AirwaySim Previews

[Sami]

This is a dedicated thread for previews about future developments of AirwaySim.

The features and changes displayed here are not yet available in the game worlds - the implementations are announced separately in the changelog thread.


All game related implemented updates are posted to this thread: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,58865.0.html

Updates to the website core and non-game systems are announced in this thread: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,54937.0.html


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/board,1.0.html

[Sami]

Cargo previews

The cargo features are one of the things under development at the moment.

Each airline will be allowed to transport cargo with dedicated freighter aircraft or as belly cargo with their passenger flights (depending on available capacity).

Cargo will have three categories: light cargo, standard cargo and heavy cargo. The type of cargo dictates the types of aircraft able to transport it. For example a small regional aircraft like ATR is only able to transport the light cargo (like mail), while standard cargo can be transported in A320 series planes as belly cargo already. Heavy cargo will always require a dedicated freighter airplane.

The database of cargo capacity of each aircraft is still incomplete (70%?) and many pure cargo planes are missing but this data will be supplemented after the initial implementation.

Technically the cargo system will be built to use the new city based demand model where the cargo demand is independent of airports, but is generated from the global population and economy data instead. This will be the first step to test this new system and it will be built and implemented bit by bit - first versions will be rather static and limited but improvements will be made over time.

Cargo demand and sales figures will be presented to the players in a very much similar manner than passenger figures.

[Sami]

Start with ready-made airlines

Especially in the Beginner's Worlds the new users tend to struggle with the somewhat complicated first steps of setting up their airlines. The manual does explain all the necessary information but people are not always determined enough to read through the long start-up guide.

That's why a completely new feature has been in the works for a longer time already allowing players to start with ready-made airlines with a few simple clicks. This means that player will only need to choose the airport and the base steps of creating the airline with active scheduled routes will be taken care by the game engine - this way the new users can avoid some of the costly initial mistakes like getting the _completely_ wrong aircraft.

These airlines are created based on the information the "base finder wizard" gathers from airports (their available demand, available slots etc.) and based on availability of suitable used aircraft from AI brokers' storages.

The player simply needs to choose the continent and type of operation (short or medium-haul .. longhaul start is not supported due to difficult scheduling) and then he is presented a list of suitable airports. Upon confirming the airport and choosing the airline name, the airport will have a fully set up and ready (small) airline for him to manage. The airline will be created by the game engine based on the chosen airport, available start-up cash, available aircraft and available routes&slots. The system will lease the necessary amount of airplanes based on the available cash (usually 2-4), will create routes based on potential routes, set up schedules for the aircraft, hires staff, sets up marketing and does all the other necessary preparations required for the initial step.

There is no financial or other advantage of using this feature compared to the standard start, since the game engine won't use any more cash than available for example. The scheduling of the routes for example won't be as smart as human-created route structure but will be something that should allow the new players to get off the ground without too much learning. In other words this is a very basic setup utilizing as much of the default settings and features as possible, but creating ready basic schedules for the player.

These ready-made airlines are not airlines left by other players, but are always generated on the fly. The feature of 'reviving' old bankrupted airlines under new management is being considered too but this new feature is made purely to help the new players get onboard easier.


(This feature is still under development, but ETA shoudn't be too far away.)

[Sami]

Cargo previews & thoughts

A bit more work with cargo features for a change.

One of the key aspects of the cargo feature is to make it understandable. Since the background calculations at AirwaySim are very complicated and the features take into account a large number of aspects in aircraft operations and performance (all the payload vs. range calculations etc.), adding the cargo on top of everything might become very complicated for players to manage and understand.

An important thing to all this is the aircraft cargo configuration and available cargo types. It has been decided that there are three different cargo types the players can transport. These are named simply as Light, Standard and Heavy Cargo (like mentioned in the other preview earlier). And the fourth type to be carried in the cargo holds are the checked bags of the passengers. Since the cargo holds are not only for cargo, but there are the bags too, the amount of available cargo space and it's display to players is a matter of potential complexity. We know the total cargo hold space of aircraft, and the amount of cargo that can be placed there varies according to the number of bags already placed there (and the number of bags varies according to number of passengers) - so the cargo space could be potentially a complicated thing for players.

In light of all this, the cargo system will work so that player is able to configure his aircraft for cargo in a simple method by allocating certain percentage of cargo space for each of the available cargo types (taking into account the limitations on allowed cargo types vs. aircraft model/size; for example Heavy Cargo is for pure freighters only). In other words the player can simply state that "I want 70% of the available cargo space for Light Cargo, and 30% for Standard Cargo" and the system will figure out the rest.

The system will figure out the volume and weight needed by the bags of the passengers in the cargo hold. The rest of the cargo hold space is then available for the cargo transport, and it will be filled according to the cargo configuration set by the player. But only if the route's payload restrictions allow this - if the route is payload restricted (runway or range), the passengers are loaded first and only after that any remaining space/payload is then allocated for cargo (by sharing the remaining space according to the cargo configuration).

Each of the passengers and their bags will have a defined weight. The number of checked bags (into cargo hold) per passenger will vary upon aircraft size class, since usually on longer flights the passengers have more bags. Each of the three cargo types have also dedicated and fixed properties (certain size and weight per unit that apply for all cargo transports for that cargo class). There are also other properties like minimum required cargo hold space to tranrport certain type of cargo.


Practical example of the cargo space available (the cargo space is calculated with the assumption that all seats are sold):

• DC-9-32 has a Payload of 13674 kg, Cargo Hold Volume of 25,3 m3 and will carry 100 passengers in the default configuration.
  
• By game's settings we will have 75 bags á 15 kg and volume of 0.17m3 per bag (based on our research; the average weight/dimension). Hence the total weight of bags is 1125kg and total volume is 12,75m3. Weight of a single passenger is on average 83kg (person and carry on bags).
  
• Summing all together the total payload we transport is 9425kg and total volume used so far from the cargo hold is the 12,75m2.
  
• So the remaining space for cargo is then 4249kg (13674-9425) and volume 12,55m2 (25,3 - 12,75). And these are the two values that are displayed to players in the main interface (with minor roundings). Also the total cargo hold volume is displayed for reference.
  
• Naturally players are not expected to calculate or know any of this, but this is just to show how the system works in the background and how many things it will take into account.
  
• Some aircraft may not be able to transport extra cargo after all the bags on any routes at all - the cargo hold or payload capacity may be too small. This will be then shown separately as zero capacity. Creating a seating configuration with less seats will then free up payload/space for cargo.
  
• Some planes are also missing the cargo capacity data alltogether and will show a similar message.

Based on all these calculations and settings the actual cargo capacity for each route/flight is calculated. It will be shown to players at the route pages (not done/coded yet) and the total cargo demand/supply figures will be also visible in a similar manner like passenger demand figures.

For pure freighter aircraft all these calculations are naturally more simple. But there too the cargo configuration / allocation will be based on the same percentage-based aircraft configuration (customizable by players).

The system creates already the factory default configurations with the cargo settings in place, while the user interface for cargo configuration hasn't been done yet. The aircraft interface pages on this matter are done and they display this information based on all these calculations (see pictures). The New/Used Aircraft listing pages have also a new selector to choose 'Cargo Only' aircraft (the pure freighters).

All aircraft range values (the so called 'nominal range') will continue to be shown like they are now. This means that the range is shown for full passenger payload (and their bags) and no cargo. Any cargo added on top of that will then reduce the effective range (displaying the 'maximum payload range' might not be feasible instead of this 'maximum passenger capacity range' - but this can be changed based on feedback).

Complicated or not..? Comments to this thread please: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Cargo previews

Here are some screenshots on how the interface will look with cargo features enabled.

There's still quite a lot of work and tuning to do since the cargo information will be present in several places but on the other hand quite much of the interface has been done already. The latest changelog entry lists a lot of things that have been updated and I'd say the interface is 80% complete to work with cargo. Much of the tuning will be done later on based on user feedback - since, like mentioned in the previous post, some aspects of the cargo allocation might be complicated to understand since cargo goes always after pax and their bags and the amount varies for each flight.

Another very big thing (can be considered as big/complicated as the interface too) is the background calculation systems that control the amount of cargo demand and how it is distributed to the flights. The generation of the demand figures will come from the new city based demand system, and the first technical concept has been already done for it but it's still a long way from being complete. The initial test versions will include a completely static system at first (with no shift in demand between adjacent airports).

Preview pictures below are:

• Income statement
  
  
• My Aircraft listing page
  
  
• Aircraft details page, financial overview
  
  
• Route information page's cargo display
  
  
• Route information page's price display and adjustment.
  
  
• Route history data and charts.
  
  
• Route planning screen of estimated cargo demand and market share.
  

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Interactive assistant previews

Here are some early previews of a feature aimed to help the new players to get started better, an interactive assistant.

This is a live tutorial mode that will help the new users to get their airline going in a step-by-step manner. It will start by directing them through the airline creation process (using the new easy start option), and then it will present the game interface and all the major functions to the user. The contents of the assistant's flow will be basically the same as in the startup guide of the manual. So it will act as a live version of the essential parts of the beginner's tutorial (which many users neglect to read).

The assistant feature is one of the last major things on our "master list" of making the game more friendly to new users. The previous updates of new airline boosts & operational discounts, and the aforementioned easy start feature are some of the other major updates in this field. All of these changes have been directed mainly for the benefit of the new users, since previously the simulation has been hard to grasp and it has been also somewhat difficult to enter competed game worlds, but with these updates things should be much better.

This assistant system is currently in technical "proof of concept" phase and it only works for the airline creation process so far (on the development server). It will be tested together with the cargo testing later on.


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Cargo feature's progress report

The first private test game of the new cargo features is soon completed so it's a good time for a small progress report:

The cargo design is progressing among other AirwaySim's updates and the first alpha-level test game has been almost finished now. At this time already a thanks to the volunteers who have been sending ideas and feedback based on the test game. Generally the testing has been moving along without major problems and the main focus has been so far to test only the general concepts and the interface (such as route planning screens and other most used functions).

Most of the interface's pages and functions already support cargo and the few remaining ones will be completed during the next month (together with the remainder of the bugfixes related to the first cargo test game). You can monitor the progress of individual pages/features from the Changelog.

Also parts of aircraft data is still lacking the required cargo information, and the cargo-only aircraft models are not yet added. The first release version of cargo will be most likely with only "belly cargo" and the full freighters will be added later on (even though the system technically fully supports them already; the data collection just takes a bit of time).

The next phases will involve the completion of the new City-Based Demand system which is a key cornerstone of the whole cargo system. This new demand model will be previewed and explained in detail later on but in short it means a completely new approach to the way the demand figures from airport to another are calculated. They are no longer based on each airport's predefined statistics but instead on country's historically accurate economic values, and the data of individual areas in the country. So no longer will an airport be big just because a major airline is flying to it - it will need a big economy/city to support the natural local demand from it. The new demand system will be first built only for cargo so the passenger systems will remain in the current airport-based demand model until enough experience has been gained from the new system with the cargo feature.

The demand system's development is a major task. In the first test game it has been running with static and dummy figures but has had all technical calculation basis already in place. Now the development will shift into making the system produce realistic figures and after that making it dynamic and responsive to player's actions (where the demand can shift between two airports competing over the same area). This will be, again, done in several parts to make sure everything works (so the first version is a static system, and then later on adding the dynamic elements to it).

As usual there is no defined timeline, and the cargo feature will be released when it is done and tested. Since AirwaySim's isn't produced by a big & evil corporation, we don't wish to release anything half-done either.

Some pictures of the interface:

• Freighter aircraft data page
  
  
• Part of the cargo statistics
  
  
• Route planning page

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

City Based Demand systems

This is the first official preview of the new City Based Demand system that is planned to power the new cargo feature, and later also the passenger traffic figures.

Please bear with me as this is mainly a text-only preview since the interface won't have much new to show.


What is City Based Demand?

The current method of modelling passenger traffic figures between airports is based on real-life data and statistics of airports, which are then used to calculate the assumed passenger numbers between two airports. These numbers are factored with other values to get suitable results for each game world and each era. This can be called Airport Based Demand system and it is static and non-responsive to player's actions.

The new demand system, City Based Demand, aims to free players from the shackles of traditional large real-world HUB airports making the passenger demand figures independent from the airports.

The benefits of the new system are that it makes the game worlds more dynamic, it allows players to develop airport traffic based on his actions and it enables us to create a more detailed economic environment with regional changes in the economy (vs. global at current model). This new model was first suggested already a long time ago, and the (huge) data collection efforts have taken its time. And as with all major features, the development happens parallel to other smaller updates, so progress isn't always lightning fast.

The key to understanding the new demand model is that passenger demand is no longer airport-to-airport, but region-to-region and airports only serve as the gateways between these two points. So the specifications of an airport have nothing to do with the potential demand it has anymore (i.e. even the small city airport will have the potential long-haul demand - but in practice in the games the demand will shift to other airports with actual longhaul service).


Technical background

To calculate the passenger and cargo travel desire between two points, we've split the world into predefined areas. Each of these areas has certain values and specifications - some of these are collected by our users (thank you!!) and others are loaded from various statistical sources. This way we know for example which area of each country is a holiday resort or an important industrial center.

This background data is dynamic and based on real history - for example the economy trend values are based on actual historical stats, and this allows us to model situations like recessions in some country (see image #1, this depicts the economy development of a country - there are several points where the economy shrinks or grows rapidly). Using all this data the system will figure out the total potential demand departing from this predefined area (this is not visible to players, just a step in the process).

This demand can then be assigned to any nearby airport. The airport must usually be within the same country, but if the political situation allows border crossings all or some of the demand may also end up in nearby airports in the neighbouring countries.

Each airport has a designated catchment area which determines the range and amount of demand they can catch from these nearby areas. This catchment area changes over time based on the size of the airport and can be between 50 to 200 kilometers depending on the size classification of the airport. (see image #2, an example from the admin interface that shows the catchment area of a regional airport)

Finally this demand caught by the airport is calculated together and will be presented to player in the familiar "airport to airport demand" chart. So the interface of the game will not change that much - the players will still research demand between airport pairs like already now. But the big difference is that airports are now only facilitators of the demands generated by cities and other areas, like in real life.


Demand can be caught by many airports

When a game world starts, a demand from an area is very often caught by many airports with overlapping catchment areas. Think for example Tokyo with two major airports, Haneda and Narita (see image #3, the catchment areas of the airports are overlapping and the airports "fight" over the same demand). Both of these airports catch the area of greater-Tokyo.

This means that the local area demand from Tokyo area is directed to both of these airports based on the distance to the airport and the size classification of the airport. The closer the airport is and the bigger it is, the more demand it will receive from this area. This means that basically the demand for Tokyo area is shared by these two airports (other airports may catch parts of the demand too if they are nearby, but it will only be fractions of the total since they are not so close to the city).

However, and here's the beef, if the other airport (let's say Haneda in this case) is not being served, the demand will gradually move over to the other airport. So after a while the Narita airport would then catch all of Tokyo's demand and would be a very big traffic center. This will then work the other way round too - if later on someone decides to start the routes from Haneda, the demand will then gradually move back towards it (note that due to the technical structure and large scale of the system all of these demand shifts are gradual and take a fair amount of time). This dynamic demand will be previewed in action later when it's finished.

There are many other cities and areas that are served by several airports. Like London, New York and Paris. Effectively this means that the big cities will have now much more competition as the many airports sharing the city will fight over the same demand and the demand is not fixed to the airports anymore. So you won't just compete with the other airlines at your base airport, but with other airlines at other airports nearby - just like in real life. This also means that the old money maker airports like LHR might not be as lucrative as they used to be since the demand from London can be served by for example Gatwick instead of Heathrow (depending on the player's actions).

Once again, the airport only serves the demand and the specifications of the airport have nothing to do with it. So for example initially the small London City airport will have very much long-haul demand to for example North America since it serves the big city of London, but if (and when) nobody will serve this demand it will move to other airports in the area (but the potential for it remains if someone were to start such service later). The runway and slot restrictions at airports make this interesting too - would you start at a small city-center airport with more demand potential than the suburban big airport but risk being limited by the infrastructure (and wait many years for the small city airport to expand, if ever..)?


Traditional big HUB airports won't be big anymore, necessarily

Since the whole demand system will be based on city areas instead of airports the real-life big HUB airports that are big just because there is a big airline present but little local demand (like Atlanta) will lose their meaning. Atlanta area airports will have only the demand from the Atlanta city area (and surroundings) - so for example airports in cities like New York and Los Angeles will have a great deal higher demand numbers since they serve big cities.


Can I build by own big HUB?

Players can indeed make the airports grow and create traffic to airports that would be otherwise quiet. For example you could find a small city airport that will catch the demand of a big city (like Stockholm and the Bromma airport) and start flying from there. Initially your problem can be that the airport might be capacity limited but future versions of this system will allow airports to expand with new runways (more slots) and so forth.

The model of actual flight connections (= fly between points 1 and 2 with transfer to other flight at airports 3) won't be modelled yet at the first release. There are initial plans for it but the development of this whole new demand concept will be made in smaller steps in order to be able to integrate the systems to currently running game worlds.


Only for cargo?

Yes, the new demand systems will be initially used only to create the cargo data between airports. The new passenger demand model will be added later when the concept is tested with cargo.


When?

As usual, no fixed ETA or launch date is given. The development of this feature is just one of many things that are being worked (along the daily upkeep of the systems), and the I don't like make promises of dates that might slip by. This is a complicated system with dozens of different smaller components to change and update (all of which affect other parts of the game).

The cargo systems are being tested by a group of our users and while the interface for the cargo features is almost complete there is still work to be done with the new demand system. I will keep you posted!


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

City Based Demand systems

The work on the City Based Demand is ongoing.

If you'd like to read more about the system's operation, the first draft version of the manual page has been completed.

The page is still hidden from the normal menu structure but you can access it directly here: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Demand/

Note that this is a preliminary version and more images and text will be added later on. The text is partly the same as in the previous preview post (Feb-2016).


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Enhanced schedule moving

The ablity to convert aircraft flight schedules between fleet groups is now possible in the new test mode.

See details on how to test it from this thread: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,68205.0.html

(feature will be later enabled to full use)

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Dynamic airports (airport size classification update)

The airport size classification system will be updated with a new ten-step system of two different variables. This replaces the 1-5 size class system that is fixed and non-flexible.

Making airports more dynamic is one very important component of the City Based Demand system. The aim is to allow players to truly grow their operations and use airports they would not necessarily normally use. Making the airports dynamic is a part of this process.

The size classification will come in two values: Traffic Level and Infrastructure Level, both have 10 levels (1 - 10).

Traffic level measures how busy the airport is. This is based on the actual operations of player's airlines. Busy airports have higher operation fees and higher probabilities for delays for example. This is a variable value updated every 6 months, and it can move up to two steps at a time.

Infrastructure level measures the availability of facilities at the airport (such as apron and terminal capacity). It also regulates the allowed aircraft sizes able to fly to this airport (ref. manual). Infrastructure level does not change unless the airport decides to build an expansion when the airport is near its capacity [this is not yet modeled but will be added on future updates]. This value can only move upwards (when airport expands).

These values affect all the costs and operational details of the airports, such as airport fees, office rents, amount of delays etc. Already previously the airport size class (1-5) has done all these but now the system is more fine-grained and dynamic.

The old 1-5 size classification is still used in the initial airport size class values but once the game is past its initial stage the whole airport size development is based on what players do, and the fixed values of master database are no longer relevant.


The manual page of airports has been already updated with these new details: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Airport/

This update will be rolled into all existing game worlds.


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Let's revive the previews thread a little bit...

New global wind model

As you know the new AirwaySim Aircraft Performance Model v.2 uses a new and realistic model to calculate the aircraft payload on a route based on the winds enroute, creating the ESAD (Equivalent Still Air Distance) value for the route. For details check the manual: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Aircraft/Performance/

The current global wind model is still very simple and the world is divided into only six different areas with defined winds (speed/direction) in each sector. This is sufficient for the basic model to create for example the strong headwinds when flying westbound in the Atlantic.

As part of other projects we've been doing some weather research and are doing experiments if a more detailed and extremely highly accurate wind model could be also implemented into AirwaySim's new performance model. (It's not yet certain if this model will be implemented)

The new weather / wind model is based on actual weather data from NOAA. We've taken samples of wind data at 10km height from every latitude/longitude (1 degree intervals) in the world. The sample data covers 2 data points (days) from each month for the past 5 years (so some 10 million wind data points), and we've calculated the average statistical wind for each latitude/longitude square in the world. 5-year average wind in other words.

This detailed data will be filtered down a little bit for AirwaySim's purposes and aim is to use this data for the flight performance calculations to provide extremely accurate and realistic wind information for the flight planning. The new system would also take into account the aircraft cruising altitude (statistically winds are not so strong at 5 km compared to 10 km).

Naturally in real life the winds change daily, but for AirwaySim's purposes we're looking at the long-term/statistical wind components on each route to be able to generate a realistic scheduled flight time.

And example of our development interface is pictured below. You will see that in the North Atlantic the prevailing statistical winds are about 50 to 90 kts from about direction 230-290 degrees.


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

New performance tool

(Very early preview picture below)

In order to make the highly realistic aircraft performance model more understandable and in order to help fleet and route planning, a new Performance Tool is in the making.

This (admittely a bit overdue) new feature will aim to consolidate all the aircraft operational data into one page for planning purposes.

You can manually select the desired route (or input desired route length) and choose the aircraft, weight, engines and seat configuration - or proceed to this page directly from links that will be placed on aircraft and route pages (in order to skip all those selections).

The system will then show you all the necessary data you need to know about how the aircraft will perform on this route taking account the payload capability and route length. You will see for example:

• Estimated flight time
  
• How many passengers and how much cargo can be carried
  
• Estimated fuel usage and cost
  
• Estimates of other costs such as landing fees
  
• Are there any limitations because of aircraft payload capability, or runway lengths or similar
  
• Route map

Idea is that this aircraft performance tool will work in tandem with route planning page (which is due for some renewal perhaps later this year). Route planning page tells you who the passengers are, and the aircraft performance page will tell you how you can fly them. From these pages you can then seamlessly move to route opening too. Tuning the interface and making everything as accessible as possible does take some time though.

A very early draft version is shown in the picture. It is missing all the formatting. Also missing are the details of all calculations, runway information, and all cost analysis. (All the data calculations are done, the interface just needs to be finished.)

If you have any other ideas what would be good to display here, let me know.

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Airport infrastructure expansions (final step - slots)

This preview is of a technical nature with no pictures to show.

The airport infrastructure level expansion feature was completed in the spring. The infra level affects the following:

• Allowed aircraft sizes at the airport
  
• All operational costs (landing fee, handling fee, passenger fee)
  
• Cost of slots (traffic size class also a factor here)
  
• Office rent
  
• Also the traffic size class affects the possibility for delays
  
• Both of these (infra/traffic) also naturally affect the City Based Demand by expanding the airport catchment area.

All of these features are already operational.

The final stage of the airport dynamics are the slot numbers. The current model is loosely based on airport's real-world capacity and takes into account for example size of the airport, number of runways, area of the world and game year with game world specific factors to globally increase or decrease the amount of slots.

Since the games are moving away from "replicate real world" to "let players decide and build the world" also the airports need to adapt. The new dynamic airports slot system will therefore abandon the real-world approach and the number of slots will be solely based on the infrastructure level.

At first we're doing a simple approach:

• Airport at level 10 has 100 slots/hr while airport at level 1 has 10 slots/hr, and growth between these levels is linear. In other words airport at level 5 has 50 slots/hr.
  
  
• These can be changed by a global modifier in game's settings (i.e game has slots setting at "+50%" globally, and then level 5 airports have 75 slots/hr). For example a large ultra-long game with normal 500-700 player slots could be at +25-50% setting very well.
  
  
• In the future for example the number of runways or other airport attributes could be again introduced as part of these calculations but so far the plan is to keep it simple and to see how the expansion system works in the long run.
  
  
• Game year has no longer any say in the slot numbers like previously since the infra levels will take care of this in natural manner (there is a limiter on how large the airport can grow based on the game year).
  
  
• New slots will appear only when the aiport expansion project has been completed. All in one day after the expansion completion (however this strategy might still be changed since this is the most tricky part playwise).
  
  
• If the airport is slot-limited, the completion of expansion project will trigger a slot-quota mechanism at that airport for each airline in order to prevent slot-squatting, and to eliminate the need to set your alarm bell at midnight to the exact game date when the expansion project completes (since the "who gets here first gets everything" deals are not good...). This quota feature already exists too (but is currently only used in case of large airline bankruptcy at slot-limited airports), but will be now expanded to the airport expansions when the conditions are met in order to enhance fair play (so not for all airports, but only those that are most slot restricted).
  
  
• Game launch phase and first years will differ from this basic mechanism. At that period each airport will start at 30-50% of the true capacity (with defined min/max levels per hr), and it will grow to 100% during the first game years with slots made available at random intervals (like currently already).
  
  
• The features will be enabled before the start of the next GW#1 and we'll keep a close eye on how things work there, and retain the possibility for manual adjustments if a large number of airports become slot restricted or if other issues are seen. Since having let's say top-10 airports all at 100% slot usage isn't good for game play (for a couple of airports in each game this is normal though).

At this point comments and observations are welcome.

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

New aircraft seat configuration systems

The aircraft seat configuration features have been part of AirwaySim since the first public release in 2009 and have been nearly unchanged since then. Therefore it is due time to make an all-around update to this core feature of the simulation.

The updated seat configuration systems will be closely linked to other new features such as In-Flight Service and In-Flight Entertainment, but we'll start slowly by first just upgrading the physical aircraft seat configuration first and the service and entertainment "expansions" of this feature group will be added later on.

The current (old) seat configuration system calculation is based on the aircraft's maximum passenger capacity and it takes no allowance on how small/large the aircraft actually is.

The new system will be greatly improved and will be much more realistic:

• Like currently, there will be an assortment of different seat models to choose from. There are choices from the narrow High Density seat all the way to luxury "Cabin" suites. A couple of seat styles are previewed in the picture.
  
  
• All the associated graphics and icons are completely remade and customly designed only for us.
  
  
• The availability of each seat type is based on game year (for example the modern flat-bed seats aren't around until in 2000s), and installation of the premium seat types is not possible to the smallest aircraft.
  
  
• Besides of the seat type and numbers the player has now the option to choose the seat pitch. The seat type itself determines how wide/narrow the seat is, but with seat pitch the player can determine the amount of available legroom (each seat type has minimum legroom it needs).
  
  
• AirwaySim now knows the exact length and width of the passenger cabin of each ~660 aircraft model in the database. By using this information the system can calculate exact and realistic cabin configurations and seat placements, and different aircraft models have now true differences in their seat configurations.
  
  
• For example two otherwise similar aircraft models (let's say Embraer ERJ-145 and Bombardier CRJ-200) may have different cabin width, and you might be able to fit wider seats in other model giving the passengers more comfort compared to the competing model. And same goes for legroom / seat pitch. The system calculates in a very detailed manner the required spaces and calculates for example the required spaces for aisles, armrest and galleys/toilets too - overall it's a huge improvement over the current system.
  
  
• The whole code and calculation of all seat systems and spaces is to be rebuilt from the ground up. Also the passenger allocation calculations related to these features will be updated.
  
  
• We're also looking into possibility of making the system generate actual visual "seat maps" of the configuration you choose. This already works for small and simple aircraft (lacking all graphics though), but the large and more complex models may cause issues, and inclusion of this feature isn't decided yet.

There is still a lot of work to be done in the core code. For example support for B747/A380 (aircraft with two levels) is not built, and all configurations related to combi (pax/cargo) aircraft are not done yet. The actual user interface itself has not been started yet either. However the biggest tasks - data and basic calculation concepts - are completed.

The first step is to replace the current cabin configuration system with the new version, with roughly similar set of functionality and features. The additional layer of in-flight service and entertainment (with respective cabin configuration and other fixed aircraft installations) will follow at later stages.

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Visual aircraft seat configuration

Work on the aircraft cabin configuration has been going on for the last month, and one aspect which takes rather much time, but in the end would look very nice, is the visual aircraft seat map.

The plan is that the system will draw the actual seat map of your chosen configuration. This is helpful when deciding how much seats you can fit and also a nice touch for your press releases

Here is a screen capture of a very early alpha version of the system. The seats to the cabin are filled according to user's selections and this part is already almost fully completed (apart from graphics). The aircraft shape (nose, wings and tail) in this image are not final in any way and are there just for testing, and their proportions are still partly incorrect (tail especially).

Plan is to include the "true shape" of the aircraft for some of the most popular models but all the rest will be depicted by a generic aircraft shape. The final version will be also narrower and the full wings are not included in the graphics (as they are unnecessary for displaying the seat configuration).


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Visual aircraft seat configuration

Another preview of the visual seat maps for aircraft. Things are progressing in this department and now we have the first set of (almost) final graphics available in the system.

The seat mapper is a fully dynamic and realistic addition to the seat configuration systems. In this preview you can see a A320-style aircraft configured in two-class configuration. The business class has Standard seats (with middle seat left empty for added comfort) with 32" seat pitch, and in economy class the High Density seat with 30" seat pitch. The red areas represent the areas reserved for doors, toilets, galleys etc. and is non-useable. The green area shows the available space left over / available for increased seat pitch or more seats.

The work for the new cabin systems continues by incorporating the rest of the different seat types and verifying all of the aircraft data. Also several background systems need to adjusted to this new system, and also the final user interface for creating the configurations needs to be planned.

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Visual aircraft seat configuration

One more for the road about the v.2 seat configuration systems, just for fun. Here's the Concorde in a 140 seat standard configuration. 


This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html

[Sami]

Route updates

I've been working with a larger fundamental update to the core systems of the simulation for the last month, and here's just one quick preview of some small changes made to the interface at the same time.

The update in the works affects mostly only the background systems, and will totally change the way on how routes, flights and techstops are saved and handled by the system. The structure on how route data is handled is pretty much unchanged from the early days of AirwaySim and it's been a limiting factor on some planned changes. This is overall a very big upgrade to the backend systems as huge parts of the code are totally restructured and rewritten from the ground up.

Here's a preview of the new restructured route information page. For now the plan is only to update the backend systems with minimal changes to the interface (apart from this one page previewed here).


p.s. work is still going on naturally with the seat configuration update, but it's a slow process since all aircraft models need a manual set of configuration data.

This thread is locked and is reserved for announcements only. Please make all comments to the General forums: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,60273.0.html