Thoughts and plans about new features

[Sami]

There has been some brainstorming about possible upgrades and new features to the next versions of the AirwaySim engine.

As players familiar with the system already know the aircraft related things are modeled in great accuracy and with many features available, the new aircraft ordering system being the latest innovation. Our eyes are now turning back to the basics of the game engine and we have decided to start planning on updates to these systems.

Mainly, we are talking about updates on how the system creates the passenger demand and distributes it. The current system is working satisfactorily but we are always interested in expanding the features and making it more realistic and that's why the update is being planned.

Some thoughts of key features and possible updates are:

* City or area based passenger demand model instead of airport based demand model.
* Updated passenger demand distribution system to fix the last few remaining issues with it.
* Country specific economics (to allow modelling of a recession in a single country for example) - affecting the pax demands on that area.
* More data / details of each country (such as changes to country flags over time, and news of any changes to country's status / economic state).
* And last but not least, connecting flights.
* And also, a separate feature, a new "pay as you play" payment plan for longer game worlds and to enable the suggested "permanent alliance" feature between players.

As you can see this is a very big package ... But as they are all tied and linked together it is best to think of them all at the same time. Some basic work has been already done like gathering the needed data about locations and countries around the world, just to see if the basic plan is even doable (and so far it looks like it still is..). However please be aware that the rough planning is only just starting. It may be that some of the features mentioned above will not or can not be made - but the goal and target is to get them all done.

There is no time frame for these features or updates, please don't ask. And please be aware that it will take a considerable amount of time just to draw up the specified plans and there will not be any other major updates before the plans and details for this major work is finished.

This post just as a small information bit to let you know about what is planned at the future.