As a new player, is the following proposition roughly correct or am I missing something:
If you join a game late (perhaps 2 years after it has started), you struggle to find the better aircraft to lease (they are all taken). By the time you make enough money to think about buying planes, everyone else is far enough ahead that there are huge production queues.
Any comments gratefully appreciated.
The Boeing A32X series are produced relatively quickly, you can have a huge order and all of them should get to you in within 4 months. Airbus is producing A32X series at 30 per month.
B747 on the other hand, you may have a huge wait time.
If you stick to the non popular long range planes, your wait time shouldn't be as bad. Such as Lockhead TriStar, DC-10, MD-11.
Joining a world late is notoriously difficult, if you want to be one of the largest airlines and be based at a large airport. There is slim chance of gaining control of a big hub unless the incumbent airline is badly managed or maintained. You can occasionally get lucky and find that a big hub has lost it's largest airline leaving huge amounts of capacity free, as players sometimes leave the game or become bored by the dominance of a major hub and voluntarily bankrupt to set up somewhere else.
Usually though, if you do not suffer from delusions of grandeur and are happy to build a modest sized airline or regional carrier that is based away from the bigger hubs, then joining later actually has its advantages. The used aircraft market is much better later on in the game, as the biggest airlines try and renew their fleets and so sell their slightly older aircraft. Usually big discount deals can be made with the larger airlines who simply want to get rid of the older aircraft they may own.
Maybe two years in (like you suggested) this hasn't kicked in fully and so you'll have to compete on the used market with other growing airlines. The best aircraft disappear quickly on the used market, as the experienced players know when the market refreshes (it's currently around midday game time on 3 or 4 random days a week - when you see your money changes amount) but this is being changed to 100% random times in v1.2. This should hopefully improve the used aircraft available.
Cheers,
Dave :)
Personally, joining a game 2-3 years into it is not that hard. You can find "starter" aircraft alot easier then the two years prior to joining. Within 2-3 years of any game world.. the weak start to die off. Holes start to form and the strong airlines get stronger. As long as you stay under the radar and don't pick fights with the bigger airlines, you'll have a nice airline in not too long of a time. Once you've reached a decent size, then you can start targeting weaker airlines for better market control.
The key is not to compete with the bigger airlines. Most players wont care if another airline pops up. But if you go around picking fights, don't think they wont backhand and send you crying to Sami...
Talentz
Just find a big/middle size airport without big airlines is ok to build up your own. There are always some route left behind because nobody can take everything away, especially if it is located too close to another big airport and no ferry flight can be made. Give you an example in TMT: the world started at 1992 and one airline found in 2006 at Taipei Songshan (RCSS), which is an empty Taiwan domestic airport with quite a number of pax can serve. He can keep growing even the fuel price go to sky high and get into top 50 airlines in the world at around 2010. It is not very good to base at RCSS if you have another choices, but it is better than nothing (and working well), right? ;)
In V1.2 it should be even more possible as no multi-legs and replaced with multi-hub. Big airline can no longer take your demands. You may even get enter to the big hubs if you have the money to fight with those big boys ;)
and one more thing: except for the planes from failed big airlines, there should be some alternative planes can choose (especially short haul), like in modern times there are MD-80/90 besides of B737 and A320. Their running cost maybe a bit higher than those common planes, but in short haul it is not a big number and you can get them in a much shorter time. You can return to "main steam" when you have the cash or the planes get older.
I would argue that the alternative planes are just as good, if not better than, the Boeing and Airbus offerings in some cases. I tend to use them whenever possible, as the cost of acquisition is often cheaper, I can get them when I want, and they cost about the same per trip and same for maint as the A/B aircraft.
A few great examples:
Jet Age: Hawker Siddley Tridents vs Boeing 727s. They have the same fuel burn, similar passenger loads, similar range and similar maint costs. The new Tridents cost up to 20-30% less than the 727s - the only problem with them is that if you own them, noone wants to buy them - hence the huge leasing company owned boneyard of new trident examples when you can't seem to find a single Boeing plane. I had 130+ of them before starting to migrate to the 727-200 (for higher pax capacity) and built a rather sizeable airline (last I checked I had the highest company value in Jet Age).
Modern Times: MD-90 vs 737 Classics/NGs. This is a bit tougher of a comparison, as they really don't perfectly fit each other. The M90 has a pax capacity that sits directly between the 737-300/400 and 737-700/800. The trip costs and maint costs tend to be about the same as the 737-700s, and they have similar range. The M90's can be acquired for 30% less than the 737s, which makes it a no brainer in my mind. The only weakness that the M90 has is that the -10 and -50 derivatives were never built, so you really have one choice - the M90 or M90 for your routes, whereas the 737 is a bit more versitile on pasenger capacity, even though I'd argue that you're retarded for flying anything smaller than a 400/800 sized plane because the 300/500/600/700's have about the same trip costs without the higher revenue potential.
Also Modern Times, prior to the great fuel run up - the M80's were just bloody awesome. Sure, they're fuel hogs, but I printed money with them, especially when I was buying them used for 10-20M compared to a used M90 at 30-40M and a 737 at 60M+.
Thats the other thing with the 737s - you can spend the same amount of money to buy a 757 and haul significantly more passengers with about the same CASM....
Thanks for all your thoughts and comments!
Quote from: altmants on March 31, 2010, 10:56:34 PM
The Boeing A32X series are produced relatively quickly, you can have a huge order and all of them should get to you in within 4 months. Airbus is producing A32X series at 30 per month.
B747 on the other hand, you may have a huge wait time.
If you stick to the non popular long range planes, your wait time shouldn't be as bad. Such as Lockhead TriStar, DC-10, MD-11.
Not to be rude but Boeing doesnt make the A32X....
Also, there are many more good planes to lease in most games after they launch.
yea, i meant' Airbus. oops
I joined The Modern Times #1 very late, it was the first real game I ever tried, only played 1 day of demo before. The Airbus A32x's where practically all over the place. Easily grew upto 90 planes within no time. Only now most of the routes are filled and I cba to expand further, so now i'm just replacing all old planes with new ones. Airline was worth 1,000,000,000+ after little over 2 RL weeks.
So yes, you can easily join a game late.
Quote from: Footlong on April 04, 2010, 11:55:53 AM
I joined The Modern Times #1 very late, it was the first real game I ever tried, only played 1 day of demo before. The Airbus A32x's where practically all over the place. Easily grew upto 90 planes within no time. Only now most of the routes are filled and I cba to expand further, so now i'm just replacing all old planes with new ones. Airline was worth 1,000,000,000+ after little over 2 RL weeks.
So yes, you can easily join a game late.
I joined both the 2 games I have playe(d) really late and agree with you 100%. In this latest one, I have managed to get a sizeable airline as well in Dawn of the Millenium. I think a major issue is people not considering a lot of airports, but there are plenty of airports that can maintain a big airlines. In Dawn of the Millenium, there's not even a single airline at Changi at the moment, there were 3 at 1 point. But it seems the majority of players settle for airports in Europe, the middle east or North America. All valid choices of course, but there are tons of available airports which have practically all the slots available and reasonable demand.
Just a shame you can't relocate your airline beyond the limit set in game, or maybe not..