A Discussion of Fleet Commonality

[sanabas]

Nope, it forces the biggest players to make interesting choices. I agree with those who think that in the late stages of the game, one should be able to have more staff to order used stuff, to limit the hassle of managing very large fleets, while keeping the strategic challenge of fleet choices.

I'm all for forcing interesting choices, but I'd prefer something much more transparent to be forcing them. The exponential increase on the penalty is neither intuitive nor transparent.

And for me, it limits a lot of interesting gameplay. If I want to build something huge, then I'm limited to only 3 fleets, and only fleets that can realistically be 500+ planes, and I'll need to work together with a couple of friends to get new planes coming in fast enough, which makes for cookie-cutter gameplay. If I want to do something interesting and make a fleet of 50 TU-144s actually work, I can't do it. If I'm a mid-sized airline with 5-600 turboprops and no connections to order stuff for me, then I get hamstrung by the delivery rate, and I can't have say 75 x ATR, 75 x BaE-ATP, 75 x F27, 75 x 5 other turboprop fleets.

Or in the 50s, there are maybe 6 DC-3 replacements going unused, while everyone flies CV-340, Martin 4-0-4, Viscounts and F27s. Wouldn't it be interesting to be ordering 50 each from airspeed, aviation traders, nord & saab instead? But can't do it, because replacing them down the track means prohibitive costs. Harder to aim for 200 Nords, because you can only get 20/year brand new, and other airlines don't really have ability to order them as well to sell/lease to you. If it was feasible to work from 4 of those lines, it's now 6-7/month new leased planes, which is a more workable growth rate.

So while the goal of interesting gameplay, interesting choices, and preventing an airline trying to dominate everything is a good one, I think the execution is flawed, and makes it less interesting overall.

Yes, instead of dispensing 7 calls and 3 aircraft that can be bought per week, the system should do 4x as may in a 4 week period, to put players who log in only once per day more on the level playing field with people who can log in multiple times.

Also, larger airline should be able to buy more than a startup airline, so that fleet replacement of large fleets are more feasible.

Or just make private sales not count against the 3 planes/week restriction. Which helps the fleet replacement, but not the cookie cutter boeing/airbus issue.

[ArcherII]

Also, it's the main reason behind the HUGE backlogs in the A320/B737NG lines.

They are great, sure. But mainly they cover a very wide scope within the 100-220 seat range and, in a world ruled by the 4th fleet penalty, flexibility is king.

A perfectly capable MD90 is no match.

[groundbum2]

I think the fleet commonality penalty is OK as it is now. But to ameliorate the pain of running large airlines in game then we should

a) speed up the clock from 30mins/day after the first decade
b) after the first decade allow us to buy new and used aircraft quicker since our fleets have grown and no new players are entering the game
c) we should be allowed a 4th "vanity" fleet of concordes/A380s etc that are limited to 14 aircraft and don't attract a penalty

It doesn't make sense to me that the same rules apply to day 1 of the game as apply to day 999. Gameplay is drastically different after the first decade, the rules should adapt to reflect that ...

Simon

[MikeS]

I would really like to see official information on how the fleet commonality or rather penalty is calculated. As many have noted this feature is unintuitive and appears to be non linear as well. The way the feature was implemented was more for game play purposes rather than for replicating real life so I believe it needs to be properly documented in the manual.

Pleeeeeeaaaassseeee !
Thanks!!!!
Mike

[Karl]

The fleet commonality penalty is a killer when an old type needs to be replaced by newer models - sometimes from a different manufacturer and with different engines - especially props to jets.  Having just one plane of a new type in an airline can cause great losses.  Doing this over time with a fleet of any size could bankrupt all but the wealthiest and biggest airlines.

I agree that there needs to be a limit/penalty for multiple types, but something must be done to help "smaller", less wealthy airlines from bankrupting while trying to update fleets.

[PowerStationGym]

Or just a specific game world with less or no fleet commonality penalty could work.

[Andre090904]

The fleet commonality penalty is a killer when an old type needs to be replaced by newer models - sometimes from a different manufacturer and with different engines - especially props to jets.  Having just one plane of a new type in an airline can cause great losses.  Doing this over time with a fleet of any size could bankrupt all but the wealthiest and biggest airlines.

I agree that there needs to be a limit/penalty for multiple types, but something must be done to help "smaller", less wealthy airlines from bankrupting while trying to update fleets.

Sorry, but isn't bankruptcy part of the game? In other words: If a fleet transition causes an airline to go bankrupt, then this transition (or the fleet choice as such) was not very well planned to begin with and the bankrupcty is just the logical consequence. Players have "big airlines" because they understood how to manage them. And even players with "small airlines" have all the options to expand/modernize. It's just a matter of planning well.

Sorry, but I don't see the point in a general overhaul. I agree to faster buying from UM after some time or maybe a "prestige fleet type" (max of 21 airplanes allowed without commonality penalty) etc...but anything fundamental...no.

[gazzz0x2z]

As MikeS said, we just need better documentation on how it works.

When I replaced my CRJs by A148s, I noticed that comm costs were around double - for a similar number of planes - and tiose planes are very similar in everything, bar the fact that A148s are double the cost in maintenance. So one of the multipliers is maintenance costs.

I also know that between 72 & 80 planes, there is a threshold below which the penalty begins at 3 fleet grous, not 4.

It's everything I know - because I did measure it. all the rest I just feel or know by hearsay.

[JumboShrimp]

If I'm a mid-sized airline with 5-600 turboprops and no connections to order stuff for me, then I get hamstrung by the delivery rate, and I can't have say 75 x ATR, 75 x BaE-ATP, 75 x F27, 75 x 5 other turboprop fleets.

Where would be the challenge if you could have everything and not only that, if you could have everything in span of 2-3 years?

[sanabas]

Where's the challenge in changing 500 732s to 734s? The challenge is in building the thing in the first place, the fleet transition isn't so much challenging as it is boring, even tedious if you need to check in every 4 hours to grab planes at a fast enough rate from other players who've ordered them for you. And at the extremes, it could mean stockpiling 3-400 planes on the tarmac, and then changing en masse. It's currently significantly cheaper to park 100+ planes for a year+ so you can change them all at once than it is to change them 1 by 1 as the new fleet arrives. It's counter-intuitive & unrealistic, and again lacks transparency.

Not about having everything, but about having more viable options. Particularly more viable options for growing to a decent size.

I think there are two issues here. One is trying to encourage more choice & more ways to play, ways to use fleets that typically go almost untouched. While not making it easy to dominate everything. Being able to run 4 fleets of 75 somewhat similar planes for about the same price of 1 x 300 would help, because then it's feasible to get stuff that's less available on the UM, stuff that has slower delivery rates.

The other is doing fleet transitions without an arbitrary penalty that can run to billions over a couple of years. Making planes from other players, or just privately listed planes, be outside the 3/week limit would help. Making the limit 18 per 24 hours instead of 3 per 4 hours would help. Being able to flag a fleet transition, and have say 5 years where the two fleets you've flagged only count as 1 for determining number of fleets, would also help.

[Alpha]

I agree with Sanabas that the drive behind this fleet penalty thing is good, its just that there are unintended consequences for some, if not most, players, including those mentioned above by other fellow players. Thus I think it would be great if Sami can put in some measures to alleviate this penalty to those very specific circumstances.

Regarding the fleet transition issue, I remember some time ago, there was a suggestion on giving players a brief period of time where a 4th fleet will not impose the current penalty, so that players dont have to stockpile planes en masse before changing them in one go. I think it was a great suggestion.

I wouldnt mind if 4th fleet penalty goes cubic or even quartic instead of quadratic if we have these measures in place 

[Andre090904]

The other is doing fleet transitions without an arbitrary penalty that can run to billions over a couple of years. Making planes from other players, or just privately listed planes, be outside the 3/week limit would help. Making the limit 18 per 24 hours instead of 3 per 4 hours would help. Being able to flag a fleet transition, and have say 5 years where the two fleets you've flagged only count as 1 for determining number of fleets, would also help.

What if we keep the current limit of 3 per game week, but increase the limit to 6 per game week IF the plane is bought from an alliance member? Maybe this would give the alliances some more importance (and make transitions easier/faster). People would no longer need to be online every game week to keep buying, but could still get the transition going by logging in regularly...

This would mean that various smaller alliance orders would be preferred over a large own order or a large order by just 1 alliance supplier. I honestly think it would give the alliance some more meaning. Also, airlines would prefer to be brokers mainly for alliance members (due to faster sales) and more demand from other alliance members asking for planes. So we would no longer have spammed used markets (or at least not that much).

[groundbum2]

What if we keep the current limit of 3 per game week, but increase the limit to 6 per game week IF the plane is bought from an alliance member?

nooooo. There's already complaints that Alliances hog production lines with group buys, this would turbocharge this behaviour and popular lines such as A320 and B737 would be jammed with alliance inter-buying.

Simon

[Andre090904]

nooooo. There's already complaints that Alliances hog production lines with group buys, this would turbocharge this behaviour and popular lines such as A320 and B737 would be jammed with alliance inter-buying.

So what? It does not make any difference if 2000 A320 are ordered by individual players or by alliance players. 2000 A320 are 2000 A320. What is the problem?

I rather see it as a solution to this thread's subject. In fact, we don't have a "fleet commonality problem", but a "fleet transitioning problem" (it's not about allowing us to fly 4 fleets, but to shorten the transitioning time requiring a 4th fleet). By allowing the player to buy 6 instead of the current 3 planes ONLY from alliance members, the fleet transitioning problem would be reduced by basically 50% with a tiny fix that can be implemented in minutes. The production lines are not affected (the orders will be made anyways), but the public used market may be less spammed since alliances are given an actual importance and alliance players will prefer to buy from other alliance partners.

It's like a win-win-win feature:
1. Faster fleet transitions
2. Less spammed public used markets
3. Alliances actually have a meaningful task to fulfill and individual players would be more tempted to join one (fostering the community as a whole)

[MikeS]

Not a bad idea. It would help big players with their transition, while smaller players could get a little boost selling/leasing at alliance minimum (alliance minimum pricing is often quite high = lucrative).

Mike

[gazzz0x2z]

I like the idea of Andre, but I'd broaden it to any human player. No need to limit it within alliances. Players outside alliances should be allowed to have brokers as well.

would be something like that : After the 3 per 8 game days, you can buy 3 more...only to human players. during those days.

And not early in the game(would give early brokers as myself too much importance). I'd say you could add 1 purchase to human players after 10 years of gameplay, 2 after 20 years...

[sanabas]

I rather see it as a solution to this thread's subject. In fact, we don't have a "fleet commonality problem", but a "fleet transitioning problem" (it's not about allowing us to fly 4 fleets, but to shorten the transitioning time requiring a 4th fleet).

I think we have both, and that they are two separate issues caused by the one rule.

One issue is fleet transitions.

One issue is the lack of flexibility and options in normal operations. Inability to run a smallish fleet because it seems like a fun or interesting challenge. Inability to react to what other airlines do. If you've got 50 f27-100s flying and 25 more on order as your 3rd fleet, and then realise the entire world is ordering f27-200s, your only real option is to join them. It's extremely impractical to look and see that the herald has just 4 orders, the HS 748 has just 20, or the Nord has literally no planes in existence, the ATL-90 has almost none, and both are dirt cheap and available right now. Because once you start flying that fleet, you're locked in. And you're locked in almost entirely because of the 4th fleet penalty.

From a personal standpoint, in the newest long GW, I won't fly a medium fleet longterm because of the 4th fleet penalty. But I could certainly use one for the next 10 years or so until larger planes start to be available. I'm locked into Viscounts because I chose them very early, got 38 of them currently. Production line is full, price of one is now 5 million. I could switch over to one of the cheaper options I've mentioned already, and I'm contemplating doing so. But it'd mean I'd need to save the cash to buy out the leases of the 16 viscounts I don't own and to order the ATLs, and then I'd need to wait the 2 years it takes for 38 ATL-90s to be delivered, leaving them idle on the tarmac the whole time, before changing over all at once. And because other airlines are locked in, I know that when I can no longer use a medium fleet, the 80 ATLs or however many I end up with will just be so much stored scrap, because nobody else will be flying them. Or I can just order more viscounts, fill the line for longer, increase the price a bit more.

It indirectly leads to a lot of very viable planes going entirely unflown, less variety, less interesting options. Admittedly that'd still happen to some extent even if it changed, and it's clear that many airlines don't think hard enough about their options, or don't take price & availability into account, which is why there are 50+ airlines into the f27 line, just 1 or 2 into the HS748 and Martin lines, and none into some of the other 40 seat props.

Which then leads to clogged production lines and the frustrations that entails, as we've seen some posts about.

[sanabas]

I like the idea of Andre, but I'd broaden it to any human player. No need to limit it within alliances. Players outside alliances should be allowed to have brokers as well.

Agreed.

would be something like that : After the 3 per 8 game days, you can buy 3 more...only to human players. during those days.

Any change that places privately listed orders outside the 3 per 8 day limit should also lessen the time constraint. One of the issues isn't just the overall rate of delivery, but the fact you need to log in every 4 hours to maintain that rate. 18 per 48 game days, 24 per 2 game months, that'd mean the same overall rate, but means only logging in once per 24-30 hours to buy all the planes ordered for you in one hit.

And not early in the game(would give early brokers as myself too much importance). I'd say you could add 1 purchase to human players after 10 years of gameplay, 2 after 20 years...

Could be partly alleviated by making it apply to private listings only, not to planes that are available to everyone. And early in the game, after the initial rush, the 3 plane/week limit is generally somewhat irrelevant, as plane scarcity is the limiting factor.

[Andre090904]

I like the idea of Andre, but I'd broaden it to any human player. No need to limit it within alliances. Players outside alliances should be allowed to have brokers as well.

would be something like that : After the 3 per 8 game days, you can buy 3 more...only to human players. during those days.

And not early in the game(would give early brokers as myself too much importance). I'd say you could add 1 purchase to human players after 10 years of gameplay, 2 after 20 years...

I didn't understand your post, but upon asking you on Discord I finally got it. Let me clarify your idea just in case the others didn't understand it either.

Your idea is that any player can buy 3 planes per week (like now), and additional 3 planes per week ONLY IF they are offered by players and not by AI brokers. So in the end any player can get a maximum of 6 planes a week (3 from AI brokers, another 3 from players). I would extend this idea to say that any player can by a maximum of 6 planes a week if all of them are offered by players (0 from AI brokers, 6 from players).

I like the idea. Especially because it would only work in later stages during a game world (there are no players selling airplanes in the first few years). Transitions would still be easier to handle and the used market gets more active.

It's basically my idea, but without the alliance limitation. I included this limitation because the alliances (right now at least) have very little actual importance in the game. It's more of a roleplay/image only. This feature would have been ideal to give them some more "reason to exist". And before someone says it's "pay to win": It isn't. I never paid money to join an alliance. Anyone can join one and benefit from this advantage (given it would be implemented). It would be quite similiar to the small "Company Image boost" that airlines get when joining an alliance. Just some more advantages of being in an alliance.

But yes, if that is too much to ask for, I can also live with your proposal and have 6 planes a week (3 from AI brokers, 3 from players OR 0 from AI brokers, 6 from players). Fair enough.

[groundbum2]

as others have said having 3 fleets is a bit arbritary. Given the game dynamics, and in the real world, most airlines have small, medium and longhaul aircraft. So having a 4th fleet ONLY for transitions and without penalty seems a good idea.

I would suggest the dynamics are that a player designates a transition from fleet X to fleet Y, and from that time for 2 years there is no penalty for the 4th fleet, and X can only go down in numbers.

Also just up the buying frequency numbers later in the game, when fleets are larger than in the beginning.


S