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

[half]

Hi,

so i want to find out something. That change was introduced because:

- There are airlines that "slot-hog" with too small planes (like on LH i guess) and block slots on a crowded Airport (e.g. Heathrow)

- There are other airliners that "slot-steal" when new slots come availabel also with ?wrong? airplanes. Or right ones (because woudl that be the purpose)

- There are airlines that grow ?too fast? and get a lot of slots before ?not as fast / slower airlines? that get a monopoly in an airport

Therefore you get a penalty for doing either of those things right?

From the manual:

"The broad task in AirwaySim is simply to manage an airline, and to make it operate fluently and to keep it profitable. As often in management simulations or strategy games there is no preset task or goal for the player. In AirwaySim there are various statistics that can be used to compare airlines but there is no definitive score or rank of who is the best as that would not be meaningful; each airline can have very different business plans and strategies so comparing them is difficult."

Now stated by the game rules, everyone has their own goal to follow. So there is no "winning" per se. What is important for one is maybe not important for someone else. To ?balance? this and give everyone a fair chance we penalize things defined by ?rules?. But if there are no basic principals to "be good or the best" on what base we do this?

But if i do my job good and my goal is to get BIG or survive in an airport with strong competition, i will also be penelazid.

I think i am the wrong example but i am the current slot leader in my airport (KIAH). So i am now paying for trying to follow my goal.... uhm.... (me dont like )

From one standpoint i can totaly understand what you did sami. I actually prevents (or slows down i guess) big airlines to grow in a non linear way. It also prevents slot-hogging to a certain point. And it reduces the ammount of personal work needed to check "slot-hoggers" or every claim of a slot hog / stealer.

Now after this long text (sorry for repeating certain points) some ideas:

New airlines founded:

Every new airlines get the first two planes instant. Why not give that founded airline also slots for their schedule. Regardless of the current slot situation in an airport. As these are handed out to the fresh airlines they are taken out of the random increase on that airport. To prevent overusage BKíng and restarting at the same airport wont give you free slots for plane 1&2. At another airport yes.

Abusing would be by 25 alliance players would BK and start fresh at Heathrow to get those slots. *moep* Falls under the Targeting rules therefore banhammer. (i can draw a picture of a big hammer if you like)

You already give slot warnings and percentages to new airlines that open at some airport. So if someone is unable to read the red 0% slots message, i cannot help him. He will get slots for those two. But after that being a sitting duck.

The price per slot is bound to the demand of the slots (as it was / is ) and an influence factor of overall of availble slots on that airport.

Slot-Hogs:

Catching up the idea of different slot types per plane type. 737 Slots are not 757 slots. You can trade up and down but you have to pay a difference and an extrodinary fee that goes up the more you do it / by time. (simlar to what you implented with this change)

Now additional:

I would love a total different approve that is more realistic to the real life. If you look at certain airports, most part of that airport is payed and sponsored by a certain airline. (ORD is United land) (IAH was Continental land). The growth of these airports was payed by a lot of money trough those airliners. I know this would not come overnight but i think it would add a lot to the simulation if concoures and gates are bought by airlines. That alone limits the parallel flights of a certain airliner. And construction time of new concourses delay the growth dramaticly. There are always certain shared gates that a bought per flight (or rented to be honest). But "Delta" would not start tommorow flying 40 planes to KORD because they found some 100.000.000 USD (zeros missing intentionaly) around the corner plus the planes.

Also that airport has only a certain starting and landing capacity. To grow those a certain ammount of demand needs to exists. New starting and landing capicity is then added with new runways (again construction time = slow down of growth). So slots are distributed automaticly by the simulation, and you need a gate + concourse capacity to handle flights.

I totaly understand that this cannot be developed in a wimp. Maybe this was discussed 1000 times and i was only to stupid to search and find it.

For me my newest slots i bought i had to pay monopoly 1 & 2. That was quiet steep for some slots. But i get what your are trying.

[Sami]

Okay .. I was absent for the afternoon with very limited connectivity, so my reply was delayed, sorry for that. I've had now the chance to review all new comments, and here are some replies.

Like I have already posted before this update was only and all about making excessive amount of slot acquisitions more expensive. In other words an airport gets 120+ new slots and a single airline gets them all a few times in a row - this is not good by any standards for other 5 airlines based there. There was no cost metric available for the rate of slots taken before and it was now added. The main and only goal has been to make it more difficult (read: costly) for such situations (but not prohibit it all together, just add some cost based regulation there since no airport ever would allow single airline to use all their runway slots!), and it does not and should not have any noticeable effects on normal playing style, big or small aircraft.

Slots have ALWAYS (eg. very long time) been dynamic in terms of pricing. Some of you seem to think that it is now somehow a new idea and that's why all this mess. No. Slots have always been priced so that if you have lots of them, you pay more for the new ones too at that airport. And also if you fly to crowded airport, you pay more, and so forth. This principle will not change within the current slot system.

Also like I posted earlier the rise in slot costs when you repeatedly get lots of them is not anything huge (ie. not 10x original price). Someone talked of billions and such but these figures are taken out of nowhere.

Anyway. I agree that the implementation of this update has not gone as planned (there is a local saying to this too .. when something does not go exactly like in one wonderful Swedish gardening-cooking program where sun always shines and everyone is having fun..). Hence the slot cost calculation part of the recent slot acquisitions has been turned off and is pending further development. There will be also an open call to a beta group that will be testing things that will be implemented in current version games (more of this separately, pls do not ask yet/here). For long term solutions I'd like to remind again of the thread at the feature rq. forum where we can talk of alternate solutions to this first come - first served based issue of the slot system.

So now when the cat is effectively on the table please share ideas here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,49624.0.html



Some random quotes/replies below too (may have missed something):

so if you need 4 slots a day for your aircraft to be financially viable then your called a slot hogger

No you are not. If you are getting those 4x daily slots for 10 planes at once, then yes.

If you guys properly read what sami wrote, you will notice he spoke of MONTHS not WEEKS.

So if you get 4 of those planes in 2 mths that is 12-20 slot sets in 2 months, or as a matter of fact costs in high 8 digits if not 9 digits in total. and with 20 of those coming, presumably within one year, he'll be incurring costs nearing the BILLION dollars for slots, and I don't think an airline with 20ish 320s can support that for scheduling ATRS which are already hard to get a return on in the first place.

This is mostly totally incorrect "information" and calculation. The calculation checks back for two months in time but gives higher weight on slots taken in the last few days. Billions for scheduling for a that amount of planes is simply not true.

With a truly random system no one could figure out how slots are released (as it must have happened now as far as I understand the fuzz).

Well, has anyone figured it out? Not heard of it at least, and this update was not because of that.

And in EVERY MMOG the users with the most online time have the biggest advantages, AWS is and can technically not be an exception to this.

In AWS the online time, sitting here 24/7, should not count that much really compared to some other online games.. (in optimal situation)

Sami, I don't understand why you shut down my vote, I haven't made it to insult someone

There were already some comments from which a potential fight could start. Given that, and the fact that I wasn't online to check it, it was locked. And also because everything was already under this thread.

[Curse]

Well, has anyone figured it out? Not heard of it at least, and this update was not because of that.

Yes.

[Aoitsuki]

Yes.

if people figured it out... then they won't be online for hours every day and refreshing every 10-15 minutes like a lunatic. And be on the money for slot as soon as they are online.

btw welcome back

[Sami]

Yes.

Well, PM me about that then, and I can then comment if the observations are true or not.


(Though in case it would have been figured out, why I am not surprised at all to see one figuring some game advantage and not informing about it (to improve it), and instead keeping the info to his/mates advantage, eh?)


Also out of interest, here are the last occurences when new slots were released to airports in MT#9 (game time) and how many airports the update round affected:

1999-03-24, 105 airports updated
1999-04-03, 472 airports
1999-04-16, 400 airports
1999-05-06, 552 airports

[brique]

To be cynical, it all depends on your POV : if I do it, I'm playing smart ; if they do it, they are cheats.

sad to say, years of on-line gaming have proved that attitude to be the case amongst a growing number of players.

[JumboShrimp]

Also out of interest, here are the last occurences when new slots were released to airports in MT#9 (game time) and how many airports the update round affected:

1999-03-24, 105 airports updated
1999-04-03, 472 airports
1999-04-16, 400 airports
1999-05-06, 552 airports

Is that an indication of a more slot releases, looking at the jump from 105 airports affected to ~450 for last 3 slot releases

[Sami]

Is that an indication of a more slot releases, looking at the jump from 105 airports affected to ~450 for last 3 slot releases

Probably just random (since it checks also how long ago the airport was last updated), sadly don't have the older log of that here anymore so cannot see when an update before that one happened. (also cannot pinpoint which airports were updated within each calculation run, database saves the previous single generation date only as it's not important information to be logged)

[Curse]

Well, PM me about that then, and I can then comment if the observations are true or not.


(Though in case it would have been figured out, why I am not surprised at all to see one figuring some game advantage and not informing about it (to improve it), and instead keeping the info to his/mates advantage, eh?)

I and others told you in public and private directly after you implemented the so falsely called "random" system it can be exploited. You ignored half about those information and rejected the other half.

As you know I'm not active, but I heard some people (and no, none of my "mates") finally exploited this situation to a level you could not ignore it further and thus why you made those changes now.

To accuse me of not telling you about is just wrong. If you really care about I'm sure you can search my old comments to find some about this "random" system and how it does not work.

[Sami]

I and others told you in public and private directly after you implemented the so falsely called "random" system it can be exploited. You ignored half about those information and rejected the other half.

That's funny since I cannot seem to recall? Any links to these public threads? (though it may be possible too that I have missed something)

(Or did you really still think slots appear every month's 3rd day or whatever it was previously? ..the randomization has been in 'full' effect since 11/2012)

thus why you made those changes now.

Incorrect.

[JumboShrimp]

That's funny since I cannot seem to recall? Any links to these public threads? (though it may be possible too that I have missed something)

(Or did you really still think slots appear every month's 3rd day or whatever it was previously? ..the randomization has been in 'full' effect since 11/2012)

I seem to recall I informed Sami of the issue, after we, at Elite observed 3-4 cycles of the slot releases not being random.  But for some reason, I can't find the PM.  I have a 3 month gap in my outbox around 11/2012.

[Sami]

I seem to recall I informed Sami of the issue

This I do somewhat faintly remember and after that the latest changes on the matter were made (11/2012) if I am not mistaken.

[JumboShrimp]

This I do somewhat faintly remember and after that the latest changes on the matter were made (11/2012) if I am not mistaken.

That timing sounds right.  It was sometime in middle of MT7.

[brique]

have to say, I'm surprised by all the fuss being made : seems to me that very little has actually changed and we are seeing a massive knee-jerk reaction from some who feel it will hinder their current 'strategy' ; which is what, exactly?

Slots are still going to grow over time same as before : slot releases will still occur same as before : if you want to take them up, you'll need to be able to schedule them onto aircraft ready to fly within 2 weeks, same as before : what does change is the ability of one player to grab every slot from the current release in one big swoop before anyone else notices the drop. Well, they still can, if they are willing to pay the price for them : if not, some are left for others to take-up, if they are happy with the price. Now, seems to me that's a fair enough way to deal with a problem we never hear the end of : one player grabbing every slot at release time+ 1 minute.

So, I'm left to consider that the real bugbear regarding these changes for some is that they dont really want this issue resolved, they are happy with the winner-takes-all method ; it suits their strategy ; but then why should that be, as a random method should advantage nobody above another : one day they take all, the next, another does : but that then throws up the argument about ordered planes now left unused : surely under a truly random method, that will occur on a regular basis anyway? So, there is a logic problem there for me : and it does leave some unpleasant possible explanations : that maybe the random drops are not so random after all, for some, or that the current limitations on re-loading slot availability are not working as they should, for some. The how of it isnt necessarily important right now : but the winner-takes-all approach does work much better when you know you are more likely to be that winner.

Okay, that's sensitive ground to be walking on, and I am categorically not saying anyone is being  dishonest : but when the casino sees a player win ten times in a row, it knows the possibility is that it could be genuine good fortune, but the probability is that something is not working as it should be.

[JumboShrimp]

have to say, I'm surprised by all the fuss being made : seems to me that very little has actually changed and we are seeing a massive knee-jerk reaction from some who feel it will hinder their current 'strategy' ; which is what, exactly?

You may not be aware of the sequence of events.  Let me give you my example:

After missing 2 slot releases at my airport, I finally caught one while I was online, and while I was in middle of scheduling aircraft, the slot cost went up from ~1.5m per set to 38m per set.  Fortunately for me, it happened when my cash balance was low at the time, and I got a warning of not enough cash, but I know someone who was wiped out by automatically clicking confirm on the route creation screen.  This sort of jump in slot acquisition price by a factor of 10x - 20x seriously freaked out many people.

Since then the penalty was scaled down in 2 steps and it may be suspended now.

and it does leave some unpleasant possible explanations : that maybe the random drops are not so random after all, for some, or that the current limitations on re-loading slot availability are not working as they should, for some. The how of it isnt necessarily important right now : but the winner-takes-all approach does work much better when you know you are more likely to be that winner.

As far as I know, the slot releases now are truly random.

Okay, that's sensitive ground to be walking on, and I am categorically not saying anyone is being  dishonest : but when the casino sees a player win ten times in a row, it knows the possibility is that it could be genuine good fortune, but the probability is that something is not working as it should be.

You don't have to be online, and catch a slot release within a minute.  They don't disappear instantly.  But a player who has a luxury of working on a computer, and cat regularly check the slot count, that person will a lot more likely catch a slot release than a person who logs in once per day.  So it is not a peculiar good fortune, it is just plain probability theory...

[Kadachiman]

I do recall threads where players had worked out the slot release times...so I have to agree with Curse on this one...and if memory serves me correctly he was one of the few people that did highlight 'the bug'

There was one particular alliance where the majority of its members took the alternative path of 'taking advantage of this bug' rather than reporting it (they are mentioned earlier in this thread) and as a result 3 or 4 of the leading 'culprits' were given a very small slap across the wrist in the form of a financial penalty...the lead culprit went onto win the Game World.
The alliance even went to great lengths to defend their actions to other players with public posts.

So if this change is aimed at stopping that type of gaming abuse again, then I am all for it.

Lets face it - how do some of these Mega Airlines get so big? Is it exceptional game play? or is it a combination of good game play and something else?.... I will leave that up to you to decide.

[brique]

Yes, there was a scaling issue which Sami got onto fairly fast : I'm not disputing the immediate effects which were unexpected and did cause problems : but I think we all know that Sami is very amenable to checking back and, if necessary fixing them fast : I picked up a recent bug that crept in regarding pax take-up on overnight flights and it was fixed almost by return of post, okay, I did lose some revenue in the meantime, but the quick fix was enough to not let it be a major nightmare : and we also know that he is open to considering compensation arrangements for those hit hard when things go a bit haywire during changes. Maybe that we have an almost unprecedented degree of access to the game developer makes me more relaxed about bugs/issues as I know they will be addressed and fixed : other games its only the sound of mass charge-backs hitting their merchant accounts that will attract anyone into the forums to address player issues. So maybe we are spoilt a bit here and should maybe take things less for granted and not expect instant solutions to protracted issues.

I'm refering more to the opposition to the changes per se, that they somehow wreck long-held plans regarding plane ordering and such : that not being able to grab all the slots when they drop is vitally necessary and cant be replaced by a system which should allow some slots from every drop to be within reasonable reach of all. You missed two slot drops, you mention : did that mess up your fleet ordering policy? No, because you ordered them expecting to be able to get enough slots within a reasonable period of them being delivered : that hasn't changed, just the distribution of slots available over that period will be different, is all. Nothing stops you taking all the ones there, if you feel the price is worth it, but that applies anyway ; the last slots in a batch always command top price : now its higher to discourage anyone from grabbing them all, which was the issue needing a solution, as I recall.

[JumboShrimp]

Lets face it - how do some of these Mega Airlines get so big? Is it exceptional game play? or is it a combination of good game play and something else?.... I will leave that up to you to decide.

It is very simple.  All of the big airlines used the LH "exploit".  Not really exploit any more since it is public info.  I posted on it numerous times and suggested ways to close it, as in here:
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,46457.0.html

[AUpilot77]

It is very simple.  All of the big airlines used the LH "exploit".  Not really exploit any more since it is public info.  I posted on it numerous times and suggested ways to close it, as in here:
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,46457.0.html

Exactly! If a strategy is open and not dubbed illegal or a bug, I don't see how it can be considered an "exploit".  The whole point of this simulation is to try to figure out the best way to get to an end goal.  If its available and it works then why not use it?  I'm really hoping we aren't turning into a group of people that say succeeding is illegal. 

[Zombie Slayer]

I do recall threads where players had worked out the slot release times...so I have to agree with Curse on this one...and if memory serves me correctly he was one of the few people that did highlight 'the bug'

There was one particular alliance where the majority of its members took the alternative path of 'taking advantage of this bug' rather than reporting it (they are mentioned earlier in this thread) and as a result 3 or 4 of the leading 'culprits' were given a very small slap across the wrist in the form of a financial penalty...the lead culprit went onto win the Game World.
The alliance even went to great lengths to defend their actions to other players with public posts.

So if this change is aimed at stopping that type of gaming abuse again, then I am all for it.

Lets face it - how do some of these Mega Airlines get so big? Is it exceptional game play? or is it a combination of good game play and something else?.... I will leave that up to you to decide.

Funny, I don't see the worst offending alliance mentioned anywhere in this thread...