AirwaySim

I have a clear plan about the way AWS is developed and one of the big ideas includes updating the game in such a way that playability in long-term is more appealing. In other words the game should be transferred more into a way where it's not just about buying planes, setting up routes and growing - but also managing an airline that is already established and doing well as it is.

Related to this concept please throw in any ideas or comments that would in your mind make the playability better in long (>12 month) scenarios. I'd like to make extra-long game worlds that can last over a year but requirement is first that anyone could join at any point and have the equal chances -- but also players joined at the very beginning could be still kept interested.

Some pointers:

* The startup of an airline should be equal, now the early starters get an advantage at the start of the game world.

* Once the airline is established well and market is filled, there's not much to do other than replace planes and check occasionally for new competition. It can run very well on "autopilot" for a long time..

* Something to keep the established airlines interested in the "regular" management ..

etc.

- Stock/share exchange. Possible to aquire and sell stocks. Overtake companies. Have subsidary companies or sister companies.
More players in the same airline (for example when airline is aquired by another airline).

- More changes in passenger flow, economic changes, passenger demand varies. Seasonal demand.

- Accidents. Depening on how the airline is maintaining the aircraft. Unlikely, but can cause extreme passenger/image loss.

- Higher possibilities of operational breaks, more staff strikes. Airport staff strikes?

- Ability to compete and "bid" around charter flights, for example "A sports team want to charter a plane from Manchester to New York".
Airline with the best offered quality/price win.

Get rid of the computer generate Used aircraft market.
even in 1.2,airlines can expand rapidly by acquiring used aircraft...

Quote from: CX717 on April 12, 2010, 12:10:01 PM
Get rid of the computer generate Used aircraft market.
even in 1.2,airlines can expand rapidly by acquiring used aircraft...

Yes, great! A huge problem is that is too easy to get hands on planes.
If we can disable the computer leasing companies after like 1-2 game years, it would both make expansion slower and also make more airlines lease out.

Long-term playability:

1) Historic and fictional events.
- Random wars. During a war the traffic (domestic and international) is lower and maybe the goverment takes some of your planes. Lasts some days to 1-2 years
- Disasters. A big disease and nobody wants to fly anywhere till it's over. A big earthquake destroys an airport and you have to focus on your bases till it is rebuild (and if you have no bases, goverment will pay you one). A hurricane reduce the condition of your planes and maybe it's a good moment to give away this 22 year old things. And if you have a good insurance, maybe you earn some money under bottom line.
- Plane crashes. If it was your fault, you have to set up a big image campaing. Or maybe it's the fault of the plane type and it's rated down. Including (dynamic) aircraft statistics, so maybe in 2015 Tupolevs are more favored by pax because they don't crash that often.
- Groundings because of technical problems, all planes of a specific type must go to the manufacturer for 1-2 month.
- Special deals. There is Olympia in Greece? Why not the goverment sends an email to all greece carriers with various options? Bidding to be the official olympia carrier or setting up a plane with luxurious seats and giving it away for olympic flys. Is it worth to pay for it to increase your pax demand as long as the games are?
- Something like US goverment has done in reality (with Pan Am). They give you money for your new long range fleet, but if it's necessary, they take the planes and give them back in desolate condition.
- financial crisis etc. So why at the moment you have to raise your prices one or two times a year (ideal scenario). But if there is a big financial crisis, you must lower your prices, maybe kick some of your staff or ground some aircraft.

All this things make you think about the situation. Is there need to reroute? Maybe setting planes with small revenue to routes with big revenues, but where the fleet is currently at the manufacturer due to technical problems? Must I replace my Boeings because their image has gone bad? Is the route to this city in South America a good idea, because the country is in war every three years?


2) More micromanagement (so you can't run your airline on autopilot for years)
- engine upgrades. Maybe it's not real in every point, but why not upgrade an 15 year old plane with +MTOW or maybe better engines? It mustn't be unrealistic (put 777 engines on a 737-200Adv), but I think there are ways.
- cabin design. In the 60s it's cool to have a radio for every pax, but if you fly the same plane in the 80s, you have to upgrade it to TVs. (large range of options with influence on route and company image)
- easier system for setting prices. It's not fun to click through ~500 routes to set the prices (competition and inflation changes)
- dynamic demand. Maybe linked with disasters or city changes.


Equal chances for new players:

1) Starting money depends on the average value of existing airlines in your area and on some other parameters. You get a boost if you choose an airport with much slots left (so not becoming the 29th airline at Heathrow) and if you start at a small regional airport in El Salvador, goverment will give you a welcome gift.
2) "New player bonus". The first few month your airline has exact the same company image than your competitors, because everybody wants to know if your planes and service (has to be included :P) is better. After this, say 4 month, there is a report that told you what's good and what's not so good at your airline. So if you do everything right, your CI boosts up what makes your airline more competitive.
3) More starting planes. If you start after 6 month in a 12 month game (real time), there should be an option for new (or a special leasing company) aircrafts. This should skip the part of order some aircraft and wait month (or years) for it. These aircraft shouldn't be part of the normal queue and they should be deliverd immediately. This allows your airline to start with 10 brand new new Fokker70 instead of four old Tupolev if this is your airline concept. If not, there should be a special leasing company offering used planes of any type if this type isn't available at the normal used market.



Sorry if some of this ideas are too far away from topic intention etc., but better bad ideas than no ideas, not?  ;)

Some ideas:

1. Starting after the initial startup

When starting after the initial start, players should be given some advantages to get them to the same level as those who have started earlier. These advantages could include
- increased pax demand for some months, for example as suggested above in the form of CI
- some 'free' slot times = able to depart even when there would normally be no slots at that time. This also for a limited time, for example till the next time slots are auctioned
  (see 2.)
- ability to lease any plane currently available from a special computer lessor, who only leases to new players for max, say, 2 years with no buy- option. And, the player would be able to terminate the lease any time for free. He could also lease only a set amount of planes, say, 2 big, 4 medium, or 6 small.
This would allow the player some time to generate money and to look out for a plane to lease from a player.

2. A new way to acquire slots

Instead of just giving the slots to those who first grab them, it should be somehow decided on who gets them, on an annual or 2-3 year basis. A bit like auction, but instead of money use some other means ie profit margin or some new to measure who gets what. Or just equally give them depended on the size of the company, with some bonus slots if the company is doing good. And, if the company isn't doing good, give it less slots. This would rule out companies with just huge amount of money.

This way, companies would have to work to earn and keep their slots, and this would also allow new companies the chance to get some/good slot times. Also, as in real life, if the new company doesn't succeed in the first few months (explained at 1.), it wouldn't get the slots, and would most likely have to cease operations.

Quote from: Jimmy Ringsell on April 12, 2010, 12:03:32 PM
- Higher possibilities of operational breaks, more staff strikes. Airport staff strikes?

- I think this is a good idea to encourage CEOs to keep managing their airlines.  Many airlines are currently struggling in real life because they have grown too fat after years of not being managed efficiently and this is reflected in union ballots and strikes.  This could be perhaps be modelled by implementing a training budget.  Whilst training costs are currently modelled for refresher training and new employees, new schemes would help boost morale before it dips again.  If no new schemes were launched then the spiral would begin with more cancellations, lower CI etc etc.

- A further staff cost over time could be pensions provisions.  Setting aside part of your budget for a pension scheme could potentially create a pensions crisis if not enough cash was budgeted for.  In the longer worlds, staff could retire and dip into the pension pot when they do.

- Linked to the above two, maybe fleet utilisation could play a more important role in CI or staff morale.  I had an airline (Manchestair in MT#1) with around 30 idle aircraft for over 4 years and I was still raking cash in, despite the fact I had aircraft sitting around because I couldn't be bothered to reschedule routes.  Maybe an efficiency rating could be obtained from fleet utilisation and a low efficiency could adversely affect CI or staff morale.

- Maybe advertising's effects could diminish over time, so that you would have to renew your advertising department every so often in order to maintain your high CI.  Maintaining a high CI is essential to keeping a large airline going and currently it's very easy to plough cash into marketing and raise your CI.

- Alternatively, CI could alter in regions/countries.  If you're based in North America then your CI in South America could be different depending on the aircraft used and routes served.  This would allow certain markets to be targeted etc and a newer airlines could capture markets if they concentrated on these markets.  This could be linked to where the carrier is based.  (It has been mentioned before I know) but linked to this maybe pax might prefer the local carrier and so could obtain routes from the 'other end' more easily.

-As a final point (linked to some of the other)  Maybe budgeting for various departments could be included.  This could have an auto setting, that like the current personnel set up would over compensate, or to ensure efficient operations a manual one that would require the CEO to plan ahead for the coming years.

- As mentioned by others, I also think seasonal demand, geographical catastophes like earthquakes and hurricanes and events such as the olympics, world cups, tournaments and expos etc would help retain interest for the longer worlds.

Hopefully some of these ideas might spark something :)

Keep up the good work - I'm really looking forward to v1.2s launch.

Dave :)

Quote from: Jimmy Ringsell on April 12, 2010, 12:14:07 PM
Yes, great! A huge problem is that is too easy to get hands on planes.
If we can disable the computer leasing companies after like 1-2 game years, it would both make expansion slower and also make more airlines lease out.

just a little problem: if somebody join after those 1-2 game years, how can he start? ;) no plane sin used market and most of the slots are taken by older airlines, so his 5 credits are spent to make himself upset ;)

remember the situation in ATB1, big airlines get more planes at used market and earn more, order new planes earlier but never release planes back to market. Stop providing planes in used market is not reducing the different between big airlines and small airlines/latecomers, but increasing. The problem is those better planes never go back to the market, not too many planes. I think what we should do is try to make them back to the market (or by force) but not reduce the supply. If really need to reduce, make sure smaller airlines will not be effected because they will always be the losers, not those big boy you want to stop

first or first two aircraft deliver instantly can speed up the start a bit.
and V1.2 new aircraft delivery did improved.Even you order a plane with long production list,you still able to get your first plane within couple of months.
But remember in reality,during the economic bloom,airlines can hardly acquire any decent used aircraft from the market.
The ingame used market just keep generate some good quality aircraft is completely unrealistic.
If generate used aircraft is a must,only 15 years old+ aircraft should be generate,not some 7 years old A300.

Quote from: CX717 on April 12, 2010, 05:15:03 PM
first or first two aircraft deliver instantly can speed up the start a bit.
and V1.2 new aircraft delivery did improved.Even you order a plane with long production list,you still able to get your first plane within couple of months.
But remember in reality,during the economic bloom,airlines can hardly acquire any decent used aircraft from the market.
The ingame used market just keep generate some good quality aircraft is completely unrealistic.
If generate used aircraft is a must,only 15 years old+ aircraft should be generate,not some 7 years old A300.

If you cannot find anything to lease, first or first two aircraft deliver instantly cannot help ;)

but the idea of limiting the quality available in market is a good idea I think......it that possible to introduce a system to let some of those good quality aircraft reserve to new or smaller airlines, like only visible to them? Leasing companies order new planes too......

Boeing has a list telling what kinds of planes available to lease, let's see what types of planes there now :P
http://active.boeing.com/commercial/am/index.cfm?content=include/reports.cfm&pageid=m38072

I hope I can still get new planes quick even in new systems ;) what I think about the new system is "old planes will return to market even slower because nobody can return them back before the replacement arrived".  :-\

Check the age...most of them are 20+.
And you can always lease a new aircraft.

I wonder how the age effect the cost, I know it will go up but seems like not affordable to airlines

of course I saw a GOOD case in JA2 as somebody lease some 24yrs old Britannia to fly and ended his way to become a bigger airline ;)

Sorry if this has been suggested, I'm in a rush  :-[

What about having it so you can choose and change what type of airline you want to be
ie
Holiday airline
Budget Airline (no TV, catering)
erm Normal Airline (AA,BA etc)

Also you could choose catering that affects route image

I also think that it would be good if you could do this
If you have an AC with an upcoming C/D Check, you could have a short term lease of an aircraft that you could transfer the schedule to, without having to change the aircraft type manually etc BUT you would have to do this in advance because the people leasing them would have to accept/decline the short term lease. Maybe the 'upcoming c checks' could be extended to tell you upto the next 2/3 months

Quote from: type45 on April 12, 2010, 06:04:54 PM
I wonder how the age effect the cost, I know it will go up but seems like not affordable to airlines

of course I saw a GOOD case in JA2 as somebody lease some 24yrs old Britannia to fly and ended his way to become a bigger airline ;)

Haha... dont remind Kim how his DC-8s were losing to my 25+yr Britannias :laugh:

~ Long term playability?

Well I still think that a well established airline is nearly impossible to compete against with the way the game is built. Think you tested that fact Sami  ;)

However, to better level the playing field, acquired slots needs to be changed from the current system. Expanding on what the posters above me have said, slots need to move towards a biding system.

I envision a slot system that is: 50% "first come first serve", 25% bidding and 25% restricted. Wheres at the start of a game world, everyone has access to the "public slots". Once those slots are below 5% the 25% bid restricted slots be come available.

As for the 25% restricted. Those become available to airlines who "meet" the requirements. (airline age, ect ect) We can fine tune the requirements at a later point.

So basically every airport will have at least 25% of slots available for airlines who meet the "requirements".


This would help newer airlines alot and also change up the gameplay a bit for the rest of us.


- Talentz

The main aim here should be safeguarding the intretst of airlines based at that particulat airport. Airlines flying in should less priority.
The second basesystem in V1.2 has got this sorted,as no one can fly 2nd leg routes but when we build a base we are attacking somene elses base. Its like having 2 airlines frm 2 diff cities.isnt this unfair for that person? this is direct competiton unlike before where players lost a bit of money on fuel flying empty or half full to their second base.

My Idea is after a certain period of time every routed created has go through a automatic route check. So once we create route the game takes 1 day (game time) to assess whether this route legal/acceptable or not. Idea behind this is to to limit other airlines exploting the hub. Competiton is good, needed and provides healthy envoirnment but if played right and most of them here just act as  if they are in the battle field and wanna destroy anyone in their path.

Also games to be shorter, max 15 yrs. longer the game easier the charm wears off especially when new games start.

VJC

In a worldwide game, I think you shouldn't be allowed to have HQ/BASE at the top 20 biggest airports. Otherwise, say later in the game, a small airline comes in and bases themself at a small airport, wants to fly a Heathrow as it has lots of pax, then often, most of the slots will be gone

Talentz, I remember you do not use Britannias at that time? :o this is something happened when he based at SBGR no SAEZ, right?

and actually, this is a game which we need to destroy anyone in your path ;)

I don't think it is normal if the top 20 is empty, give some other restrictions to those airline will be much better

Hmm.. must be JA3 I am thinking about. I used Britannias from start to finish in that game world. Some of my aircraft underwent 3 D-checks by worlds end. Yet they still made a profit (even factoring the horrid 25yr D-check cost!)


- Talentz

Quote from: Talentz on April 13, 2010, 08:50:08 AM
Hmm.. must be JA3 I am thinking about. I used Britannias from start to finish in that game world. Some of my aircraft underwent 3 D-checks by worlds end. Yet they still made a profit (even factoring the horrid 25yr D-check cost!)


- Talentz

I think that's the logic of US-based airlines (e.g. UA, AA), which is quite different from Asia-based airlines (e.g. SQ, CX). US-based airlines are used to keep an aircraft for many years, some of them are over 30 years old, are also quite common. While for Asia-based airlines, they are used to retire those over 15 years old aircraft.

I would like more involvement with the alliances.

Code share agreements where you have to negotiate with the partner individually to set it up. eg. how many seats and prices etc etc etc.

more to manage with the cabin, eg television, lie flat seats, food,

upgrades for aircraft. eg. for 'future' games (those in the 2010+) new fuels like Air new Zealand bio fuel projects, new wing tips, new engines, able to refurbish aircraft so your old md80's will not scare the customers over to the rivals flying 73NG's, engine upgrades, 'more customization of aircraft',
frequent flyers, lounges at you hubs, alliance lounges,

You could have contracts for charter flights eg. sell entire flights to holiday destinations that normally would not have much traffic, eg if you were based in frankfurt you could sign contracts that you will fly a 737 to antalya daily and you will get X amount of money for this. might make it fun if you have to compete with other airlines for the business. Maybe a way for the charter flight to work is to have a contract which anybody can bid on. With the bid they must specify the type of aircraft they will use etc. Say there is contract on offer for flights from mallorca to Germany. if you won the contract you could base 4 ac at the airport. It would become a 5th base and you can only has a few select airports you can fly to. This would not effect the other traffic flying the route. However you must for fill the obligations of the contract.

introduce freight. Able to determine how much freight is loaded onto your pas ac. Also you could have a freighter fleet. I am sure there are mail runs all over the world.

able to buy shares of smaller airlines. Upto 49%. so you make money as they grow. able to trade shares. able to start subsidies.

What if people joining the game can start a subsidy of your airline. You can bank role the new airline, you can supply a few startup aircraft, however you can control a few aspects. if the new player decides to leave the game the small airline will be sold off to another airline, eg they will get all the aircraft or absorbed into you airline eg you take over all the aircraft (whichever is your choice). Or if the airline does not make much money it can be sold by the company that owns it, or if it is poor financial state it can be sold. For an example you put an offer out to start a subsidary airline at gatwick. You supply 5 737's and 5 million dollars. You can give more money to the airline as needed to become well established. A term of the contract is your airline receives 10% of all profits. So a new player joins, he accepts and starts you subsidiary. He builds the airline up however you decide that you wish to sell the airline and put it on the market. Another airline buys it and receives the profits. Say the airline does badly, and makes no money for an extended time, the parent airline can close it down and take over the assets or sell it. I don't suggest that the parent can close it down when it is profitable. This would mean you could kick people out of the game.

I've been waiting a thread like this to stick my thoughts... So Here we go

Market System
We should be CEO's not airlines. This will give the players more realism in terms of business dynamics. It also provides a lofty goal of making one's self rich and rising to the top. That being said, Rome wasn't built in a day. There should be pre-existing airlines before the start of the game world and during the game world. In other words AI. On top of that one has to be able to make acquisitions of AI companies, which means a Stock and Board system. Of course not everyone wants to play a stock game so the player should be given a choice. Bullet points...

• Stock Market System: Allows you to buy and sell publicly traded airlines
• Board of Directors:Anyone running an airline who does not own majority control must keep their board of directors happy. The board can be changeable by shareholder votes, ceo can be elected by shareholder votes, Live players may not be on the board, however they can vote for CEO's and oust the CEO with majority stake.  Board has an AI mentality(budget airline, domestic airline etc). 
• AI Airlines: When an airline is CEO-less and before the game begins a number of airlines will be controlled by the game server. The AI will be self declining, as in not opening new routes, not changing prices etc. In order to limit processing times for the server. This also allows the game to "clean" overtime instead of just having airlines bankrupt
• Player: Are given a preset amount of startup money based on how long the game has been playing. When the player has ran out of money they are bankrupt and must pay the credits again to start over.
• Player: should be given a choice between starting a public traded airline(% covered by player = % of shares), a private airline(100% cover/shares), or applying to an airline. They may do so as long as they have money and are currently running an airline.
• CEO Stats: Reputation stats based on past performance. (Making Boards Happy, Wealth)
• Airline Startup Cost: Should be flexible based on the amount the CEO wants to invest. If a player puts in $5 million into a company he owns 50% of, then the Airline should start with $10 million.

Economic, Political, and World Events and Trends
Purchasing power and traffic of areas should change at least quarterly. Both historical and/or random growths of areas effect pax demand and airport size. A great example would be Orlando. Orlando didn't become a major destination until late late in the 20th century. In the 60s 70s and 80s there was more demand in Sanford than Orlando. Orlando did hit major growth the last 25 years, so why isn't that reflected (if even randomly) in the game? Having Orlando as a major airport in the 70s is asinine specially since most of Orlando still had lime-rock roads at the time. :)

Event/Trend systems that effect PAX demand would greatly improve playability. Wars, Disasters, Olympics, Crashes, Seasonal trends would greatly add some spice. Of course big events will be known to all, but small things like Australian beaches are popular this summer would be known to only those who spend money researching trends. I like List

• Economic Zones At least regional size. (SE USA, Western Europe, NE Asia, Middle East, etc)
• Economic Zones Update Economics at least quarterly, thus effecting PAX demand
• Economic Update Countries/States individually in conjunction with regional changes at least once a year.
• Economic Power: The purchasing power of the population effects how much they're willing to spend on tickets.
• Tourism TrendsBased on proximity to tourist attraction and/or random generated points of interest. A few of them per quarter for random amounts of length.
• Political & World Events: Effect pax demand for area based on event type.
• Much less static demand...

Running an Airline
Personally I'd like to tighten budgets (increasing the cost of flying), make it harder to grow, allow us to micromanage more, and make it much more rewarding. Lets start out with our CI, lets add in flight services and features to aircraft. There is no such thing as free soda and peanuts. Allow us to mange the maintenance and service levels of each plane with a simple slider. Lets put some scarcity in staffing. There aren't that many people who can fly 747s. Lets bid on their wages, add unions, strikes and make it all regionally based. Chinese pilots are paid less than American pilots. On the flip side Americans pay more in domestic fare(see economic power above). In a long term game, you have to make it costly to stay BIG. Increase cost as employment increases. When an airline hits red force them to take a non-secured loan of the amount + 20%. Way too many companies operate in the red, how the hell are they paying their employees without using credit?   Listalisious:

• Black Line Keep them low by increasing cost
• GrowthSlow em down by increasing cost the faster they try to grow.(be hard to buy all the pilots)
• Services While we don't need an option to give free sodas, lets at least have a slider per plane for services. (Services: none-minimal-avarage.. etc)
• MaintenanceSame as above, but aircrafts do crash :(
• Staffing Put out a price bid and the number of pilots you need, let the free market work it self. Update it weekly.
• UnionsAnnoying airn't they? If everyone else in the area is paying better than you, they might stab you in the back.
• Forced LoansIf an airline has been in the red for a week force them to take a loan for that amount + 20% (to put them in the black again). If greater than unsecured amount force them to put up assets. If they fail at that start defaulting them.

Airports
I've noticed a lot of people have problems with slots. This is specially true if you jump in later in a game. Though slightly unrealistic we ought to have a slot bidding system when the airports get full. Yearly you ought to bid to keep your under-performing slots (makes it harder for hording). Bonuses should be given to HQ airlines, based airlines, and domestic airlines over international airlines. However this is only in the event that the airport can not expand. Each airport should be given a minimum and maximum size. If an airport has a lot of demand, the economics of the area are good, the airport has room, and the airlines can lobby strong enough (again bonuses to hq,base,domestics) then the airport will expand. God not another list....

• Slot Bidding Yearly bidding system for under-performing slots. Bonuses for HQ, Based, and airlines from the same country.
• Airport Growth:Airports should be able to expand/shrink based on demand, economics of the area, land area, and government support.
• Lobby: for airport growth, get bonuses when slots come

Well I'm sick of typing more will come if I remember anything.

I would like to see more fluctuating pax demand/LF´s, best randomly and notdepending on historical data.
I could imagine a curve like the fuel prices curve showing the positive or negative growth of worldwide pax demand.

Why not some random events that let this curve decrease enormiously within 1 week and takes a year to recover? (Like happened in RL e.g. 9/11, SARS, global economic crises, wars etc.)

This would lead to more game complexity, harder games and even might kill "autopilot airlines".

Go back to where I discussed multi stage games.

Early on, we play in the 40s.  Many startups but only the large airports.
Next, as we move into the 50s, more airports open up.  You can now build first hub.
As we move into the 60s, the Jet age begins, more airports and international travel starts... next hub allowed.

This way, there are lulls in each era instead after the fast buildup phase.

Quote from: swiftus27 on May 25, 2010, 04:38:41 PM
Go back to where I discussed multi stage games.

Early on, we play in the 40s.  Many startups but only the large airports.
Next, as we move into the 50s, more airports open up.  You can now build first hub.
As we move into the 60s, the Jet age begins, more airports and international travel starts... next hub allowed.

This way, there are lulls in each era instead after the fast buildup phase.

+1


I like this idea.  Maybe we could add on some "regulation" too.  Such as you're only allowed to create X amount of routes per year.  Until Deregulation in your country, that is.

I think some form of "government regulation" or "competition law" to control the enormous airlines. I am sure they are great fun to grow (requiring time and skill), but they seriously impact on entry into the market. I accept the response that that is just part of business, but in reality there are certain controls that prevent airlines operating monopolies (at least to a degree). I appreciate that in recent times the survival of the airline industry itself may have required a certain amount of relaxation.

No doubt there are a host of ways of achieving this (some good suggestions by others above), but slot allocation is an obvious starting point.

Quote from: Jimmy Ringsell on April 12, 2010, 12:14:07 PM
Yes, great! A huge problem is that is too easy to get hands on planes.
If we can disable the computer leasing companies after like 1-2 game years, it would both make expansion slower and also make more airlines lease out.

Perhaps find a way to restrict access to it to only those who have just started. Without these dealers, any late starter is screwed.

Frequent Flyer Program... has costs but benefits also.

Ground Handling - Own staff or outsourced....benefits - own staff has a better image but higher $$$$ than outsourced.

Lounges.... these have costs, but can also attract J/Fpax.

Possibility to outsource lounges for a fee to other airlines... ie if they pay me $xxx per J pax they have EX my airport.... These would help towards costs of running the lounges.

A few points that would make the game more interesting to me:

(1) Service Level: this has been mentioned before, but you all know what it means.  Let us choose what kind of food/drink/entertainment we offer on each route.  Let us set costs for these features.  How many "free bags" do we allow the passengers to bring?  How many carry-ons?  Do we assess a fee for luggage? Lots of ideas here.

(2) Type of Airline: this goes hand-in-hand with the first point.  Are you a budget airline? You can charge less because you have less overhead, but you have less amenities.  Are you a luxury/business airline?  You can charge more because you advertise better leg-room and more amenitites.  Different types of airlines can be wildly successful at the same airport because they appeal to different passenger types/demand.  Your type of airline is chosen at the beginning.  It cannot be changed later .  . . or only after x number of years.

(3) Alliances: make alliances much more interesting.  Code-sharing, pricing structure, co-operative advertising, etc.  Getting into a good alliance when you're a small airline can really boost your chance at success. Especially, later in the game.  The alliance may be happy to add your small airline because you feed passengers from an area that was formerly underserved by the alliance.

(4) Passenger Boosting Activities: Allow airlines to purchase/establish travel agencies, commuter airlines, hotels, car rental companies, etc.  These items are not represented in-game, they are simply things you can do/buy.  Obviously, purchasing these entities creates more overhead.  Yes, you generate some revenue and increase passengers/CI, but you may also be creating a top-heavy, bureaucratic mess!

(5) Commuter Airines (NPCs): Non-player characters/AI-controlled commuter airlines at many airports across the world.  Some airports may have several.  Players have the option of code-sharing with the commuter for a price.  Player can also buy out the commuter.  Both activities boost passenger demand for the airline.  Obviously, buy-out/code-share may be rejected based on amount of offer, airline rep, governement regulation, etc.

I've always considered it a bit silly that everyone does not/is not able to start on an equal footing.  Why not have the scenario set the aircraft everyone starts with?  Yes, different people want different starting aircraft, so . . . allow players to choose which aircraft they wish to start with from a list.  Sami sets the list.  Aircraft have a cost just like now, so you still have the choice: do I want 1 big plane or 2 or 3 smaller ones?  The nice thing is everyone always has the same starting ability/advantage (at least as far as aircraft goes).  All starting aircraft a x years old (set by Sami).  No matter which one you choose, it is the same age and has the same number of months before checks (e.g. all starting aircraft are 7 years old and have 11 months until next C check).

I think it would make sense to allow all starting aircraft to be received immediately.  Why?  This plays hand-in-hand with the choice you make at start: do I want 1 big plane or several small ones?  Also, players should be able to decide on initial aircraft seating config: all aircraft have standard config, but you can pay to change it.  The change happens immediately.  There is no delay for startup aircraft. 

This type of thing would significantly help start-ups later in game.

With such a system in place, I really think the computer generated used aircraft market could be eliminated.  After your initial aircraft, you must purchase/lease new.  This significantly slows growth.  A used market will come about later as airlines get rid of aircraft or go bankrupt.

One of the hardest parts of running an airline is in staffing, yet I wager 99% of players just hit the auto button - problem solved.

Harder game = more staff intereaction, not on numbers, but on salaries, perks, etc


marketing is way too easy here - campaigns make and break an airline.  I would include FFP here.

On board product is not really an issue in todays game, bar seating comparisons - how about meals, etc.   this would enable low cost carriers, and full service competitors.  This is a huge competitive tool for airlines, especially in long haul C and F, that generally ignored in this game.



fare comparison  an ability to price dynamically (lowest fare on route), etc would really drive competition and send margins downwards. as in real world, airlines understand other peoples pricing and compete. 

HUBs  I'm aware that this will take a huge amount of programming.  Hubs will transform this game, as any medium sized city has a chance to become a major aviation centre, just like SIN, PDX , or CVG.   If you are a point to point carrier in a major city, you are only focusing on a small % of the traffic.  This also increases the competition within the game dramatically.  Just because you are the only airline flying  A -> B, you may have twenty competitors offereing A -> C -> B with better onboard, marketing, prices, etc.

A new way of marketing and PAX demand:

The idea explained below is to attract business/pax by generating it through marketing:

Start up, gain demand and go flying:
Say I want to run an airline from Amsterdam-Lelystad airport (currently not modelled) I know I will never ever be able to operate A300's or 747's from that airport. I know the airport is a 45 minutes away from the city centre of Amsterdam and that it can be a good airport to set up a low cost carrier with a new type of pax demand.

What I have to do is start with huge marketing campaigns to let people know my airline is alive and kicking. As a result.... demand will increase fast to nearby (max 1,5 hour flight time) destinations like Stansted and Luton. To promote the route (to gain enough demand for two or three return trips a day) I have to promote the route via route specific marketing, just like the way we do at this moment to increase RI. The amount of marketing spendings will reflect the demand for that route till it gets at it's maximum level. After that you can reduce the amount of marketing specified for the route. Cutting the marketing for the route will result in a drop of demand.

These route demands will be airline specific, so another airline has to do the same trick to operate flights on the same route.

Price structure:
Part of a LCC operation is to specify the amount of seats that go at a certain price.
Say you run a 735 and advertised route fare would be $50 for a Lelystad-London route while the game engine would suggest a route fare of $80
Seats 1 to 20 go for $50
Seats 51 to 65 go for $70
Seats 66 to 110 go for $100
Seats 111 to 126 go for $130

SLOTS:
For the first 30 slots at your start up airport you would not need to pay as the airport could gain income from the amount of pax it receives via your airline through taxes.

Reduce on expenditure:
1) Get ground handling contracts. A ground handler can use his people economically more efficient so this might be an attractive solution during the start up phase of your airline.
2) No aviobridges but cheap plane stands. Get 30% discount.
3) Efficiency training for all staff groups that can result in a lower amount of staff required.
4) Pilots would come cheaper

Alliance benefits:
1) A much asked feature is the direct lease of AC's from alliance members. This way a sell and lease back construction can be adopted to rescue an airline in financial trouble. Or a new airline might get a small boost for acquiring a maximum number of planes (say 5) from alliance members to set up a new business.
2) Codeshare, yes again  8)

Do NOT completely get rid of the used aircraft market ever. Make it smaller if you want, but otherwise leave it alone.

I am not sure if this has been suggested before, but what I am missing in this game would be more interactions and more choices.

1) I'd like if it was possible to get more involved in/around your hq or base, for example being able to buy/build terminals to increase the amount of slots you have and/or passenger services in your terminal, or a kind of leasing of terminals where you can have a huge influence of that specific airports terminal. Etc being able to sign contracts with other services like: catering/cafe's/shops/etc.
So you would be able to attract more customers to your base/airline.
This would also give another end game when you have a strong airline and don't just want to buy more planes. It could also help the problems with slots, that you build a new terminal (takes 3-4 years depending on the size) and after then being able to sell slots in your terminal to other companies who could use them too.

2) I would also love to see more configuration like: Meals aboard planes, prices for food/drinks/souvenirs/magazines/etc?.

3) It would also be cool if it was possible to earn more money through cargo, lugages etc so that it is not only passenger tickets but also for example 20 dollars per passenger per luggage they bring or free if you like.

4) Another cool thing would be if we could be able to buy contracts with fuel companies for fixed fuel prices for serveral years, car rentals in airports, etc etc.

5) Airports are usually a very important matter for airlines, so I would like if we could control them more and for example be able to build buildings like hotels which we could use to store our passengers in, in case flights are cancelled which would make your passengers more happy to fly with you again. Or simply use the hotels for attracting more business people/tourists/etc (see nr. 1).

6) I would also like more reality about maintance, what about only being able to get maintance at specific airports. For example as a new airline, you'll have to pay another company (or computer based maintance) to make them fix your plane, and then make your plane scheduled to fly to the airport of your contracted maintance company. Later on you should be able to build/lease your own maintance buildings and hire staff at your main hub or sub bases. Of couse price should fit with airport size.

I think all these things could make the process in a game much longer and the choices bigger. Do I want my own terminal and control an airport much more and sell/lease slots or even terminals to new companies? Or do I more like to create my own tourist airport with car rentals, hotels and seasonal based tourists in a tropical place?

I think the biggest problem in real life for airlines (and in general) are unions.  They can suck all the blood of any (otherwise) viable enterprise.

Fighting unionization should be one of the major challanges for the player as his airline grows.  It should be increasingly harder as the airline gets larger.  There should be an indicator of what % of of employees favor unionization.  Player should be able to to have some variables at his disposal to keep employee loyalty high (morale?) and union popularity low.

If the player fails, and employees unionize, a new host of problems should occur, such as strikes, work slowdown, over-staffing (forced by union), union dues to be paid etc.

This could slow down the growth of larger airlines, add to their costs, and make it easier for upstart airlines (players joining late) to compete.

This would be more under category "Long-term frustration" rather than "Long-term playability" though...

To be honest, the only airline fighting the unions is BA. Can't remember any other airline cancelling more then 60% of their flights due to a strike... Even not easyJet.

Keep your staff happy and don't cut in their pockets to hard... Utilise management and make all departments more efficient so your airline can do with less staff required.

Every unionized airline is fighting with their union.  With non-unionized workforce, paying fair wages keeps the employees happy.  With unionized workforce, the demands keep going up until the last drop of blood (asset) is sucked by the union.

There is nothing really in the game to keep large airlines from growing.  In reality, large airlines are unionized, and unionized airlines have hard time competing flying smaller planes on less busy routes.

If the goal is to keep the players with larger airlines occupied, they need a challenge, and the challenge is at first fighting unionization, and later, once unionized, dealing with ever growing wage / benefit increases = higher wage costs.  They can say yes to the union every time (just like GM), and go b/k (just like GM), as the wages will go through the roof, and profitability will dissappear.

Or they can fight the union, and endure the strikes, dealing with temp, replacement workers etc.

All of this would give players joining later in the game a fighting chance, because as long as they are small, they don't have to deal with unions, and their wage costs will be lower than high wage costs of larger unionized airlines.

Some very good ideas in this thread...too many to mention.

How about permanent delayed turns, similar to the first turn of a new game? Where every 1 hour of real-time = 1 day of game time, only during that period you can commit/un-commit any actions before that hour expires. The actions would have effect in the same way they do now, for example  if you schedule an incoming aircraft it will show up in the schedule/demand window. This would allow people to react/counter-react within a given game hour if it came down to it while still preserving existing game play in terms of you could set everything up and walk away for 6-8 hours.

There are definently some good ideas in this thread. I think the most important though include:

-Different types of airlines (a must): Low-cost (Southwest, Easyjet), regional (flybe, Mesa Airlines), legacy/normal (AA, Delta)
Along with the different type of airlines, a different set of standards/rules. For example, low-costs can only fly domestic but can have many multiple hubs (focus cities), regionals can't operate planes larger than the medium-plane category but can be contracted off to larger airlines (Pinnacle Airlines flys as Delta Connection or Cityjet flying for Air France).

-Stocks/shares. Option to go public or be private. If public, investors invest in your airline based on CI and value. Ability to buy stocks in other airlines or possibly buy them out.

-MERGERS!!

-Significantly smaller used market that gets smaller as time goes.

-Random events; crashes (affected by pay of pilots and maintenance), wars between countries, weather (snow-storm, hurricanes)

-More passenger frills (affects CI) including: seatback TVs, luggage prices (non on low-cost), meals, frequent flyer, airline/alliance lounges

-More realistic alliance benefits including: Alliance lounges (affects CI), Alliance terminals/Alliance reserved slots, Alliance marketing, etc.

-Allow for alliance statistics page to show top airlines in respective airline type (So it is more rewarding to run a regional airline when they don't have to be compared with major legacy airlines)

-A rating like Skytrax showing airlines with best customer satisfaction (thus improving CI)

A few of these changes would increase longterm playability and reward all types of airlines even if their not super huge legacy airlines, plus add many more options in the way to run your airline.  :)

Government bailouts

Turning the game into a more true massively multiplayer game, rather than a solitaire or duel, as it is in the current form.  There is very limited, or almost no player interaction, and pretty much none is needed.

The way to do it is to allow players to have something to trade.  The best thing to trade is passenger traffic.

The pre-requisite of this enhancement would be implementing ability for passengers to transfer between flights.  Once implemented, players could establish relationship with other players.  The levels of relationships would be:

- blockade - default, starting option of every player with every other player.  No transfers allowed.
- non-discounted transfers allowed.  Some (but not many) passengers would pay the price for trip from A to C as AB + BC, rather than default price of AC
- discounted transfer.  Maybe a several levels of discount would be pre-set.  At each higher level, more of the traffic would go from A to C via B.

The resulting level of relationship would be the minimum either of the players has set up.  So if Player 1 has blockade with Player 1, and Player 2 has 10% discount offer to Player 1, the result would be a blockade.

With this trading system, there would be some incentive for Player 1 to think, and possibly communicate with every other player who is flying into his base.

These relationships can really make this a whole new game.  Suppose there is a dominant player in, say LAX.  He does not like to "share" with anybody.  He has ability to drive every upstart airline out of LAX.  Suppose this dominant LAX player is competing with Bangkok based Player 2 over LAX - Bangkok route, and has no incentive to help the Bangkok player in any way - hence blockade.  Now, suppose a new airline starts in LAX.  This upstart airline starts flying some routes out of LAX, to which the dominant LAX player responds by oversupplying them, trying to run the upstart out of the game.  But the LAX upstart and the Bangkok players have all the incentives to work together and share traffic against the dominant LAX player...

Similarly, everybody else who hates the LAX player, who is flying into LAX, has an incentive to work with the upstart LAX airline, to weaken the LAX player and to get more traffic out of LAX - passengers transferring from the upstart LAX airline...

+1!!

I think its a great idea:)

Transfers would definitely be good, they open up a new dimension of playing by allowing everyone to grow to a big airline regardless of whether they are based at an airport that's just big because a real world airline is hubbing there. And it opens up the game up for code sharing and other real alliance advantages.

I do realise that implementing this is difficult, but I think it is possible without changing big parts of the game engine. Basically, there is demand for lots of A-B relations and a network of flights that connects these destinations, associated with various costs for each flight (duration, price ...) and between each flight (connection time, same airline ...). This is something called a Multi-commodity flow problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-commodity_flow_problem). Now it is possible to approximately solve this problem for example once a week and map the result to the demand between each airport pair. This way it is possible to have demand based on connections without having to model the actual connection each and every time.

Quote from: DarkVenegance on July 13, 2010, 11:46:03 AM
Transfers would definitely be good, they open up a new dimension of playing by allowing everyone to grow to a big airline regardless of whether they are based at an airport that's just big because a real world airline is hubbing there. And it opens up the game up for code sharing and other real alliance advantages.

Yup.  All the airports would be more or less equal, and an active player starting in not so big airport with many routes could make the airport very busy with a lot of traffic going through.  The only limitation would be the starting number of slots.  Airports could grow dynamically based on percentage of slots sold, rather than at constant pace.

Quote from: DarkVenegance on July 13, 2010, 11:46:03 AM
I do realise that implementing this is difficult, but I think it is possible without changing big parts of the game engine. Basically, there is demand for lots of A-B relations and a network of flights that connects these destinations, associated with various costs for each flight (duration, price ...) and between each flight (connection time, same airline ...). This is something called a Multi-commodity flow problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-commodity_flow_problem). Now it is possible to approximately solve this problem for example once a week and map the result to the demand between each airport pair. This way it is possible to have demand based on connections without having to model the actual connection each and every time.

This could be really simple.  Each airport would have a numeric value assigned to it based on, say population surrounding the airport * GDP per person in the country.  Demand between any AB pairs could be determined by a function:
#1 - of these numerical values for each airport
#2 - distance (Very short distance would be 0, then sloping up up to certain distance, then sloping down)
#3 - country of the pairs of airports.  The factor could be, say 1.0 for the same country, 0.75 for EU / NAFTA, 0.5 for unrelated countries  There could even be a Warsaw Pact grouping in place up to 1989, which would then be disbanded.

The recalculation of inherent demand between each pair could take place even less frequently than once per week you mentioned.  It could be just once per year.  Maybe the system could have a population growth figures and GDP growth figures for the countries.  So, say on January 1st, population growth and GDP growth figures would adjust numerical value of each airport (component #1 above of the formula above).

All of this would would not only make the simulation more realistic, but also the game to be more true multi-player.

I understand that the one aircraft a month rule has been introduced to make the game less boring.

Well, I remember how playing V1.1 was without this rule and I can say that it was much more interesting :P. Personally, I am getting bored of receiving just one aircraft. Apart from the fact that this feature is not even realistic, I understand that we are trying to stop boredom, not trying to create it!

For the future, I would say that updating this aircraft delivery system to a realistic standard (4 small eg. A320, 737 a/c a month, 2 big eg. A340, 777 a/c a month - depending on how many you ordered maybe, or you could even choose how many per month to have as real airlines do) and having connecting traffic are the top priorities.

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 13, 2010, 02:16:27 PM
This could be really simple.  Each airport would have a numeric value assigned to it based on, say population surrounding the airport * GDP per person in the country.  Demand between any AB pairs could be determined by a function:
...

Yes, but that has nothing to do with connections. What I described is a way to map the A-B demand to the various flown routes, e.g. A-C-B, A-D-B, etc. The pure demand A-B is already calculated some way and does grow. No idea if sami is using a formular, database or whatever for that, though.

Quote from: DarkVenegance on July 13, 2010, 06:26:24 PM
Yes, but that has nothing to do with connections. What I described is a way to map the A-B demand to the various flown routes, e.g. A-C-B, A-D-B, etc. The pure demand A-B is already calculated some way and does grow. No idea if sami is using a formular, database or whatever for that, though.

But the model for demand of all A-B connections in place in the game is "wrong".

Well, they may very well be a good snapshot of reality, but that's wrong way to go about it.  Today's snapshot is a reflection of how major airlines built their hubs.  Let me give you an example:  Suppose Delta decided to build their hub in Philadelphia rather than Atlanta, and flew a ton of flights from Philadelphia to just about every other place on the earth.  Which airport do you thing would be the world's bussiest?  Atlanta or Philadelphia?

If you look at local demand, Georgians flying from Atlanta, they are only a tiny fraction of people who go through Atlanta.  Philadelphia is a larger metropolitan area, with larger local demand compared to Atlanta.  Whether Atlanta or Philadelphia (or any other airport) becomes the world busiest airport should depend on where airlines (in the game) form their hubs and how many passengers they fly through these hubs.

Let me say it differently:  Suppose a person from Savannah, GA wants to go to Sacramento, CA:

A person flying from from Savannah Georgia to, say Sacramento, CA would take a Delta flight from Savannah to Atlanta, transfer there to another Delta flight from Atlanga, GA to Sacramento, CA (SMF).  If Delta hub was in Philadelphia, the same person would fly through Philadelphia instead.

Now here is why the demand model is wrong (using ATB demand), extreme example of how wrong it is:
SMF-ATL: 2000
SMF-PHL: 310

The way it should be modeled is (approximately):
SMF-ATL: 120
SMF-PHL: 150

reflecting local demand.  Now if DarkVengence Air builds a huge hub in Philadelphia, is flying route pairs to every other airport in the North East and PHL, DarkVengence Air can create a demand of 2000 between SMF and PHL, but it will be a sum of 150 local demand + 1850 demand from connecting flights.

Very nice idea!

In addition to that, airlines should buy/build new terminals/runways and get slots from this, because the slot situation ingame is like the slot situation in rl, like DarkVenegance said in the example with Delta and Atlanta/Philadelphia.

Quote from: Curse on July 13, 2010, 10:03:55 PM
Very nice idea!

In addition to that, airlines should buy/build new terminals/runways and get slots from this, because the slot situation ingame is like the slot situation in rl, like DarkVenegance said in the example with Delta and Atlanta/Philadelphia.

Terminals would be a nice extra, something along the lines of lease space from the airport vs. buy/build your own terminal.  Building own terminal would cost upfront money, but long term operating expense would be less than leasing space...

But terminals do not equal to slots.  Slots correspond landing / takeoff capacity basically runways.

With slots, when out of slots, player could be prompted to pay to expand the capacity, by say $50 mil (inflation adjusted) to get additional 15 slots / hr, with the player paying for the expansion would be automatically allocated, say half of those slots for a period of time and the other half would be generally available...

JumboShrimp, the exact system that you describe (with proper demand between routes, not recreating the hub-spoke system of reality that we have today) is something that sami already has in the works, and it's been discussed quite a bit (just not lately).  It's quite a bit more complicated than you describe, but the basic premise is exactly the same.

By the way, i was trying to convince a friend to play AWS, but when i told him about the slow delivery dates he changed his mind! Hahahaha

Quote from: Sigma on July 13, 2010, 10:26:00 PM
JumboShrimp, the exact system that you describe (with proper demand between routes, not recreating the hub-spoke system of reality that we have today) is something that sami already has in the works, and it's been discussed quite a bit (just not lately).  It's quite a bit more complicated than you describe, but the basic premise is exactly the same.

Excellent.  I am looking forward to it.  I would definitely be interested in alpha / beta testing when it gets to that stage.

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 13, 2010, 09:49:21 PM
But the model for demand of all A-B connections in place in the game is "wrong".

Of course, it is just a different problem. I guess there's some database with route demand for the simulation and as such the demand could be changed right now to different values without changing the actual code. For that, your formula probably makes sense, but might need to be extended to handle multiple airports in one city.

Distributing that demand is the hard part, because it requires writing new code. I just sketched a way to do it that allows to reuse as much existing code as possible (like the LF calculations for each flight etc.).

To make hubbing really work airport slot growth also needs to be changed, but I don't know which way is best for that (big one-time cost for expansion, high slot cost, automatic growth or whatever).

I had this idea:

what if you have to pay for your extra delivery slots? Say you order 12 737-700s. You could receive them in 12 months for no extra charge (this sounds very easujet  ). But, you want them in 3 months. So you buy the extra delivery slot from the manufacturer or even other airlines (give a maximum of 4 a month  for small a/c and 2 a month for big a/c to stop airlines buying entire production lines!). The cost of the slot would be determined by the number of aircraft ordered of that production line.

This would allow everybody to be happy as you could receive aircraft in the way you want (fast or slow), it could be an investment as a production slot would rise or decrease in value to add a new dimension to the game and it could help small airlines to grow faster either by getting planes faster or getting good cash because of their valuable production slots!

What do you think?

There's a nice thread on subsidiary lines here in the requests forum

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 13, 2010, 09:49:21 PM
But the model for demand of all A-B connections in place in the game is "wrong".

Yes, the model is based loosely on real hub systems and reflects what you'd see point-to-point with present hubs. That is "wrong" indeed and plan is to make the regional demand system. It's of course a two sided thing as regional demand and flight connections sort of go together, so I'd have to think if these could be implemented simultaneously (but that will cause quite a bit of "uuuufff" since it would be a huge update). But have to think this with a pint someday...  :P

Quote from: Filippo on July 13, 2010, 11:42:29 PM
By the way, i was trying to convince a friend to play AWS, but when i told him about the slow delivery dates he changed his mind! Hahahaha

Sorry but please don't lobby this on every possible thread. This is unrelated to this topic too.

Quote from: sami on July 14, 2010, 09:54:01 PM
Yes, the model is based loosely on real hub systems and reflects what you'd see point-to-point with present hubs. That is "wrong" indeed and plan is to make the regional demand system. It's of course a two sided thing as regional demand and flight connections sort of go together, so I'd have to think if these could be implemented simultaneously (but that will cause quite a bit of "uuuufff" since it would be a huge update). But have to think this with a pint someday...  :P

Yes, I think the 2 (regional demand and flight connections) would have to be implemented simultaneously.  Changing demand to regional only - meaning demand between any A-B pair to reflect only demand of the city / region surrounding the airport - that probably could be done with no code changes.  It could probably be done by updating your set-up databases to the new figures.  But a slightly better system, which I described above might need some programming, but it would be a more elegant solution.  Let me copy it here:

------------------------------------------------------
This could be really simple.  Each airport would have a numeric value assigned to it based on, say population surrounding the airport * GDP per person in the country.  Demand between any AB pairs could be determined by a function:
#1 - of these numerical values for each airport
#2 - distance (Very short distance would be 0, then sloping up up to certain distance, then sloping down)
#3 - country of the pairs of airports.  The factor could be, say 1.0 for the same country, 0.75 for EU / NAFTA, 0.5 for unrelated countries  There could even be a Warsaw Pact grouping in place up to 1989, which would then be disbanded.
#4 - vacation destination - would go into #1.  So #1 would be local demand based on local population + a vacation demand component.
-------------------------------------------------------

To implement this, the only values that would have to be obtained and populate into setup databases:
1 - population of the region surrounding the airport (a lot of figures, but the only really time consuming thing)
2 - population growth of the country (good enough proxy for population of the cities).  2 snapshots for population figures would be needed to obtain this for every country.  But only 1 value per country
3 - GDP per person.  1 per country
4 - GDP growth for the country, again only 1 figure per country.  To add a twist to this, during the actual running of the game, this could be non-linear to simulate economic boom / bust cycles.

None of these demand figures would ever be zero.  Many may be tiny, but none zero.  For example, as is, in the game, demand between LHR and EIS (Tortola, British Virgin Islands) is zero.  It does reflect the fact that there are no flights between these airports, but there are definitely quite a few British subjects that go back and forth between those 2 airports.  If someone is operating LHR - SJU (San Juan, Puerto Rico) route and SJU - EIS route, he should get some (most) of this traffic.

From these 4 set of figures above, any A-B demand can be calculated for any timeframe of any game scenarios.  Updating this once per year during the running of the game should be sufficient.  This figure would be (more or less) static, updated once per year.

Then there would be the actual demand for the player for a route.  This would be a combination of
1. static component (regional demand between A-B pair)
2. dynamic component - connecting traffic based on the existing set of routes the player is operating that may add traffic to A-B (for example X-A, Y-A, B-M, B-N) plus connections from other airlines the player is willing to share connecting traffic with.  For this dynamic demand, every player should see a different figure. (I would make connecting between Player 1 flight and Player 2 flight conditional on whether these 2 players are willing to share connecting traffic.  This will make the game more exciting and competitive).

The realized demand (actual tickets purcased) should have enhanced elasticity (greatly enhaced).  Time to go from A to B, number of connections needed to get there, price, seating quality etc should greatly influence on whether 5 of 25 potential passengers (demand) or 23 out of 25 passengers purchase the tickets.

If someone needs to go to their child's wedding, that person will pay any price, endure any hardship to get there.  OTOH, going on a vacation should greatly depend on low price.  It should also be important for player competition.  If Player 1 is flying A-C-B and Player 2 is flying A-D-B, the player offering better value should get a lot more of the A-B traffic.

One more thing on the demand:  Let's say we come up with demand figure of 300 for an A-B pair.  What should this figure represent?  It could represent:
- cap - there can never be more people flying even if the ticket price is $1.  So the realized demand would always be a lot less
- average - demand based on default price and average level of accommodation.  If the airline has a direct flight in a decent a/c and has 30% discount, this 300 demand could turn into 400

Don't forget that demand can be stimulated from close to zero.  Ryanair's fare structure allows them to significantly stimulate demand on a city pair from a low base by basically building a new reason for travel - 'its cheap' - if an airline can be profitable with fares 50% below suggested, they should be able to fill 100 seats on a 10 demand route.

Quote from: Minto Typhoon on July 15, 2010, 07:22:59 AM
Don't forget that demand can be stimulated from close to zero.  Ryanair's fare structure allows them to significantly stimulate demand on a city pair from a low base by basically building a new reason for travel - 'its cheap' - if an airline can be profitable with fares 50% below suggested, they should be able to fill 100 seats on a 10 demand route.

Yeah, exactly.  That's why I brought up a concept of demand being "Average" - average aircraft, default prices.  At lower prices new demand can be created.

Hello community. Sorry for long post.
Cannot start new topic so I searched for something related to.

I want to propose and discuss the idea of «basic» stock system.

Purpose:

1. Initiate stocks system in AWS.
2. Slow down growth of Multi-Billion companies.
3. Add random seeds in gameplay at medium and later stages of GWs. Increase unpredictedness.

Note: «Basic» system means there will be NO stock markets and NO possibility to buy out other companies.

System definition:

Currently new player starts with the following balance sheet (downside):
Shareholders' equity   
Common stocks   
Retained earnings / accumulated deficit

Some digits initially written in Common Stocks. Example: In GW4 my company received 2 000 009 USD. (started in 1970).
This is our initial capital.
After it it doesnt increased and all profit accumulated in «Retained earnings / accumulated deficit».

My proposal is not to invent something new but start to use this numbers for purpose.

I define 3 life stages for every company:

Stage 1. Initial growth.

Stage length 5 years. From day 1 till end of Calendar Year 5. If company started in 1970 (any day) - first stage will end at 31 December 1974.
During this stage nothing will be changed from current game mechanic.

Stage 2. Investment returning.

Stage length - 5 calendar years Or when company reached A bank rating.
It means if after stage 1 company already have A credit rating it will skip Stage 2 and goes directly to stage 3.
If company starts Stage 2 and during year 2 reached A bank rating then it will go to stage 3 after calendar year 2 is finished.

During this stage company start to pay dividends to its initial owners only.
Dividends is paid every Q.
Dividends amount (DA) is calculated by formula:

DA = Last Q profit * (Common stocks/Shareholders Equity) * Dividend Payout Ratio (DPR) (will be described later)

Stage 3. Public company.

Stage length 10 calendar years from finishing Stage 2.

At this stage company will slowly transferred to public company.
How? Based on the following formula:
Last Q profit + 2,5% of Retained earnings will be added to Common Stocks string.
Retained Earnings will be decreased correspondingly by 2,5%.
And this is will be done every Q during Stage 3

After it company will pay out dividend by mentioned above formula (in Stage 2).
Stage 3 purpose is to slowly increase dividend pay outs level for the company not making it like one time shock, so player can adjust to it.
Finally Share Holders equity will be 100% in Common Stocks.

DPR definition.
the most interesting thing is DPR value.
I propose the following:
DPR is individual for every company and in public access.
DPR is defined each year (January 1st) for the upcoming year.
DPR formula = random seed (5%-30%) + last year company Profit Margin (%) = DPR %.
Why to add company Margin ? to level down different profit tax influence.
So company in UAE (0%) will not have advantage before USA (30%).

What it will provide to GW.
1. It will remove extra money from the companies. it is simply additional tax.
2. because DPR is individual it will add another level to competition factor between companies.
3. because DPR is changed randomly every year it will decrease stability level in GWs therefore add more interest to long-term strategy.
4. Based on this we can start to develop «advanced» stock market features in the future.

Some points may have been mentionned, but my lack of concentration sometimes prevents me keeping it all in mind.

About Aircrafts:
- make new seatings possible like Brussels Airlines/Lufthansa update (I tought due to new seating design there was 4cm more legroom)
- Charter flights: you can organise flights for eg a touroperator, sportsleague, big congress, sport or culturalevent
- Adaptive scheduele: having an AC that is not doing regular flights but is in reserve for the charter market

About Airports:
- Allow lounges and bars (eg lounge for C and F, and a bar for Economy)

About Alliances:
- Allow group purchases (e.g. Company A buys 1 A330-300, Company B buys 2 A330-200 and 1 A330-300, Company C buys 1 A330-200 and Company D buys 2 A330-200 abd 2 A330-300. Few discounts, but when They are part of an alliance the alliance (or one player) can place the order of 4 A330-300 and 5 A330-200 and have more chance of a discount) --> might be already but I havn't played enough in alliances
- Code Sharing
- Alliance marketing

About flights:
- connective flights, eventualy with your alliance partners
- inflight service

I know not all these things are possible but it is a brainstorm he :)

some other thing, might have suggested it before adaptive passangers.
e.g. From Brussels there are some long haul destinations with 120 - 180 pax/day, wich is not profitable when operating flights on monday, wednesday, friday and saturday pax from tuesday, thursday and sunday could go to a day when there is a flight, making it profitable, and allowing more flights, also, just an idea

another tought, when you order an aircraft, make it possible to put a deliverydate on it (taking other orders in accound). I think for long term games it would make it more easy for fleet renewal. In GW2, I have the Convair 880/990, but for phasing them out, I had to wait till the delivery date was more or less the same as when my lease expires.

Also thinking on maybe allowing a mid stop or so. e.g. Brussels - Tehran with a stop in Athens or so. That would allow you to have Passengers from Brussels to Athens and Back, from Brussels to Tehran and back, but also from Athens and Tehran and back. Off course, it slows down your flight, but it would be good for routes whom wouldn't be profitable otherwise. What I mean is the following let's say Brussels Tehran has 100pax, Brussels Athens has 350 pax, Athens to Tehrran has 100 pax. Apart from the regular scheduel between Brussels and Athens there can be a A321 flying fully booked to Athens, in Athens the pax for Athens leave the ac, the pax for Tehran board. Making it a longer trip, but it would allow more routes.

First bit I agree with, being able to select a delivery date, as long as there are deliveries before that date would be great. It would be stupid to request a delivery 3 years in the future when there are only 1 years worth of deliveries on the books.

Second one, 5th Freedom rights got out of hand once before and that is why we don't have them. I do think it would be good to bring them back for long haul routes would be good with a cut off point in terms of distance where you can board more passengers.

E.g. In the 60's a for a Final Destination 5000nm more, the intermediate stop you can embark and disembark passengers. By the beginning of the 70's you could put the limit at 6000nm, mid 70's probably 7000nm and probably by the early 90's fix it at 7500-8000nm. Which would open you up to some tactical decisions when ULR Airlines come about, do you try to fly some 7500-8000nm+ routes direct or do you pan on tech stopping them, opening you up to attacks from competitors who choose to fly direct and gain an advantage that way.

5,000 is far too long for 60's at least until 68/69 when the better DC8 start actually arriving.

3,000 is a happy medium until 1973, I think.

Yeah it did occur after I wrote that, that it probably should be 3500-4000 miles at the beginning of the 60's and late 50's and then at the end of the 60's 5000nm and then put everything else I said back about 5 years, so it's 7000nm at the beginning of the 80's.