for every day (mo-su), even though this is not necessary (same values). This is due to the limited options available in the charting system. Better format is being considered.
  
  
• Airport information page doesn't display any data on the airport catchment area vs. potential demand vs. City Based Demand data yet (which might be necessary for players to better understand where the demand is going)
  
  
• Overall cargo economics will be tuned based on experiences on this first game world.
  
  
• Cargo transport is still point-to-point (like pax system), connection system is in plans (based on technical feasibility).
  
  
• More cargo aircraft will be added (only a few available right now, but once they are added they are also made available in these cargo games)
  
  
• All other updates will be also rolled into the current cargo games, based on feedback and on what's still on our to-do list.

Cargo will be later on introduced to all running major four game worlds.

The new demand system will need some getting used to and there will be probably many questions and things that you keep wondering. Please send all feedback to the game's sub-forum, and post all bug reports to the bugs forum as usual.

Join Cargo Challenge USA here: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/?gView=243#game243

The start schedule of the upcoming Cargo Challenge game has been changed with one week from the preliminary plan.

Cargo Challenge game will open on Friday 21st July.

This is due to the need to finalize and test the systems, and admin is not available due to other commitments during the previously planned date.

This first public game world with cargo features is the first step towards cargo's implementation in the all of the simulations' game worlds. We're hoping to collect much valuable feedback from this scenario. Details of the new features as well as details of the game itself will be posted later. :)

According to the normal monthly rotation schedule the Beginner's World #1 game has been opened today.

This game series is aimed for all newbies and other players wishing to test different playing styles in an easier environment. The two beginner scenarios follow always the standard easy settings and same time frame as the previous beginner scenarios, and they restart about once every month.

Click over to the Game Area to play!

The previous Game World #2 ended a while back and here are the final statistics and results.

Play time of this scenario was a total of nearly 1.5 years - some serious dedication from many of our veteran players here 

The replacement game world is already under way:

» Join the new Game World #2

The new Game World #2 is now open!

» Join the game here

Our latest ultra-long game world is open and ready for your new airlines. World starts in 1950 and continues whopping 85 years all the way to the end of 2035!

In this scenario you can experience the post-war aircraft types such as cheap surplus DC-3s and move on to the first generation jet planes. After this early period you will see a steady increase in the air travel with new bigger and much more economical aircraft being introduced. In later years the market liberations and global challenges will give you something to think about.

This game world follows the standard settings for long AirwaySim games:

• Standard difficulty level
• All airports, all aircraft models (including the "prototypes") and all features are included.
• Additional base airports follow the standard rules, max 10 bases per airline, and the amount of planes based outside HQ will grow over time.
• Alliances are available to be formed from the first day.
• Game's speed is initially 30 minutes per day but will speed up to 25 minutes per day in 1990 (opposite from our usual settings due to user requests)
• Passenger demand levels are much larger than in real history at the start of the game, especially in the early parts of the game. 
• Fuel prices are random and may or may not follow the historical oil/jet fuel developments (or a combination of both where it follows the real history at some periods and is random at others).
• Note also that the economic/inflation settings are modified for this scenario for a more linear inflation model which should be easier to understand especially in the 1970s and 1980s that is usually the era of rapid inflation.
• The aircraft production rates and amount of airport slots are higher compared to the standard setting.
• As always, it can be predicted that the popular aircraft models will soon be limited in supply at the used aircraft market. Do not count your expansion to their supply!
• Remember that airports and geopolitical changes are modelled after real history. Not all airports are open yet, and you may not expand your airline to other countries inside European Union until much later in the game.
• You have a plentiful cash supply to start with and the fuel prices are currently very low but remember to keep cash in reserve if something unexpected happens!

» Join the game here

The current long Game World #2 is ending soon so now it is time to announce the replacement game world that starts soon. Other scenarios, including a short cargo theme game, are also planned for the next two months.

• Beginner's World #2 - 17th June: Pre-join here
• Standard settings for this game series
• 2015 to 2025
• Game World #2 - 21st June: Pre-join here
• One of our four main ultra-long games
• 1950 to 2035
• Beginner's World #1 - 9th July
• Standard settings for Beginner's games
• 2004 to 2013
• Cargo Challenge - 14th July (date might still change)
• First public game to feature cargo model
• Details to follow later on

We look forward seeing you in these games :)

The mini-game Long Haul Challenge has ended, with play time from February to April, and here are the end results.

Details of the next game worlds will be announced soon.

According to the normal monthly rotation schedule the Beginner's World #1 game has been opened today.

This game series is aimed for all newbies and other players wishing to test different playing styles in an easier environment. The two beginner scenarios follow always the standard easy settings and same time frame as the previous beginner scenarios, and they restart about once every month.

Click over to the Game Area to play!

The new Beginner's World #2 scenario has been just opened.

This game series is aimed for all newbies and other players wishing to test different playing styles in an easier environment. The two beginner scenarios follow always the standard easy settings and same time frame as the previous beginner scenarios, and they restart about once every month.

This time the BW#2 scenario has new settings. The time era is now from 2015 to 2025!

According to the normal monthly rotation schedule the Beginner's World #1 game has been opened today.

This game series is aimed for all newbies and other players wishing to test different playing styles in an easier environment. The two beginner scenarios follow always the standard easy settings and same time frame as the previous beginner scenarios, and they restart about once every month.

Click over to the Game Area to play!

The Long Haul Challenge game world is now open!

» Join Long Haul Challenge

The Challenge game series have a short play duration and special settings. This game focuses purely on the long haul traffic from continent to another with large airplanes such as the B747.

The settings of this scenario are:

• Overall economic environment is easy.
  
  
• Only aircraft in size class very large can be used.
  
  
• All airports in the world are included, but the travel demand is only for longhaul traffic (so there are many smaller airports with no traffic at all).
  
  
• No geographical airport basing restrictions - open additional bases anywhere in the world.
  
  
• Game starts on year 2017 and runs until 2030.
  
  
• Alliances are enabled. Achievements can be earned.
  
  
• One simulated day is 25 minutes long.

Note also that the easy start (pre-created airline) is not available in this game world (purely because the easy start system is not available for longhaul airline starts). So please take care when choosing the base airport where you start - make sure it has enough longhaul passenger demand.

Remember also that the initial passenger demand is rather low. It will grow rapidly over time.

This is a new type of game world (a pure longhaul simulation has not been played before) and we'd like to hear your thoughts about this game concept. You can use the game forum for feedback.