The Missing Manual

[MikeS]

I have been playing AWS for a couple of years now and would like to address the crucial lack of information on the following important game mechanics. I see time and again new players failing because of them. There is a constant need for fellow players to explain these points to new entrants. It should be in the manual.

1. Fleet Commonality. The manual only states the obvious that more fleet types mean more fixed costs. However, since the mechanics behind it completely defy logic, these should be presented to the player in the manual.

2. Effect of aircraft age. I never figured this one out. How much demand do I loose between a new aircraft and a 30 y/o one? This also defies logic since well maintained airliners in real life face no such issue. High maintenance already punishes the user. The metric should at least be clear to the player.

3. Frequency: Yes, the basic principle behind it is reasonable but the logic applied by AWS is not clear to the player. Again here, trial and error is really asking a bit too much of a paying newbie player. Apparently flying a too high a frequency results in a penalty! This needs to be clear. Also about the necessary gaps between flights.

4. Aircraft size: This is a mess, especially as its metrics shift with time as a game progresses. Only players who stick around long enough will ever get a feeling for it. Therefore, its mechanics should be clear in the manual.

5. Pricing. Again, this has been tweaked by AWS for playability reasons but its logic is hard to figure out. Some veteran players even claim that +5% pricing actually increases demand? This should be in the manual as it defies logic. What price range has what effect on demand?

6. Soviet/Russian aircraft. So, passengers would like to avoid these. Fair enough, but by how much? Due to the built-in randomization this is another metric hard for a player to figure out and should simply be stated in the manual.

7. Aircraft speed. This is a smaller point but it would be really nice to know how the AWS passenger chooses his flight in terms of speed.

If developers feel it would be too daunting for new players if they saw all the actual rules in the manual, then maybe consider giving us flight read-outs. They could be something like this:

Flt XZ-01 - Summary of Penalty Percentages
-6.2 % aircraft age ///  -11.6% frequency /// -0.4% pricing /// -0.0% dep time /// -10% arrival time /// -5% aircraft size /// -10% Soviet aircraft etc

Thanks for all the hard work put into the game so far! I think we all appreciate what has been achieved and the level of detail offered.
Cheers!

Mike

[DanDan]

dont tell everyone the secrets of AWS somewhere on a forum page! are you crazy!?

imagine some new player would even find this, they would possibly be sticking around in the game for a few days. AWS is made for a very limited, secretive few.

when people find out where the logic of AWS behaves contrary to the real-world-logic >>> they will possibly be playing AWS for longer and not resign in frustration (about their profitable airlines that fail because of this invisible "staff training" that has gone through the roof!) >>> which results in more populated game worlds >>> which results in lower profits for us!!! 

[groundbum2]

I'd like to suggest a wiki where players can build such a manual themselves

S

[RALLX]

Umm..... in real life, there will not be such a manual, won't it ?

[DanDan]

Umm..... in real life, there will not be such a manual, won't it ?

true. but in real life, common sense works...

[Amelie090904]

Uhm, you overexaggerate it a bit. All these points are easy to answer. I will oversimplify it to make it short:

1. Fleet Commonality: The less fleet types, the higher your margin. Makes sense, right?

2. Effect of aircraft age: Never noticed any measurable effect. Then again, old planes should be avoided due to maintenance costs, not so much due to passenger behavior/avoidance.

3. Frequency: The higher your frequency, the more departure times you have and the more options you give your passengers which means your market share will be higher. Once demand is very high, passengers prefer bigger planes as it is a key route and they don't want to fly with a small plane on such a prestigious route. See it that way.

4. Aircraft size: Don't even understand what is the issue here? Do you mean the classification in small/medium/large/very large? But what's the problem with that?

5. Pricing: What is there not to know? High load factors? Go with higher prices. Low LF? Reduce them.

6. Soviet/Russian aircraft: Never noticed any measurable effect.

7. Aircraft speed: Never noticed any measurable effect.

[MikeS]

Just one example that I come across a lot:
I have a player in my alliance who has been around for some time:
"I had no idea this is what happened in the game so thank you very much for the information!
The cost of the 65 A320 series is $23.3 million"
As a comparison my 70 MD-90s (only 3 fleet types) cost only $5.4 Million so there is around 400% penalty in his case with 5 fleet types.
This is not logical so we need to know the penalty ranges to make decisions.

Again this could be solved by adding this next to the values: "+100% 4th fleet type /// +300% 5th fleet type" This way we understand if we take a fleet type out, we save 300% as an example.

[Amelie090904]

Just one example that I come across a lot:
I have a player in my alliance who has been around for some time:
"I had no idea this is what happened in the game so thank you very much for the information!
The cost of the 65 A320 series is $23.3 million"
As a comparison my 70 MD-90s (only 3 fleet types) cost only $5.4 Million so there is around 400% penalty in his case with 5 fleet types.
This is not logical so we need to know the penalty ranges to make decisions.

It took me quite a while to understand what you were trying to say, but I think I got it eventually. You are referring to commonality costs here. It is logical as each fleet type requires the pilots to have a typerating for this particular aircraft which means your airline will also need to have the required training material, simulators, instructors etc, not to mention maintenance facilities and procedures with qualified engineers and the like. The exponential cost increase makes sense if you ask me. As a small airline flying 5 planes in total but all are a different type, it's not a big deal. You can easily cope with it from a logistics point of view. But once you have hundreds and hundreds of planes and all need different spare parts, different maintenance specialists, different contact persons, different pilots, different ground crew etc. it's just a logistical nightmare and requires so much more management to deal with that it becomes inefficient. Look at Ryanair or Easyjet (as an example of airlines who really try to cut costs wherever possible).

But of course it's also a crucial game mechanic that cannot be taken away. In the end it is still a game which needs to have some basic rules or mechanisms. Sure, it would be great to just fly whatever you want and grab all the different demands/niches, but that would mean there is no more fleet planning involved, no more strategical thinking. The game would become a lot more boring. Think of it as in bowling. You have two gutters to each side and you need the right skill and technique to be a successful player. Sure, you could always have bumpers on both sides of the lane but then you'd automatically randomly hit something. It gets boring and the game is basically ruined.

But I agree that a more detailed penalty notification could be useful, especially for tech stops or the "too small warning" which are not exactly transparent. As for the commonality cost, that really depends on the fleet size. You can successfully fly 10 different types when you are still a small airline which means you can grow quicker with little plane availability. But trying that with a fleet of 2000 planes will be economical suicide. Even 1 plane of a new type means you need a whole new infrastructure/department within your airline to deal with it. I don't think there is a fixed penalty that you could display as it really depends on the fleet size and probably other factors, too (and is constantly changing).

[MikeS]

Andre,

You're right that all these points are logical in principal and you're a hard core player who loves a good challenge. You've played for hundreds (thousands?) of hours and read countless forum threads to reach your current game skills. I believe it should be more transparent for newer players. How easy is it to crush a newbie? Even someone who has been playing for six months is no threat. The player I quoted above has been playing on and off since 2016 and has a fair amount of achievements with no language barrier. Not everyone has the time to dig through all this. The disproportionate commonality cost increase is a penalty, introduced to avoid one player capturing the whole market. That is fine, but let the player know. There are many other penalties like too small aircraft or too much frequency. The too small penalty is at least highlighted during the game but I would argue it is probably too late when a player already has a huge "too small" fleet that needs to be suddenly replaced.
Just asking for more transparency.

Cheers!
Mike

[Amelie090904]

Andre,

You're right that all these points are logical in principal and you're a hard core player who loves a good challenge. You've played for hundreds (thousands?) of hours and read countless forum threads to reach your current game skills. I believe it should be more transparent for newer players. How easy is it to crush a newbie? Even someone who has been playing for six months is no threat. The player I quoted above has been playing on and off since 2016 and has a fair amount of achievements with no language barrier. Not everyone has the time to dig through all this. The disproportionate commonality cost increase is a penalty, introduced to avoid one player capturing the whole market. That is fine, but let the player know. There are many other penalties like too small aircraft or too much frequency. The too small penalty is at least highlighted during the game but I would argue it is probably too late when a player already has a huge "too small" fleet that needs to be suddenly replaced.
Just asking for more transparency.

Cheers!
Mike

Hmm, I get your point but I still think it should not all be presented straight away. It will always be a learning curve. Maybe displaying a notification like the too small warning should do like "Are you really sure you want to have 5 fleet types? Think about commonality costs!". That could do to begin with I think. I am not a fan of having it all given to you without a little learning curve / discovery phase.

By the way, new players can be good with the right motivation, skill, talent and of course help from other fellow players. Look at this guy. He is my alliance partner in China in HatF. He registered 3 months ago and is doing amazingly well. So if you really want to succeed, you can. Just needs a bit of asking and motivation. https://www.airwaysim.com/Profile/?u=170182#profileSummary

[RALLX]

Hmm, I get your point but I still think it should not all be presented straight away. It will always be a learning curve. Maybe displaying a notification like the too small warning should do like "Are you really sure you want to have 5 fleet types? Think about commonality costs!". That could do to begin with I think. I am not a fan of having it all given to you without a little learning curve / discovery phase.

By the way, new players can be good with the right motivation, skill, talent and of course help from other fellow players. Look at this guy. He is my alliance partner in China in HatF. He registered 3 months ago and is doing amazingly well. So if you really want to succeed, you can. Just needs a bit of asking and motivation. https://www.airwaysim.com/Profile/?u=170182#profileSummary

Can't agree more to this.

[RALLX]

Andre,

You're right that all these points are logical in principal and you're a hard core player who loves a good challenge. You've played for hundreds (thousands?) of hours and read countless forum threads to reach your current game skills. I believe it should be more transparent for newer players. How easy is it to crush a newbie? Even someone who has been playing for six months is no threat. The player I quoted above has been playing on and off since 2016 and has a fair amount of achievements with no language barrier. Not everyone has the time to dig through all this. The disproportionate commonality cost increase is a penalty, introduced to avoid one player capturing the whole market. That is fine, but let the player know. There are many other penalties like too small aircraft or too much frequency. The too small penalty is at least highlighted during the game but I would argue it is probably too late when a player already has a huge "too small" fleet that needs to be suddenly replaced.
Just asking for more transparency.

Cheers!
Mike

This is precisely why there is mentorship system in AWS. However honestly I do not know the take-up rate for mentors.  I had accepted few mentorship requests but frankly the communication is very cumbersome when it is done through PM. We need some kind of online chatting platform (one that is confined within AWS hopefully).

[gazzz0x2z]

This is precisely why there is mentorship system in AWS. However honestly I do not know the take-up rate for mentors.  I had accepted few mentorship requests but frankly the communication is very cumbersome when it is done through PM. We need some kind of online chatting platform (one that is confined within AWS hopefully).

To my experience, 80% of mentored players are not interested in learning. They want a few cheap tricks to win. I did have a handful of very fine ones, eager to learn - and who did learn, indeed...and all others basically wanted a cheat code, without daring asking for it, basically.

I don't accept mentees anymore in the beginner's games, and only rarely in real games. Much work for not much reward(reward being the mentee actually understanding what he is doing).

[RALLX]

To my experience, 80% of mentored players are not interested in learning. They want a few cheap tricks to win. I did have a handful of very fine ones, eager to learn - and who did learn, indeed...and all others basically wanted a cheat code, without daring asking for it, basically.

I don't accept mentees anymore in the beginner's games, and only rarely in real games. Much work for not much reward(reward being the mentee actually understanding what he is doing).

Somehow I felt the same, and I have stopped accepting mentee request after the first two mentees.