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

[LemonButt]

Domestic A-B-C has been in "to do" list but so are many other things too.  

Basically works so that you'd sell tickets for A-B, A-C, C-A and B-A while route is A-B-C. This allows you to fly small routes (since B-C is not sold).

(* domestic = intra-EU in modern times too)

I must say in DOTM that I am missing ABCBA routes for the first time.  I am based at Paris Orly with a base in Nice.  Larger aircraft are somewhat of an issue because the demand just isn't there, but for the demand that is there it is all long haul.  Therefore, if you are looking to fly into a short haul slot congested airport with a large aircraft (i.e. Heathrow) and have it flying 7x/week, you can barely get 2 flights/day due to long turnarounds.  A 3 hour turnaround with the L1011 flying 2 flights/day = 12 hours on the ground doing turnaround.  To make matters worse, my base airports and those slot congested airports are all curfewed.  This means with that 12 hours of turnaround time, I also have to coordinate the landings so I can land the aircraft when the airports are open.

So in a nutshell, ABCBA routes would be extremely helpful in my case if I could fly ABCBA where A and C are my base airports--i.e. Orly to Heathrow to Nice to Heathrow to Orly.  This would fill up an entire aircraft's schedule and I'd be able to take off when Orly opens and be back at Orly before it closes, but instead I'm using 2 aircraft and smashing in a wildcard route to fill the schedule.  Additionally, if there is a long route I want to fly >24 hours from a smaller base (or group of small bases) that can't justify 7 aircraft for 7 day scheduling individually but could collectively, ABCBA makes this possible.  So if you have 1 base that can't support 7 aircraft flying 7 day scheduling, you're out of luck.  However, if you have 4 bases that could collectively support 7 aircraft, you can make it happen.

I hope all that makes sense...I'm managing otherwise right now, but I don't see the harm of ABCBA scheduling if A and C are bases.  This would be a big benefit for airlines with weak long haul demand that doesn't justify a huge fleet of large long haul aircraft.

Edit: I just realized the big airlines would totally abuse this.  The fix would be that A cannot be your HQ airport and must be a base.  This would then make the aircraft flying the route count against the 100 aircraft limit.  Otherwise the big airlines could have 100 aircraft based at a base and then fly in as many additional as they want by using aircraft based that their HQ, circumventing the 100 aircraft limit.

[BD]

* Route image (RI) related effects on passenger demand calculation have been updated / adjusted. The RI effect is now more clearly visible, and works properly in case of multiple flights. (as always you can attract about 20-40% of the potential demand with 0 RI (depending on the demand) if all other variables remain "standard". Lowering ticket prices may attract more demand even with low RI)

* Some adjustments has been made on how airport slots are randomly released.

* Also some adjustments has been made to demand at the start of new game. It is a slow growth globally as usual, but another calculation has been added there making very high demand routes smaller at the beginning of the game.

* Route image growth rate is adjusted to be a bit slower when going up and faster when going down (12 months 0 -> 100, and 8 months 100 -> 0).

* Marketing adjusted so that it's not possible to achieve high (>50) company image values if you have a very small airline (fleet size).

* Dashboard items "alliance forum" and "press releases" moved a bit higher on the page.

On this recent update, does this mean that, while CI=50 is top max for small airlines, there is also not any adjustment to the rate of change to CI based on spend level?  

Also, as an airline surpasses the size threshold for CI=50, does the cap gradually lift or is it a step function across a few threshold points?

[Jona L.]

Ask Jona L.  He's BK'd in DOTM like 6 times now

Just stumbled over this by random-clicking around in the forums....

Normally I'd say "screw you", but since this is public and monitored, I'm not (just kidding ).
Well, I'll have you know it was 5 times, and it is mostly because I'm lacking time to manage anything serious.

Anyways, I've used the wizard for JA, and it appears, that the "disclaimer" about the player being smarter than the search engine is correct. It came up with a few useful ideas, but most of them were not exactly ideal, and it didn't find anything for some search criteria (I can't remember which though).

cheers,
[SC] Jona L.

[exchlbg]

How is a very small airline defined? By number aircrafts? Number of routes? PAX ? Aircraft sizes ?

[Mr.HP]

Fleet size equals number of aircraft, as i get it

[Zombie Slayer]

Re: The ability to reuse flight numbers now.

This will help to clean up the timetable pages and is a welcome addition. Can I make one more request on this topic, though? As of now, it appears that we will have to manually change the flight number. This alone will be enough to keep some users from using this feature (adds another step to scheduling) including me.

With that in mind, can an option be added to the "create another route like this for the next day" option to use the same flight number? Maybe a check box?

Don

[Sami]

I'll change it so that 'create next day' button will use the same flight number, if the origin flight is planned 1x weekly. That should do it for most...?

[Zombie Slayer]

That would be great, thank you!

Don

[JumboShrimp]

I'll change it so that 'create next day' button will use the same flight number, if the origin flight is planned 1x weekly. That should do it for most...?

I haven't seen it in action yet, but it would be great if it was collapsible / expandable.

[LemonButt]

I'll change it so that 'create next day' button will use the same flight number, if the origin flight is planned 1x weekly. That should do it for most...?

I have been playing with this and updating routes.  I think the best solution is to make AWS "smart" and do the route pairing automagically.  When a route is submitted that isn't 7 days/week, do a quick select on the database for routes to the destination that depart at the same time with the same fleet type and update the flight numbers in the background.  You could also just loop this function to clean up the existing database entries.  The only caveat is it will break if you have some clown trying to schedule more than 1 flight daily at the same exact time.

Also, instead of the keyword search on flight numbers, I think it would be slicker/cleaner to have a drop down that shows the flights with a link to view them.  So it would look like this:

Flight:
FT1024

Drop Down on click, close on blur:
1-3-5-7 (direct link to flight--no keyword searching in manage routes)
-2----- (direct link)
---4--- (direct link)
-----6- (direct link)

[JumboShrimp]

I haven't seen it in action yet, but it would be great if it was collapsible / expandable.

I noticed that it kind of is.  Clicking the collapsed flight number opens the Manage Routes page with the 7 component flights.  Very neat. 

[Cardinal]

I'll probably use this in MT where I don't have many 7-day schedules yet, so changing will be easy.

However, my DOTM airline has a massive number of 7-day schedules and I have developed my own way of simplifying it that works incredibly well for me (although nobody else seems to be able to understand it... I'm used to that). I hope I will be able to continue doing it the "old" way for the duration of that game, my notes and research depend on my route number scheme staying the way it is. Changing it mid-stream is going to result in chaos. At the very least, I need to wait until my first round of fleet retirements to change flight numbering schemes.

[rubiohiguey]

For CI <50, how is the small airline define? Asked already but not answered. Thx.

Also, on routes page, is it possible to add a link that will display all routes at once, instead of clicking next, next, next?

[schro]

Also, on routes page, is it possible to add a link that will display all routes at once, instead of clicking next, next, next?

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but if you're looking at opening route planning pages for a number of routes, I would suggest right clicking and opening them in a new tab (or click your mousewheel). That will allow you to have the search window open along with however many route pages that you want.

[rubiohiguey]

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but if you're looking at opening route planning pages for a number of routes, I would suggest right clicking and opening them in a new tab (or click your mousewheel). That will allow you to have the search window open along with however many route pages that you want.

Nope, what I mean is under -> Routes -> Manage Routes, only a part of the routes is displayed, and then you have to click "Next Page" on the bottom.

I would like a link (or settings option) where all routes would be displayed at once, without having to click next page, next page, next page ...

[schro]

Nope, what I mean is under -> Routes -> Manage Routes, only a part of the routes is displayed, and then you have to click "Next Page" on the bottom.

I would like a link (or settings option) where all routes would be displayed at once, without having to click next page, next page, next page ...

There is a setting available to display up to 90 per page. After that, you'll want to make use of the various search and sorting options that you have. Once you've got a few thousand routes, no level of pagination is going to help you...

[BD]

You can now assign the same flight number for multiple individual flights. The requirements are that the routes must be to the same destination and on different days (local departure day from base airport); aircraft type or departure time makes no difference...
Please note that this change has no effect on current routes that have _different_ flight numbers. So I'd request all players who use this 7 day method to create flights with the same flight numbers from now on.

The "current routes not affected" part of the message seems to address whether this change will convert existing routes under the same criteria.  It won't.  No problem.

Not sure if I am reading between the lines, but can one change the flight number assignment on existing flights to bring them together under one?

I noticed this works like a charm after creating a route and then clicking on create same route on another day option.  I'd hate to have my browser blow up mid way through as I wouldn't have access to "create on another day" option (that I know of) and then have no means to bring new routes under that same number.

[Sami]

Yes of course, the flight number can be changed any time.

(I won't force the system to automatically change or group anything that do not have the same number, as it would create more problems. But I am not expecting people to change their current numbers either, more of a thing for the future games and any newly added flights in current games)

[Infinity]

* Some changes to airport slot pricings:

- The new slot fees for monopoly position (>50% of owned slots at any large airport that is slot limited) are increased.

- A new calculation to dynamic slot costs that checks how many slots your airline has acquired from this airport in the near past, scaling costs according to this (= lots of new slots in the last two months will increase the costs). This discourages airlines to get large amount of slots from airports at once batch (= when they are released) giving others better chances when they become too expensive for the one. The settings and costs are scaled so that it does not limit normal airlines opening a few new routes every week.

- Also some other minor adjustments.

While this might have been a good idea, the scale of the effect is simply preposterous. A single day now costs as much as an entire set did before, and that is more than a month after getting the last major amount of slots, so if I had just gotten any measurable amount beside the occasional single slot, I would probably pay even more.
I agree that the slot system needs some overhaul, but adding this punitive system without any advance notice is just plain wrong. This is simply doctoring on the symptoms while neglecting the true problem at the core of it, and it takes away the single method of potentially controlling the competition (locking them out) that was left for the players after the changes made earlier in the year which practically made it impossible for anyone to bankrupt if he made no major mistakes.
A new system, yes please, but this tinkering with a broken system is crap.

[Tim]

Sami,

It is ridiculous to pay 10M per 1 single slot! Longhaul flights usually create profits about 100-200K. So, it will take YEAR to beat slot cost. And there is also aircraft, fuel, fees!

You'd better improve fleet commonality system rather than kill big airlines!

Not sure, I'll continue the game after using my existing credits... Because it will just become boring without open new routes(