(comments) AirwaySim v.1.3 news, previews & info

[TPMP]

Great update, much better now. Well done Sami.

[Cardinal]

I really don't like not being able to manually do a B-check without scheduling checks. Especially now that moving a schedule doesn't allow you to do a B-check on the plane you're moving the schedule to. So now I have to actually schedule A & B checks on the idle plane so it can get a B-check, and then move the routes (including the A&B check schedule) from the active plane to the idle plane. I was ok losing the manual B-check on the maintenance page when I thought we could still trigger a B-check from the "move schedule" function, but we need either one or the other.

[BD]

Question re:  Route Planning Screen

There is a new section that shows the Passenger Type Distribution - is that referring to the raw Demand for that Route (i.e. correlating to the first bar on the daily demand graph), what MY airline is carrying (i.e. correlating to the last bar for each day), or what ALL airlines are carrying (i.e. correlating to the green bar for each day)?

[ArcherII]

Question re:  Route Planning Screen

There is a new section that shows the Passenger Type Distribution - is that referring to the raw Demand for that Route (i.e. correlating to the first bar on the daily demand graph), what MY airline is carrying (i.e. correlating to the last bar for each day), or what ALL airlines are carrying (i.e. correlating to the green bar for each day)?

I'm gessing it's the raw demand.

Also, in the route planning page, is the bar for airport size/demand scraped?

[Zombie Slayer]

Aa oh yes, the popup data has only limited information, since I don't wish to load the maps on the popups, so market share was taken out there too. ..good/bad?

normal: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/LFBO/EGLL/?go=1
popup: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/X/LFBO/EGLL/

The big downside to not having maps is it severely limits a users ability to find a viable tech stop point. Not such an issue in MT, but a big hit in JA and early in DOTM games.

Don

[Pilot Oatmeal]

Might just be me but I find the site to me a lot slower.  I am using google chrome, and never had it cross my mind in the earlier versions, but this time I see a huge difference, very slow.

But it is very nice to see, I'll try it on my desktop in the morning to see if that's any faster. 

[Sami]

The big downside to not having maps is it severely limits a users ability to find a viable tech stop point. Not such an issue in MT, but a big hit in JA and early in DOTM games.

You can use the "full" (non popup) route planning view for that then.

[Jona L.]

This UI update sucks to be honest.

a) NOT made for widescreens, the Route Opening list looks like being optimized for a 4:3 monitor (basically straight out of the 90s), on my 16:10 screen, about 1/3rd is covered with the routes, the remaining 65% are plain white.

b) On route opening pop-ups there are no more quicklinks to the airport slot page, or airport info page. This is one of the biggest minusses, because how the hell am I going to see FAST if it is worth trying to fit a route into some LHR slots that may have appeared magically?! If I have to move back and forth between pages, the slots are gone by the time I click "open route".

c) For a long term player, nothing is where it used to be. I am searching for stuff like a random noob. On the old interface I just knew where I had to click for what. I know this is just a thing of being used to or not, but still sucks for the first 2 yrs, until I know this UI as well as the last. Especially if you try to do something in 5 spare minutes, and waste 3min to find what you want to do, and than lack the time to do it.

However, I like that for once a large project has been tackled in one go, rather than be postponed after a first thought to "the next major update". Keep up that spirit, Sami!!

cheers,
[SC] Jona L.

P.S. Sorry if this doesn't sound too encouraging, but I hope you can work with critics, Sami.

[Sami]

I was waiting for the first one.    Since whatever is done (talking generally of any major upgrade in a web service), there is always someone or some people who dislike it anyway (mainly because of your item c) I think .. as I've done a fair bit of these overhauls elsewhere too in the past).

For A); the route opening data list is pretty much exactly as wide as before, and B) can be easily added.


(improvement suggestions to the features forum for later usage/searching as always)

[Kadachiman]

The new layout works fine on my Commodore 64 ... lol

[swiftus27]

Is the F5 key where it belongs on everyone's keyboard?   7 presses every 2 hours and 20 minutes in this one

[BD]

The new layout works fine on my Commodore 64 ... lol

I thought v.1.3 was optimized for the TRS-80 

[Jona L.]

(improvement suggestions to the features forum for later usage/searching as always)

WILCO

[ezzeqiel]

"Similar automated settings will be made for the game day length changing and game naming."

I see this is pre-set, but in the game it says 10 months to end the game, calculating the entire game (65years) on 20mins/day...

Would it be possible to introduce in the calculations the day variability (since it's already set), so we can know the real finish time

[Sami]

You already have the time converter function for that.

[ezzeqiel]

You already have the time converter function for that.

I know... but the time converter sees every day in the whole game as 20mins/day... in the future days will be longer... I was asking if there's a way for the calculation to include the day length change...


"31-Dec-2019 of game time equals (approx.) June 01, 2014, 09:54 PM of real time. "... that's 65 years of gameplay at 20mins/day... since the days will be longer, the real gameplay will also be longer than 10 months 24 days...

[Sami]

Aa, yes, the game itself does not YET know of the longer future days.. That is coming next week

[knobbygb]

I like this new interface in general.

As some have said - it feels a bit alien at first and is taking me longer but it's already starting to come naturally.  Like any front-end change really, so no major complaints there.

A couple of things I've noticed so far...

(1) As Jona said, the quick links to slot availability from  the "open route" page are something I used A LOT and am really missing.  Probably my biggest complaint so far.

(2) I often keep a "scheduling" page open in it's own tab and then flick back and forward to it to schedule routes as I create them (7-day again) but I noticed that the scheduling page no longer picks up the new routes unless I totally re-load the page each time I create some routes.  It did before.  This is particularly a pain when you have several pages (several hundred aircraft) of the same type and have to keep re-navigating to the right place.  I'm not sure how this can be something which changed with the new UI as it seems it'd be more of a back end function.  I guess I just need to get used to using the filters more wisely but it still causes a lot more page reloads than before.

(3) Another thing I really don't like is the way the general "aircraft" page summarises each category - where it lists the first few and then says, for example, "and 6 more...".  This has already caused me to lose an aircraft where I didn't know the lease was about to expire and to leave one unscheduled for a week.  Can I suggest that there is a new "setting" to say how many items are displayed in each (5,10,20, unlimited) etc.?  Or, maybe, once you have clicked on the "more..." tab, it could remember that and stay expanded even when you come back to the page later.  Yes, the old page used to get VERY big sometimes but it was one of the most useful pages to keep track of things, especially with a very big airline. Kind of a "to do" list.

(4) The UI in general.  Some of the scaling seems to be way out to me.  Some stuff is way too large (e.g. the demand graphs on the route planning page look like something made out of supersize lego bricks by a 3-yr old) yet some stuff is WAY too small (The "Certification expected on May-1955." text on the "negotiate to buy new aircraft" screen, for example - almost unreadable even on a big, high quality, 26 inch screen.  I've experimented with zooming the browser in and out but I can't find a setting that is totally usable and pleasing to the eye for all screens.  Again, I suppose this is to do with tablet support?  At least the UI now uses more of my 16:9 screen than it did before, but it's not quite right yet. I am using Chrome btw. but other browsers look basically the same.

(5)  Still on the UI sizing - the "route information" popups (and most/all other popup windows) which come up, for example, when clicking the "globe" logo in the "open new route" screen are too big for my browser window.  I have to manually re-size them to see all the information.  The bottom section is always behind my windows task bar.  The old system where the popup came in the middle of the screen (and the rest of the screen greyed out) was not only easier to read but looked a lot more professional too.

(6) A lot of things I used to just click on, I now have to mouse-over and wait for a popup and then click.  This I totally understand - it's for touch-screen tablets.  I tried the old UI on a tablet and it was virtually unusable.  BUT... I used to to do a lot of (right click/open in a new tab), for example when  I used to want to edit or close all 7 routes in a 7-day schedule so I could have them all up together.  Now this doesn't work and the "base page" is opened again instead of the route info/edit page.  Unavoidable I guess but I just wanted to have a gripe.  Again, a lot more page reloads than before as I edit one route, then go back to the schedule page (and sometimes re-navigate) and repeat.

All in all, a very worthwhile update which I'm sure will serve well for many years, so don't take the complaining too seriously.

[Zombie Slayer]

re: #2 on your list, you can now "refresh" the list of unscheduled routes without a full page reload. Click the normal green "+" next to the desired aircraft and there is a "Refresh" button at the bottom. Click that and it will gather newly created routes.

[BGoldtexas]

This game works great on my new iPad.