Warning

[mikk_13]

If you close a base, you still have to wait 1 year to open a new one.

I assumed this was not the case and it appears I have crashed my airline doing so.

[Talentz]

Bah ha.

I found that out the hard way too



- Talentz

[JumboShrimp]

Some people think that opening a new base is to make more money.  It is the other way around.  You open a base, and lose a ton of money at the beginning.  Then you invest money into this money losing base, just to get to break even, and then, you hit the 70 plane limit, so you cannot place any more aircraft at the base, and your new base is at best breaking even.

Then you realize that perhaps you are better off just finding more routes to fly from your HQ.  You do that, and this is hard to see, you are not making that much money at HQ anyway, because the for each 10 new staff positions at your HQ, you need to hire extra 3 or 4.  Why?  Because you have the base open.

But you are not alone.  I see a lot of my former competitors go under.  Their once prosperous airlines went under once they went on base opening spree...

What bases are for in Version 1.2 is to provide entertainment and a new challenge for an airline that is solidly profitable, and in position to be able to lose a lot of money on the base venture - and still survive.

Regarding your point of not being able to open new base after you close one, I think that may be a good idea to be posted under Feature requests.  I think the system should just keep opening date of current bases and decide if you can open a new one just based on the open bases, ignoring any bases that were opened and closed.

[mikk_13]

I decided to open a different base because of slots. Operating long haul from a base is very profitable.

dam

[JumboShrimp]

I decided to open a different base because of slots. Operating long haul from a base is very profitable.

dam

LH can be profitable, but you run out of 70 planes quickly doing so.  And if the base has some incumbent airline, you want to give them a hard time on their short distance flights too, or they will eventually compete with you on the LH, making even that unprofitable...

[Sami]

Actually according to what I've coded, the 1 year limit is from the time you have opened your previous base. So you can always open a new base 1yr after the previous was opened, regardless on how you've closed them.

So if you have base A opened at 1.1.1990 and base B opened 1.1.1991, and game date is let's say 1.5.1991, scenarios are:

a) you close base B, you can open a new one right away.
b) you close base A, then you must wait till 1.1.1992 until next base can be opened.
(otherwise there would be a possibility to cheat there if case B wouldn't be like that....)


For base costs. If they'd be any lower, there would be floods of complaints about mega airlines growing too fast, taking all airpots etc ... It cannot be too easy to expand at all possible places. (But still this is the first version of this feature too so development can be expected later on).

[JumboShrimp]

Actually according to what I've coded, the 1 year limit is from the time you have opened your previous base. So you can always open a new base 1yr after the previous was opened, regardless on how you've closed them.

So if you have base A opened at 1.1.1990 and base B opened 1.1.1991, and game date is let's say 1.5.1991, scenarios are:

a) you close base B, you can open a new one right away.
b) you close base A, then you must wait till 1.1.1992 until next base can be opened.
(otherwise there would be a possibility to cheat there if case B wouldn't be like that....)

Cool, so it is working the way it should.  I never tried it, and went by what mikk_13 posted.

For base costs. If they'd be any lower, there would be floods of complaints about mega airlines growing too fast, taking all airpots etc ... It cannot be too easy to expand at all possible places. (But still this is the first version of this feature too so development can be expected later on).

The cost, as is, it does slow down profitable mega airlines, but it kills small to medium size marginally profitable airlines.  The flaw, IMO, is that the new base overhead is based on the size of the HQ, not on what you do in the base.

So when you open a base, you are not slowly augmenting to what you have, instead, you fall in a hole and you try to climb out of it.  When you get to the point of almost being out of the hole, and possibly starting to augment (in profitability department) you are at the 70 plane limit.

[Sigma]

The cost, as is, it does slow down profitable mega airlines, but it kills small to medium size marginally profitable airlines.  The flaw, IMO, is that the new base overhead is based on the size of the HQ, not on what you do in the base.

So when you open a base, you are not slowly augmenting to what you have, instead, you fall in a hole and you try to climb out of it.  When you get to the point of almost being out of the hole, and possibly starting to augment (in profitability department) you are at the 70 plane limit.

The biggest flaw is just that these costs aren't at ALL clear when opening a base.  If, on the base screen, it said that "Oh, by the way, your salary costs will increase by about 30% every week forever" I guarantee you that fewer people would open bases.  Or, at the very least, would do so knowing the risks.

Right now opening a base without a bunch of planes to move right into it, is killer for anything less than a really profitable airline because the losses they'll take for months waiting to get enough planes to justify the salary overhead will bury them in short order.

While the base finances insure that the mega airlines can't grow terribly fast it also ensures that they're the only ones that can use them to their greatest effect.  The hit to the salary doesn't discriminate based on size -- it targets smaller airlines just as much as huge ones, but the difference is that it's lethal to smaller ones.   If you want to arbitrarily increase salary like that then make it so that the overhead increase is a function of something like pax moved.

[NorgeFly]

I have to agree, the base system is not functioning as it should for the reason's that have been outlined above.

In ATB2, opening additional bases has led to what was once a profitable airline becoming a financial nightmare! I just closed a base and reduced my fleet by 17 aircraft, equal to around 12% of the fleet. My staff cost fell by $450m per year... that just shows how much money that relatively small base was costing my medium size airline! Totally crazy!

As Sigma said above, the costs associated with opening a second base are high to slow the growth of the would-be monster airlines, but those very costs ensure that it is only those monster airline that can really make additional bases work.

I strongly recommend that the staffing/bases issue is resolved before the next game opens because at the moment it just doesn't work and makes running a small/medium size airline even more difficult than it was before.

[mikk_13]

Well,

I am not sure i understand how you can cheat by moving a base you have already opened. There was no warning that i could not reopen my closed base and now my airline will go bankrupt. Why can you not reopen a closed base, and increase the number of bases eg, 5 over 5 years.

Hey if that is how it is meant to be, fine, but at least have a warning or something to say that you can not reopen a base somewhere else without waiting for a year.

[jest]

For base costs. If they'd be any lower, there would be floods of complaints about mega airlines growing too fast, taking all airpots etc ... It cannot be too easy to expand at all possible places. (But still this is the first version of this feature too so development can be expected later on).

Is it me or the same guys that wanted bases to be ultra expensive are now whining that its too expensive ? All in all this is a business simulation and whether you have it or not, just like irl. I've seen a few measures against Mega Airlines backfire before.

[swiftus27]

Jest, I disagree with your statement.

Right now, the super rich have a huge advantage.

In order to get super rich you have to lease everything. 

Therefore, lease everything, get a tad lucky with little or no competition, and then expand and not worry.

It happens in every game where the rich get richer.

Making good business decisions early on is a waste.  Just get some A300s with some C&Y class, get 14 a/c types and use every route possible until the slots are filled and then move on to the next airport.  That way, you can then replace the 14 types with 5 and you have already filled all of the slots and will have NO competition because no competitor can get any slots.   IT IS SIMPLE to play this way.

IF WE WOULD JUST DO SOMETHING WITH COMMONALITY ALREADY, THESE PROBLEMS WILL GO AWAY!

[[ATA] Sunbao]

Jest, I disagree with your statement.

Right now, the super rich have a huge advantage.

In order to get super rich you have to lease everything. 

Therefore, lease everything, get a tad lucky with little or no competition, and then expand and not worry.

It happens in every game where the rich get richer.

Making good business decisions early on is a waste.  Just get some A300s with some C&Y class, get 14 a/c types and use every route possible until the slots are filled and then move on to the next airport.  That way, you can then replace the 14 types with 5 and you have already filled all of the slots and will have NO competition because no competitor can get any slots.   IT IS SIMPLE to play this way.

IF WE WOULD JUST DO SOMETHING WITH COMMONALITY ALREADY, THESE PROBLEMS WILL GO AWAY!

Yeah people can just get in all the planes they can get and expand to get the slots and then they have won.

[bdnascar3]

Code Select Expand

IF WE WOULD JUST DO SOMETHING WITH COMMONALITY ALREADY, THESE PROBLEMS WILL GO AWAY!




I agree, But what you think about limiting the number of A/C? Maybe start with max of 30 and allow and additional 5 or 10 every game year? Have a cap of 100? Look at your crrent games and you'll see like 5% of the players have well over 100 aircraft.

[ArcherII]

Code Select Expand

IF WE WOULD JUST DO SOMETHING WITH COMMONALITY ALREADY, THESE PROBLEMS WILL GO AWAY!




I agree, But what you think about limiting the number of A/C? Maybe start with max of 30 and allow and additional 5 or 10 every game year? Have a cap of 100? Look at your crrent games and you'll see like 5% of the players have well over 100 aircraft.

Not going to happen IMO, as it doesn't resemble real life. I know there're lots of things in the game that wouldn't happen IRL but we can't just fix them by adding this stuff.

[Gary]

Having a good supply of used aircraft that keeps up to demand would help a lot.

The way the game is set up the first players not only get the dominate position in the best hubs (to be expected) but also get the sweet deals on lots of used aircraft.
Experienced players know to lease those used aircraft and expand as quickly as possible because that good supply of used aircraft will dry up for players that are behind the leaders and then they will be stuck with a poor and overpriced selection of aircraft for some time.

That's why the mad rush for aircraft and slots at the beginning is so important.