AirwaySim v.1.3 news, previews & info

[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[medium, effective immediately] * Starting capital for new airlines is now more dynamic.

It already previously has been tied to the inflation and also to the game progress. Meaning that the starting capital has increased over time and the later you join, the more money you get proportionally.

This calculation has been now changed further to support new players. The effect of game's progress vs. start money is higher than before, and it takes also now into account the size of airport you choose as your HQ airport.

Practical example: in 1952 in Game World #4 the start up money was $1 200 000. In 1972 the player joining would have $1 970 000 due inflation and game progress (old calculation). With this change however the player will get this money if he joins at the smallest possible airport (size class 1). If he picks a larger airport the sum is higher, in this case in class 5 airport it would be $5 000 000. Or if he joins in year 2000 (= 50 years into the game) and picks a class 5 airport the starting money is $31 000 000 (without this change it would have been about $11mil).

This additional calculation is fully active after 180 days into a new game world (rises gradually).


[minor, effective immediately] * Technical changes to all e-mail functions of the system. At the same time the visual look of all e-mail notifications and newsletter is also updated to match the site's visual look.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[medium, effective immediately] * Changes to staff requirements of airlines flying with small or medium size class aircraft. Their staff requirements are now proportionally smaller than before. This change affects the 'office' staff numbers, ie. not flight or cabin crew numbers.

No changes to airlines flying large or very large aircraft. This change affects all airlines, and if you have many small planes in your fleet it's advisable to check your staff page now, you may have some extra staff now after this change (but in any case you won't have too few because of this change so there's no harm for anyone).

Example:
#1: Airline with 7x CRJ had previously the need for 378 staff members, now the number is 314. (-17%)  ..and in this example the actual salary costs are ~$315k/month smaller (previously 2.1mil, now about 1.8mil, so the actual expense reduction is about 15% since pilot/cabin crew numbers did not change).
#2: Fleet of 1x Scandia, 1x DH Dove, 1x DH Heron: previously 107, now 82. (-23%)
#3: Fleet of 5x A320, 20x CRJ, 6x J31: previously 1650, now 1493. (-10%)
#4: Fleet of different plane models, all large or very large: no changes.
(these are just random actual examples, the actual staff calculation depends on many more things than just the number of planes!)


[medium, effective immediately] * Changes to slot pricings for new airlines:

- "New airline discount" is greatly adjusted. It was previously available only for airlines less than 100 days old, but now it extends to 1.5 year old airlines. It is a linear effect (like before) but now also takes into account the game's overall progress. New game and new airline will not see this discount but a new airline in existing game will have great benefit of this.

- "New operation discount" (= route to a new airport for the airline / non-home base slots) is not available when game world is less than 180 days old. And the discount gradually increases so it reaches it's maximum level only after 1.5 years into the game world. This is a minor change overall.

All of these aspects have been modelled already before but their effects have been simply changed a bit (the new airline discount is much greater when game is not new).


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[minor, effective immediately] * New game specific settings available for game configuration/customization:

 - Ability to disable all alliance starting rules. = No more requirement for airline age and fleet for alliance startups.

 - Ability to disable all political basing rules. = Airlines can base on any of the available airports (ie. US airline can base in Europe if whole world were to be included). This setting also disables the requirement to close a base when country breaks up, or when "minimum required aircraft" at each base is not met (ie. base is not closed automatically under any circumstance other than airport relocation). So you can have a base with only 5 planes for example. Base amounts (4) or max planes per base (100) are not changed.


Both settings are, as mentioned, available only for selected new games and both will be used in the Euro World. The changes are not meant for wider use in the full / global game worlds but merely to add to the list of available options to make different scenarios.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[medium, effective immediately] * New feature: random world events.

This feature creates random events to airports, countries and continents worldwide. There are about 50 pre-programmed events that each have a detailed background story on how they affect the airline operations. The events can create delays, cancellations or changes to passenger demand, and they can affect only one airport, all airports in country or all airports in whole continent.

The cancellations can affect everything (100%) or only some portion (0-99%) of the flights from the affected airports, based on event settings. Demand changes can be sudden (change overnight due to the event) or change over time.

A news item is posted under World Events for each event. The amount of events per game month depends on the amount of players, amount of airports and game day length. Normally it is between 2-6 events each game month but may vary between 0-8 globally (= not too many to create news spam and to repeat the same events all over again in long games). Faster game worlds have less events than the slower ones. This amount may be on the low side in the global scenarios and feedback is welcome on this; easily adjusted.

Events are only generated to airports to which the players have routes to (and highly trafficked airports are more likely to get the events). The events are divided into several categories and intensities and two events of the same type (ie. two volcano eruptions) do not overlap in different airports/areas, and each event has also a minimum interval when it can happen again (ie. a large event cannot happen often).

The events are not so major that anything is forced to close down due to them. The "heaviest" causes 5 days of 100% cancellations in a whole continent but it's very rare (major volcano eruption). Events affecting passenger demand downwards remove the trigger of oversupply warnings in that area while event is active.

All events are random and have no historical background. The aim of this update is to generate more dynamism to the game worlds and more changing challenges to the players. Adding real historical events based on this technical module is also fully possible (if data is collected).

This feature is initially only live in the Euro World scenario, will expand elsewhere later. Thanks to our user Cur$e for work with the data. Feedback on the intensity and amount of events is welcome.


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[Sami]

There has been numerous minor updates and changes to the background systems lately, mainly to cater the requirements of some educational/corporate customers using AirwaySim. These same changes are also available in regular AWS scenarios, if required sometime later. Just posting this as "for information" to let you know that there's always something going on. 


[effective immediately] * Ability to force players to use only manual staff management settings (= auto-hire and auto-salaries not available).

[effective immediately] * Ability to create alliances without forums. (if forums wouldn't be available, this isn't available in the regular games)

[effective immediately] * Ability to set different visual templates for each game world (= different site layout for each game).

[effective immediately] * The number of world events has also been tuned a bit (ie. less in regional scenarios vs. global scenarios).


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[Sami]

[effective immediately] * Random events have been enabled in Game Worlds #1, #2, #3 and #4. They will start to appear within ~2 game months.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[minor, effective immediately] * Changes to events module:

 - The display of demand during events has been changed. The temporary event demand is now displayed with a clear warning and a separate demand 'bar' at the route planning view (see image). (When there is no active event, the bar/data is not displayed. Also not visible during short 1 day events that change demand.)

 - Fundamental technical change to the events that have an effect to route demand to allow larger (global) events (= the way how events vs. demand changes is calculated is changed).

 - The length of some major events has been reduced, there events are max. 2 months long now.

 - The frequency of some major events has been tuned and they are a bit rarer now.

 - Other minor technical changes to the system to make it better, the events are very flexible now; a single event can combine elements of delays, cancellations and demand changes all in one - and this in airport/country/continent/global level.


[minor, effective immediately] * Various bug fixes, minor issues. Some worth mentioning are (= include noticeable changes or new features):

 - The "not allowed for tech stop" list is expanded by ~5 airports due to airport relocations in the future (= cannot techstop at an airport that will relocate to another larger airport in the future, to avoid future issues with the route)

 - When aircraft is listed for sale privately to certain airline and that airline bankrupts the aircraft is now returned back to your fleet (= removed from the used market). Previously it went visible to everyone on the market. The player selling gets a message of this too.


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[Sami]

Update: The new Dashboard is now LIVE.

Please note that the 'new' flags on news items will start to appear on any news items published after this update.

And do also note that this is the first version of the new dashboard so the content itself remains the same as before but it's in plans to expand it in the future.



--

* Dashboard page has been re-styled completely. This is a large update where the aim is to clarify the news feed and avoid large long scrollable pages. So we are moving back to the tabbed format here with the new and greatly improved dashboard news feed.  [pictured below]

In the current development revision all the data is still the same as now but it is presented differently. In the future there will be more news data available on these pages. There are also plans to make the dashboard news feed "live" by automatic updates and also the ability to filter the feeds with important/interesting data (= data relevant to your airline) and possibly also a search feature etc. But for now the basic update will cover only the visual update in order to boost the usability. There are also various background technical changes to the system / news display.

The tabs and news feeds in each tab are (each tab has two news feeds):

 - Airline overview:  Economy info, urgent notifications, billing info

 - Airline news: Airline news feed (new airlines, closed airlines, new/closed bases etc), Airline press releases

 - World news: World events (random events), Airport and country news (new/closed airports, country changes, airport changes etc).

 - Aircraft news: Aircraft production news (prod.line openings/closures), Aircraft order news (new a/c orders).

 - AirwaySim news



* Game status bar has now a balloon for count of unread messages in the alliance forum. The Dashboard alliance forum view will be removed (to save space and due some formatting issues).  [pictured below]

* Route planning page has the option to show only your flights, vs. all flights on this route pair.



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(picture from test server, any airline details visible have no relation to actual game worlds..)

[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[major, effective immediately, only in Game World #3] * Airport bases feature has been renewed completely.

 - This update is effective in the new GW#3 and any subsequent new games. It may be expanded to existing games if there's demand for it, technically possible.


Rule changes

 - Each airline can now base at 10 different airports (HQ + 9 bases).

 - Airline must be at least 12 months old and operate (own/lease) at least 10 planes before bases are "unlocked". Once bases are "unlocked" you can do anything with the bases (open/close/etc) even if the total num. of planes falls below 10 (for simplicity).

 - There are no aircraft limits other than a companywide limit on aircraft scheduled outside your HQ (in bases). So no more limits on minimum number of planes in HQ or in bases.

 - The max. number of aircraft outside HQ is relative to game year. In 1950 it's 100, in 1990 it's 350 and in 2015 it's 600. The growth is linear between these three 'step points' - so in year 2000 for example it's 450. After year 2015 the limit stays at 600. The limit number increases on 1st Jan every year and it's rounded to nearest 5 so it may not change every year. As before only scheduled aircraft count towards this limit, there are no limits on aircraft on order / aircraft unscheduled / aircraft for sale etc. Nor there are any limits for the count of aircraft in your HQ naturally.

 - There is a major new component to the bases feature, which is the base level. This determines the operation size and cost level of the base. There are 4 base levels corresponding to the aircraft size classes (small, medium, large, very large); 4 levels of bases. The base size equals the largest allowed aircraft size class for your operation in that base (= medium class base can support small/medium planes, and very large base can support all planes etc).

 - The base levels can be up/downgraded, with the limitation that if the airport is small the base level cannot exceed the airport's allowed aircraft size class. So if the airport only allows 'small & medium' planes your maximum base level is 'medium' there. The cost of upgrades is in relation to the base opening cost, and it's recommended to open the proper sized base right away since upgrading costs a bit more. Downgrading costs also, but not very much. Note that when you downgrade a base the system will automatically unschedule any planes not suitable for that base level any more. The up/downgrade does not make any changes to your staffing, you must do the changes yourself - both actions will create changes to both HQ and base staff levels.

 - Up/downgrade happens one step at a time to each direction. Downgrade and base closure can be done while money is negative (no limit).

 - Base closure cost is the same as before consisting of contract ending costs (fuel contracts etc) and aircraft/staff relocation fees.

 - The costs of opening the base depend on both base level and airport size class. There is no longer the possibility to transfer aircraft immediately to the new base, please do that from the aircraft pages afterwards. The base opening window shows the additional staff cost to the HQ as well as the base staff/office cost for the new base (but this cost is with the 'empty' base with no planes/routes).

 - Costs are not linear between base levels. 1 & 2 are close to each others and so are 3 & 4. There is a considerable jump from 2->3. For example in game year 2000 opening your first base to ATL (class 5 airport) will cost $33.8mil if it's 'large' but only $6.0mil if it's base level 'medium' (very large would be $37.6mil and 'small' $2.2mil). This is because the operation is clearly divided into small and large planes in these four groups..

 - There is a waiting period of 1 year between each base opening, like before. (base level or up/downgrades do not change this)

 - No changes to traffic rights, so no basing in foreign countries (apart from EU etc.).


Interface

 - The whole Office -> Base airports page has been completely renewed.

 - This includes a new general overview of all base restrictions, a 'tabbed' listing of all bases with details, stats and important links, and a section to open a new base. Added are also the menus for up/downgrading each base.

 - The menu structure has been updated to work with multiple bases. If you have more than 4 bases (3+HQ) the menu structure changes to a compact format. The dropdown menus no longer list all of the base airports (since the list would be too long), but there is instead a link to expand the base listing at the dropdown menu. In similar fashion the airline status bar (where you have game clock, money etc) no longer displays the base list for over 4 bases - it's replaced by a "hover balloon" list that can be activated by hovering the mouse over the Bases text. The fuel management page's base selector is updated in a similar fashion with a dropdown selector if you have very many bases.


Manual

- Manual has been updated to reflect the changes: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Office/Bases/



ps. "Game World #3 (new)" will be renamed to "Game World #3" once the previous ends.

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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[medium, effective immediately] * Route Management page has now the possibility for direct price management, on single routes, multiple (freely selectable) routes or destination-grouped routes.

If you choose a single route, you have all price options available (see and edit prices per class and per leg, one by one). If you choose multiple routes you can adjust the prices +/- certain %. If you choose by destination you can also reset the prices manually for all routes in that city pair.

Route planning links also added to the same page.


[minor, effective immediately] * Aircraft page (the section main page) lists now more aircraft in the "most profitable" / "most losses" sections. Upcoming lease expiration notifications have been also extended to 45 days (was 30), and their display format has been adjusted a bit.


[minor, effective immediately] * All listing pages have now a "jump to page" selector at the top & bottom of the page for quick access to different pages.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[medium, effective immediately] * Fuel management page includes now future fuel price predictions made by your staff (economics & finance department).

This is basically a prediction of the future and it is based on your staff's efficiency and it's their opinion about the future development of the prices. The future prediction has two lines: "low" and "high" and the future price will most likely be somewhere between these two. However do note that while the prediction shows up to one year ahead, it is the most accurate only in the upcoming next months.

You can use this information to spot any radical trends and changes in the near future and plan your hedges accordingly. This feature has been made since there are plans to add other economic predictions available to the airline managers which will help in their future decisions. This is partly tied to the updates of the demand system where we'll have country-specific economics and will need to have the possibility to spot the trends in traffic growth/decline too; hence a similar feature for fuel price predictions already to make sure it works and to get some experience on this.

If the staff efficiency is poor, check that there are enough of them employed (HQ) and their morale+salary is good. Max. accuracy is around 85%-90%.

Manual chapter has been updated to reflect these changes: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Office/Fuel/


How to read the prediction information

Example image picture 1 below (test server) shows current price being $305 and the green 'low' line goes down in a high rate, while the red 'high' line grows only with a small rate. Since the staff is in good shape and accuracy is good, we can be rather certain that the price will go down for at least next 6 months. But don't be fooled by short-term changes - the price may still temporarily go up too, your staff is looking for long-term trends only!

Then picture 2, from actual GW#2. The trend lines are rather meaningless here, as the variation is rather strong both ways. We can conclude that there are no imminent economic changes ahead that would create large sudden changes.

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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[minor, effective immediately] * Automatic registration functions improved:

- Automatic registration is applied automatically when aircraft is returned from lease (manually or due bankruptcy), provided naturally that the appropriate reg.format setting has been set for this fleet group by the receiving player.

- When rebasing the aircraft between airports the automatic registration is now active too, if you have the reg. format set for the 'receiving' base airport. So if you move a plane from Spain to France for example, and you have from Settings page selected the desired reg.format for France's base for that fleet, rebasing the plane will automatically assign a new reg for the place (since old one is not available anymore since it's a different country).

- Bugfix: When certain area is governed by the same country and has the same reg. format, the system works now properly (e.g. USA & Guam). Two planes in mainland and on the island cannot have same reg anymore, and rebasing the planes between these areas will keep the registration.


[minor, effective immediately] * Fees (handling, landing etc.) for airports tuned a bit, very crowded airports are now a bit more expensive to operate into and small airports a bit more cheaper.


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[Sami]

#1) COMAC C919 aircraft added to game worlds #1, #3 and #4. Available ca. 2010 and flies in 2018, similar to A320neo. More new a/c models will be added bit by bit. (n/a in GW #2 since the introduction date went past already)


#2) The aircraft upgrades feature is now back online and available in all game worlds. It was unavailable due to data errors.

The upgrades still consist only of huskit upgrades to the engines and nothing more yet. The actual noise regulation features will be added in the future, so at this point the upgrades are not mandatory for anyone.

Details of the feature here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,26356.msg268545.html#msg268545

The list of upgrades available currently:

Code: [Select]

BAC One-Eleven 200 Hushkit Chapter 3
BAC One-Eleven 300 Hushkit Chapter 3
BAC One-Eleven 400 Hushkit Chapter 3
BAC One-Eleven 475 Hushkit Chapter 3
BAC One-Eleven 500 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-120B Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-220 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-320 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-320B Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-320B Adv. Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-320C Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 707-420 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 720B Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 727-100 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 727-200 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 727-200Adv Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 737-100 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 737-200 Hushkit Chapter 3
Boeing 737-200Adv Hushkit Chapter 3
Dassault Mercure Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-20 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-31 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-32 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-33 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-41 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-42 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-43 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-51 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-52 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-53 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-55 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-61 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-62 Hushkit Chapter 3
Douglas DC-8-63 Hushkit Chapter 3
Fokker F.28 Mk 1000 Fellowship Hushkit Chapter 3
Fokker F.28 Mk 2000 Fellowship Hushkit Chapter 3
Fokker F.28 Mk 3000 Fellowship Hushkit Chapter 3
Fokker F.28 Mk 4000 Fellowship Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-10 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-10 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-20 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-40 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-50 Hushkit Chapter 3
McDonnell Douglas MD-81 Hushkit Chapter 4
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 Hushkit Chapter 4
McDonnell Douglas MD-83 Hushkit Chapter 4
McDonnell Douglas MD-87 Hushkit Chapter 4
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 Hushkit Chapter 4
Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle 10B Hushkit Chapter 3
Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle 10R Hushkit Chapter 3
Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle 12 Hushkit Chapter 3
(note that all of these models may have not had the upgrade possibility in real life, but the grouping is made on engine type bases. ie. if some JT8D engine had the hushkit, it's added also to the other aircraft with same/similar engine)



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[Sami]

Fokker 120 NG aircraft added to game worlds #1, #3 and #4. Available ca. 2009-2010 and flies in 2017-2018. Same fleet as in F70/F100, same engine as MRJ70/90. Prototype model.

More new a/c models will be added bit by bit.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[minor, effective immediately] * Improvements to background processes to keep the databases smaller & cleaner:

 - AI Brokers will scrap all aircraft in their hands which are over 30 years old. Previously it was possible in some cases that some old a/c were not scrapped by them and they've been filling up the database (ie. had some planes >50 y old) .. (In any case already before the brokers never put such old planes for sale, so just a matter of keeping things tidy)

 - Cleanup processes enhanced so that the system now purges old aircraft models, aircraft seat configs, aircraft history data etc. for any models that are a) out of production for a long time and b) not in use (/for sale /in storage) at all by any operator anymore and c) last example scrapped >10 years ago (= ALL aircraft of this model out of use and out of production for a long time -> removes then all data of this model). These planes are usually no longer visible in any stats either, so there's no need to store that data either. (there is also a special case, since some users would like to spend a single example of their old a/c in storage, and in these cases the system at this time does not remove any data, but keeps the entire model's data stored)

 - In-game messages that are a) unread and b) older than 4 years are automatically removed.


 - ..there are a lot of other similar clean up processes (and have been before too) but these changes have minor effects to game play, so posting it here.


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)


[minor, effective immediately] * A new feature: AI controlled airlines created by the system!

Sounds great but actually this feature will be mostly used only in the custom scenarios we provide for educational customers for example. And I'm posting this mainly "for information" so that you see what's going on in the background.

In practise this feature means that when a game world starts we can now automatically generate a number of new airlines to the system who will then create automated competition for the new players entering the game world (= these AI airlines are already present in the world and flying routes when players join in). At the present version it's a single airline for every airport we define separately/manually, and each airline will have about 3-40 aircraft, and it's meant to create no more than about 20 airlines (this is the rough first version) to keep enough planes & slots available for human players (since these settings haven't been touched).

The system will generate realistic airlines with proper flight schedules, and is in other ways attempting to mimic a human-created airline too. They will base their aircraft selection to what's available in the storage (in large numbers) and use also smart fleet planning (1 fleet group per route group type), and their routes/schedules on how the demand figures look like (they keep their seat supply reasonable compared to demand to leave some space for new human airlines, and they do supply only in ~5-20 highest demanded routes).

The user interface has been also modified already earlier to work with this feature, and instead of player name these airlines display as "AI Player"-controlled; otherwise all data pages are identical to them (= you can see the same details as of any normal airline). Exception is that AI airlines are not visible anywhere in the stats, but are visible normally in the route planning section and so forth.

When the game starts the AI airlines will not actively compete with players. They will maintain their planes and do everything according to the normal automated settings (like staff) but will not change prices or schedules, nor will it get new planes. So they are intended only for short games (or for the initial part of long games) and to act as the initial competition for human players (or to replace human players in small custom scenarios where there are only a handful of users). The AI airlines have for this reason considerably more money, higher CI / RI (etc). than any starting human airline. In other words the intention is to simulate players entering into an existing market instead of having an empty world.

Only the first early development version of this feature has been recently activated and there are still many items that need work. (And won't be posting any technical details here at this time for that very reason ...)

This feature will not yet be used anywhere in these public scenarios (apart from minor testing perhaps), but there are plans for it for the future. (most likely this feature itself won't be used like this at all in public scenarios, hence the "minor feature" tag, but there's a spin-off development based on this going on which will create some nice new features for everyone's benefit)   ..and if you come across any potential ideas based on this, please feel free to share.


Below are two pics of an example airline. This airline is fully system-generated with a click of a button..

#1: Airline fleet

#2: Typical schedule it creates


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[Sami]

(changes are marked according to the assumed effect they have on running your airline)

Minor changes to economy calculations to make them more dynamic:


[minor, effective immediately] * The dynamism in aircraft pricing has been increased. The prices of new aircraft are calculated based on the number of outstanding orders in the queue; more orders -> price goes up and so on (and models about to go out of production are also receiving extra price drops). The range of this manufacturer's pricing area has been increased a bit to make more popular models a tad more expensive and less popular more cheaper (~5-10% change in both ends; for very small planes the price reduction is even higher if there are very few orders). The price changes are never immediate but they change gradually, bit by bit.

Also made a fix to the pricing dynamism, it did not trigger for some models already launched but not yet started to deliver. As mostly some very popular models are ordered in their hundreds already before first flight, and now the price dynamism also applies to them.


[minor, effective immediately] * Minor tweaks to airport cost calculations. As you may know the airport costs (landing fee, pax fee ..) are dynamic and are based on how busy the airport is. The cost factor at very busy airports has been increased a bit, and lowered at airports with plenty of space (just minor changes to previous figures). These cost level changes happen over a long period of time (like before; no changes).


[minor, effective immediately] * A/C in the used market, listed for sale by AI, will now get even cheaper than before over time if they are not sold.


[minor, effective immediately] * Very minor changes to a/c lease price calculations.


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[Sami]

* BAe 146 and AVRO RJ fleet groups have been combined.

* The whole dataset of all these models (6 aircraft) have been also checked and updated, leading to changes in passenger numbers, runway requirements, prices and ranges.

* Added the RJ115 model which was marketed but never sold in real life (same specs as RJ100 but higher capacity).

* Added RJX70 / RJX85 / RJX100 models which were basically re-engined RJ models, never entered service.

* Changes are effective in any new games, and implemented also to current GW2.


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[Sami]

Minor updates to manual (formatting and checked/corrected/added a bit of info):

Loans: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Office/Loans/
Slots: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Slots/

Also the Accounting chapter is cleaned up a bit, the 'transition from old system' info is removed since updated was made already in Jan-2014.

[Sami]

* MD-90 and B717 fleet groups have been combined (since B717 was basically MD-95). (Pros: Fleet commonality etc. Cons: B717 turnaround is now 40 mins (fleet group wide setting).)

* Data for these models is also checked, changes in rwy requirements.

* Added McDonnell Douglas MD-90-50 (even longer range variant from the -90-30ER) and MD-90-55 (-50 with extra exits for more capacity), these are both prototype models. (note: MD-95 prototype variants to be added later, as well as more DC-9 range options)

* Changes are effective in any new games, and implemented also to current GW2 and GW4.


Please note; I've also looked in combining the whole DC-9/MD-80/MD-90 family into one, but that's not feasible with the current system/settings. Although they use the same cruising speed which is the basic requirement, there are other settings (like maintenance price settings and such) that would create problems. So these changes are pending other updates to the fleet system. (for B737 old-gen vs. new-gen there's then already the problem of different cruising speeds making it impossible to begin with)


(this thread is locked to keep it organized, please post all comments to this thread)