Why DHC-8-100/200/300 and Dash-8-Q400 are considered different type?

Started by qunow, November 26, 2016, 09:06:54 AM


Sami

They are in the entirely different speed range, so they cannot be in the same fleet group for that reason.

ScottPerchard

Oooo, I would love to go on about the 767 and the 757 being the same fleet type but that is never going to happen  ;D ;D

MaxtheMoonMonkey

Isn't that cause the 757 is a narrow body and thus a large and the 767 is a wide body?

NovemberCharlie

Quote from: Sami on November 26, 2016, 11:24:58 AM
They are in the entirely different speed range, so they cannot be in the same fleet group for that reason.

Is there an update on the "similar fleet type" feature request? (or for that matter any other projects? Keenly looking out for new previews  ;D ;D)



qunow

Quote from: Scott on November 26, 2016, 12:57:38 PM
Oooo, I would love to go on about the 767 and the 757 being the same fleet type but that is never going to happen  ;D ;D
I believe that is happening in real world and that is also why 757 pilots are getting same paid as wide body pilots?

ScottPerchard

They were designed to have the same rating to make them more affordable for airlines. I believe a lot of the parts were interchangeable too.

schro

Quote from: TheLostNZ on November 26, 2016, 07:35:25 PM
Isn't that cause the 757 is a narrow body and thus a large and the 767 is a wide body?

They were developed as a common family with similar flight decks, sharing of parts, etc.

From a game play perspective, there is a very solid case to combine the two types, much like there's a strong case to combine the DC10 and MD11.

kscessandriver

Quote from: schro on November 26, 2016, 10:50:30 PM
They were developed as a common family with similar flight decks, sharing of parts, etc.

From a game play perspective, there is a very solid case to combine the two types, much like there's a strong case to combine the DC10 and MD11.

And the 737 of all vintages. And the DC-9/MD-80/90/717. I fail to understand why Sami is against this, especially in the case of the airplanes being the same type rating.

schro

Quote from: kscessandriver on November 27, 2016, 05:21:43 PM
And the 737 of all vintages. And the DC-9/MD-80/90/717. I fail to understand why Sami is against this, especially in the case of the airplanes being the same type rating.

There has to be a break at some point between the generations. Sometimes it is logical, sometimes it is not.

For example, with the 737s, there's a difference in cruise speed for each of the major families that would make it a game breaking type of combination. For a real world example, the FAA is not going to let WN operate classics, ngs and max's as the same type (for pilots) as there are too many differences between the types.

The dc9 series could be an interesting combination, but at some point, there needs to be a break point where a player has to chose to transition from an early generation jet to a new generation....

Zombie Slayer

And to add to Schro's post, back when WN operated Jurassic, Classic, and NG 737 from 97 to 05, the NG's flight deck was programmed to have -200/-300 style "steam gauges" displayed on the monitors so all 3 generations could be operated by the same pilot group.
Don Collins of Ohio III, by the Grace of God of the SamiMetaverse of HatF and MT and of His other Realms and Game Worlds, King, Head of the Elite Alliance, Defender of the OOB, Protector of the Slots

kscessandriver

Quote from: schro on November 27, 2016, 05:57:14 PM
There has to be a break at some point between the generations. Sometimes it is logical, sometimes it is not.

For example, with the 737s, there's a difference in cruise speed for each of the major families that would make it a game breaking type of combination. For a real world example, the FAA is not going to let WN operate classics, ngs and max's as the same type (for pilots) as there are too many differences between the types.

The dc9 series could be an interesting combination, but at some point, there needs to be a break point where a player has to chose to transition from an early generation jet to a new generation....

Game breaking or not, it's realistic to run it that way. Either run it realistically or don't pretend that there is any realism in this game whatsoever.  At least group some common sense things, like the Dash 8

schro

Quote from: kscessandriver on November 27, 2016, 08:51:04 PM
Game breaking or not, it's realistic to run it that way. Either run it realistically or don't pretend that there is any realism in this game whatsoever.  At least group some common sense things, like the Dash 8

It's game breaking in that it breaks one of the early design decisions of the game with respect to how the scheduling function within the game works. It's not really a realism vs not thing - it's that the scheduling function makes the assumption that everything in a fleet group flies the same speed at all stages of flight and that schedules are interchangeable between planes of the same type (which leaves slots alone).  To make it work within the game's design, you would have to determine some midpoint speed that's fair to assign to every plane of the type, which is a bit of a stretch given the .42 vs .57 mach difference for the Q's. Alternatively, you could change the game's design, but at that point, you might as well hire a squad of programmers from Vietnam and construct your own sim....

kscessandriver

Quote from: schro on November 27, 2016, 09:02:07 PM
It's game breaking in that it breaks one of the early design decisions of the game with respect to how the scheduling function within the game works. It's not really a realism vs not thing - it's that the scheduling function makes the assumption that everything in a fleet group flies the same speed at all stages of flight and that schedules are interchangeable between planes of the same type (which leaves slots alone).  To make it work within the game's design, you would have to determine some midpoint speed that's fair to assign to every plane of the type, which is a bit of a stretch given the .42 vs .57 mach difference for the Q's. Alternatively, you could change the game's design, but at that point, you might as well hire a squad of programmers from Vietnam and construct your own sim....

That's fine, but you can make them the same fleet cost without making them the same option for scheduling, can you not?

Wagster

If you can program fleet penalties in you can program fleet penalties out.

Don't touch fleet scheduling, leave that as is now. Instead, change the way fleet penalty is calculated, it's the least drastic way to produce this effect.

Create a new layer to the fleet penalty calculator, assigning a "Fleet Penalty DNA Identity" to fleets, identifying which fleets are more similar than dissimilar, where they won't count towards the fleet penalty or they get a reduced penalty (to simulate, if and where necessary, additional training or equipment modification).

I'm not a programmer but I think it would take more work to judge which fleets merit a DNA match than to implement a new layer like this to the penalty calculator...

gazzz0x2z

Quote from: kscessandriver on November 27, 2016, 09:28:30 PM
That's fine, but you can make them the same fleet cost without making them the same option for scheduling, can you not?

As he says : hire your own programmers.

Any game has to be based on some design choice, and the way fleet groups are designed is something rather core to the game engine. There might be(or not, I'm no in the secret of the code) a way to change the penalty. Still. People who complain about the penalty are usually the ones who would be eradicated by the big boys, were the fleet groups not so strictly enforced.

The "similar fleet groups" idea, OTOH, could probably be done(simple hypothesis, I don't have access to the source code), but would be probably a PITA to balance. I've been betatester in enough games to fear that kind of changes. I've seen a commercial game half-broken by 2 betatester ideas that seemed cool when they were said first. One of them was completely unbalancing the game, the other one killed the CPUS. I'm the author of the second one. I'm not proud. Fortunately, the next version of the game was far better - they did learn. But I was not invited for the beta-test, this time.....

The current fleet group system is core to the game, simple to understand, simple to balance. Toying with it bears more risks than rewards, IMHO.

ScottPerchard

To be fair though, if this game introduced type ratings for pilots rather than the current setup it would start getting really complicated, and expensive. Having looked at the cost of a A320 type rating recently (in which most cases you have to stump up for during your initial commercial rating, which you pay for yourself) I reckon it would really fix you into a fleet type and force you to stay with it. Imagine if you had to recruit from a limited pool of pilots, or had the potential to fund your own future pilot programme.... oooo I would seriously like that. Your pilots could have loyalty, on time and customer satisfaction multipliers.... I need to stop as all of this would make Sami's head explode!