AirwaySim

Heya folks,


so after a long while of thinking to post or not, I came to the point that I should do it.

We all know that quite a few rules in AWS are not exactly clear, and are sometimes open to (a bit of) interpretation. However, many of the rules are absolutely clear, and not open for interpretation in the slightest.

As for example this:

https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/General/Rules/#Alliances

Quote"Alliance members are also forbidden to effectively transfer money between their member airlines by for example repeatedly selling and buying aircraft between each others. Normal one-time sales of aircraft is naturally allowed but transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable."

It seems, that many players and alliances have either stopped caring, or never cared for this, and continuously violate this rule. This is not just "some guy" no-one has heard of doing it, but also from people known to me. Even some of the respected players on here have some sort of ignorance towards this rule violation going on. Most of the time it is the "maybe I will need others to look the other way, so I won't complain about it" mindset. This is at the same time worrisome, and wrong.

To avoid discussing "theoretical" problems and getting carried away by people who didn't understand what this is about, I'd like to show up three cases that have appeared, and to my understanding been more or less investigated by Sami, the results of that investigation are unknown to me.


Please check these cases by yourself, and give a feedback/discuss about the rule named above, and what you make of the cases.


Case 1)
Galaxy Express/frimp (bankrupted) and Connect America/xyeahtony in GameWorld #4.
Galaxy Express gave leased aircraft, some were leased from Connect America, back before their D-Check. While ate the same time acquiring replacement aircraft from the same user. In at least two cases an aircraft that was given back to Connect America was later again acquired by Galaxy Express - however, many aircraft were given back and other aircraft were taken. (To give you a picture: Player A gives back Aircraft X. Player B D-Checks aircraft X and leases it to player C. Player C gives back aircraft Y, Player B makes the D-Check and gives aircraft Y then to Player A).
Reason for this "aircraft carousel" were the fact Galaxy Express was undergoing heavy fights with his rival King Airways, short on cash, and each D-Check of about 1M would have brought him to BK sooner.


This means that D-Checks were outsourced to a rich de facto alliance member, which is in violation of the cash transfer rule.

Examples of such aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/51331/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/51019/

(Screenshot for people not in GW#4)
(https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FzmdxIlT.jpg&hash=62a90e2fcf1feb6887aebeb36d3387cc268d41e8)

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Case 2:
Galaxy Express/frimp (bankrupted) and Connect America/xyeahtony in GameWorld #4.
Galaxy Express intentionally did not join his own alliance, A-Team. Long term members of an alliance are to be considered part of the alliance despite not joining (unless joining another alliance of course).
Through this Galaxy Express was able to purchase planes at "minimum allowed price" rather than having to pay "minimum alliance price". This price was then further reduced by the "used market cheat",
(mis-) using a design feauture of AWS. The design feature that allows players to get rid of unwanted aircraft if they were not chosen for a longer time.
The longer an aircraft is on the used market, the cheaper you can go with the price. Cheapest is about 20-30% of the aircraft book value.


Unfortunately this also works with privately listed aircraft.


The way this was performed was as follows: Connect America/xyeahtony listed the 737-200Adv aircraft privately to Galaxy Express/frimp. He then got the aircraft either at normal minimum price or at  absolute minimum price after having waited long enough so that Connect America/xyeahtony could lower the price to above mentioned 20-30%. There is no evidence for the leased ones, however I have evidence that this exploit has been used on the purchased ones.


This actually transfers huge amounts of cash into the pockets of another airline by reducing the expenditures massively.
For example: Galaxy Express/frimp aquired 4x Boeing 737-200Adv and slots for 7-14x aircraft at Los Angeles and other airports for exactly $15,284,190. That's a unit price of $3.821.047,50 - if we assume the slots were free. Assuming a "normal"* price for slots, I estimate the prices of the aircraft were more like $3 Millions to $3.1 Millions.


Typical price for B737-200Adv. in the same MTOW/engine variant on the general UM was between 13M and 18M at that time. In other words:
With the cheat Galaxy Express/frimp was able to purchase four aircraft instead of one. 30-50% of his aircraft fleet was acquired on extremely low prices, adding millions to his cash reserves and into his airline. All through violating the cash transfer rule.

(at the end there were 11 or so owned aircraft in his fleet, all acquired with this strategy)


Example aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/48967/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/49194/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/49974/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/50306/
Here's the aircraft list. Compare the #MSN with the ones from the links above (you need GW#4 access!):
(https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fn2f3B0j.jpg&hash=b6f026011802618c5376f94858dea4bf40a5adc7)

The quarterly financial stats of the timeframe in question:
(https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F0DpyaPX.jpg&hash=7490e5fa90412d882bac05cb43febf910410f31a)


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Case 3:
Kelrick Airways/rickyricky101 and United Pacific Fleet/kangkang in GameWorld #4.
Kelrick Airways is in financial troubles and sold his aircraft to an alliance mate. However, the rules state that:
"Normal one-time sales of aircraft is naturally allowed but transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable." (excerpt AWS rules)


So, what's the Guam based airline without any other 737 doing with the freshly aquired 737-100? Correct. Storing them.


Example aircraft:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/44531/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/46010/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/47771/
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/50960/

Below is the aircraft overview. Notably they are all stored (one still "on order"). There are also no other 737 1st generation in fleet:
(https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FT1tpTao.jpg&hash=555699139286f58a3aac8113f09852edd46aff66)

This shows the quarterly report. $42,671,103 are in "Financing activities cash flow". I doubt that all of the money is from this single transaction. However, it is clearly visible in this screenshot. This part of the financial report is the only one that 'helps' the airline in question to acquire cash:
(https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FyowLy4S.jpg&hash=efff953af4eca4a5370f836b9335ec28353d5a96)

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Point is:
New players, old players with a limited amout of time, the average Joe here who sometimes bankrupts and just wants to play a casual game. Those people simply got, and will get, wiped away by individuals or alliances/groups and in 99.9% they will never learn what happened, how, and why.

I am sure I may have missed the one or the other trick that can be/has been/will be used to get an unfair advantage over your competitors. If you know of these, please report them to Sami, so things can be changed.


Now there are two tricky parts and another reason why I have thought so long about posting this topic.

1) We all know this is a project that is mostly done alone by sami. He does a fantastic job but he is a human, he has some other job, this is more a kind of hobby and, as a human, he is limited to 24 hours per day (and maybe he sometimes needs holidays, too).
The response time and the quality of response is, and I'm sad to say it, not as good as it should be to actually counter cheating.

Time is important because each minute gives the Cheater an illegal advantage and by the time the case is dealt with, the airline who played fair might be already gone (or the cheater might be gone...).


2) I have no idea how to actually stop this behaviour. Neither automatically, nor manually.
Is it enough to report cases and, if something is acknowledged, act faster? We all know from real life that's the system police is using... and while it has flaws it is not too bad, is it?




Again, I don't want to start some kind of rage and I don't want to discuss indivual cases. I just noted them down so everybody can understand and see this is a real threat, those things actually happen and that's - I guess - on a daily basis, mostly undetected. I want a friendly and, most important, productive discussion! Ideas how to fix the problems! Ways to make things more clear.
Maybe it would help to straighten some of those "open for interpretation" rules to fixed ones (e.g. by setting up example values). This is the part where we need real suggestions.


Please read carefully before posting, and don't just rant, or carry out feuds, there are many more than just these few examples, they are examples. Please just use these cases, to elaborate, and to make the points you'd like to make in regard to fixing this general problem.



Thanks for reading, and posting your opinions.


cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 07:47:30 PM
2) I have no idea how to actually stop this behaviour. Neither automatically, nor manually.
Is it enough to report cases and, if something is acknowledged, act faster? We all know from real life that's the system police is using... and while it has flaws it is not too bad, is it?

The solution is easy--don't allow players to lease to other players.  The last time it was mentioned all the usual suspects rallied against it stating that the rich players provided liquidity in the used market etc.  The problem is it isn't other player's jobs to provide liquidity as brokers should be buying white tails and buying aircraft off players.  Sure there are many players who benefit from leasing, but the purpose of starting an airline in AWS is to fly aircraft, not become a leasing company.  Many people lease with good intentions, but as you've outlined many don't.

If player-to-player leasing is eliminated and brokers were programmed to do their jobs more efficiently (providing liquidity, purchasing aircraft from players based on supply/demand/fair value) then there is absolutely no NEED for players to lease to other players.  Sure some airlines have more money than they know what to do with and it can be profitable, but maybe instead of spending that money on buying aircraft to lease out they could give brokers interest bearing loans to acquire aircraft that is leased out on the open market, providing a return that way so no abuse can occur and players can still see a return on their cash piles.

There are more ways to cheat, just deleting the lease options won't solve most of them.


I guess Jona's intention is more to finally get some reliable rules! Not a "a new airline" for example, but a "an airline that is 12 month old or less". Rules people can count on and, of course, rules that are enforced after a known and published punishment method. And everything in a short enough time to make sure the situation is dealt by the administration and not due to bankrupty by one of the involved airlines.

QuoteThis is not supposed to become a bash of the airlines involved, please discuss the topic, and not personal feuds with anyone of those airlines/players presented.

yeah right... if you didn't intend a feud you wouldn't be mentioning names or would have chosen some examples from your own alliance. So given these accusations I feel the need to reply to this.

I have a feeling that the reason for this post is not to discuss this topic in detail but to put my airline into a bad light because it was reported to Sami by your dear friend in LAX and Sami didn't communicate anything on the forums. (since there was nothing to report - unlike another instance where someone got banned temporarily for running scripts/macros but Sami never communicated this either.. If someone is interested in hearing about this let me know - we have screenshots too.)

Just so we are all clear on this.. Sami contacted Tony and myself regarding this matter (after someone reported this) and the actions were explained to him and no actions were taken against my airline. In none of the examples stating my airline below was any extra cash/profit generated as no aircrafts were sold at a profit. There are a number of examples in GW2 as well from another (leading) alliance where such activity has happened to get additional cash/profits. (let me know if you want some screenshots too)


If Sami felt this was a problem/epidemic, there would be a real easy fix:

The issue is the thresholds for the aircraft valuations are too wide. Prevent aircrafts from selling below book value and this problem is history. (maybe let airlines set their own length of depreciation instead so they can affect the book value slightly - somewhere between 20-30yrs, not too low or people will use it to avoid paying tax).

I'm sorry! will never do it again.

Are we friends now again?

I think it would be useful to see prices of all aircraft transactions (aircraft price equivalent in case of lease transactions).  That way, all of these transactions would be crystal clear, if it is a normal business of the airlines, or if it is a cash transfer.

With prices published, maybe the strict inter-alliance range could be relaxed, from current 90%-110% range to 75%-125% range.

With aircraft transactions prices published, any kind of abuse could easily be tracked and caught, but normal play / normal business transactions would not be artificially restricted (as they currently are).

Quote from: LemonButt on July 24, 2014, 09:19:40 PM
The solution is easy--don't allow players to lease to other players.

I am sorry I have to say this, but this is the stupidest solution to combat a problem that affects less than 1% of player to player transactions.

Quote from: [ATA] frimp on July 24, 2014, 10:44:23 PM
yeah right... if you didn't intend a feud you wouldn't be mentioning names or would have chosen some examples from your own alliance. So given these accusations I feel the need to reply to this.

I have a feeling that the reason for this post is not to discuss this topic in detail but to put my airline into a bad light because it was reported to Sami by your dear friend in LAX and Sami didn't communicate anything on the forums. (since there was nothing to report - unlike another instance where someone got banned temporarily for running scripts/macros but Sami never communicated this either.. If someone is interested in hearing about this let me know - we have screenshots too.)

Just so we are all clear on this.. Sami contacted Tony and myself regarding this matter (after someone reported this) and the actions were explained to him and no actions were taken against my airline. In none of the examples stating my airline below was any extra cash/profit generated as no aircrafts were sold at a profit. There are a number of examples in GW2 as well from another (leading) alliance where such activity has happened to get additional cash/profits. (let me know if you want some screenshots too)


If Sami felt this was a problem/epidemic, there would be a real easy fix:

The issue is the thresholds for the aircraft valuations are too wide. Prevent aircrafts from selling below book value and this problem is history. (maybe let airlines set their own length of depreciation instead so they can affect the book value slightly - somewhere between 20-30yrs, not too low or people will use it to avoid paying tax).

Dear Fred, explain a few things to me then:

a) Why did you not join ATA after you founded it a few years before with your well running airline in ATL?
    If you had done so, you would have paid a legitimate amount of money for these planes, and not been subsidized against KAW.

b) How did you explain to Sami, that this was not cheating, while it was effectively a scheme trying to avoid high prices in a fierce battle?
    What is also striking me is the fact, that the aircraft buying and killing leases for D-checks ended just shortly after it was reported. It seem you could explain a bit, but were still disallowed to continue as before. Which lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of your airline, showing how dependent it was on these cheap leases and cheaply sold aircraft.

c) (not exactly on the topic...) Why did you kill your ATL airline in the first place?
    It was running well, and you had no reason to BK. Sure, the name was weird, but a single credit would've fixed that. It seems you were just on a personal crusade, and this was backed by Tony supplying you cheap aircraft and performing your D-checks, without which you would've been gone a lot earlier.
[Just out of genuine interest]


Onwards to the other thing. If this were meant purely against you, why do you think we mentioned Kelrick, doing basically the same thing, just instead of using cheap buys using expensive sales? This whole thing is larger than just you two. As I mentioned these are EXAMPLES, there are surely many more airlines that do similar things, but listing them all would have cluttered this post unnecessarily. Feel free to bring up examples by yourself.

As I explained above, I don't want to discuss theory, and thus I wanted examples. Since these were already prepared, due to prior research done, I used them, to save some time.


Curse got it pretty well, understanding the main point I want to make:

Define what is allowed and what is not, instead of leaving rules open to interpretation. This is one example. You interpreted it in one direction, Seb and I in another. If these things were fixed, this whole thing would not have happened. Since the results of Sami's investigation aren't made public either, one can also not judge the rules by previous sentences, made by Sami, either.

His example is also quite fitting in that regard, what exactly is a new airline? If it said "smaller than X aircraft" or "less than Y years old", it would be clear. As it is now, I would say a "new" airline is less than 2 game months old, but the judgement of others may vary in that regard.

Fixing these vague rules would likely also result in less "false" reports to Sami, since people would know exactly what is allowed and what not, so they wouldn't report small breaches, based on interpretation.


\\
And if you felt offended, Fred, so did Seb and I when we saw your attempt of reducing his profits, and slowing his growth by, at best immoral, actions. If anything you put yourself, your airline, and A-Team Alliance into a bad light by yourself. Especially undermining your, up until now, clean slate and good image of the person helping new people to become successful by "playing fair and within the rules", and your alliance description including a "no cheat" policy and "abiding to AWS rules". The alliance description ridicules itself anyways by being insultive in the opening line, and demanding "adult behavior" from their members.

[This much about personal stuff, which I wanted to keep out, but had to be said in response to Fred.]
//


cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 24, 2014, 11:25:39 PM
I think it would be useful to see prices of all aircraft transactions (aircraft price equivalent in case of lease transactions).  That way, all of these transactions would be crystal clear, if it is a normal business of the airlines, or if it is a cash transfer.

With prices published, maybe the strict inter-alliance range could be relaxed, from current 90%-110% range to 75%-125% range.

With aircraft transactions prices published, any kind of abuse could easily be tracked and caught, but normal play / normal business transactions would not be artificially restricted (as they currently are).

This sounds like a good way, however it may be a bit unpracticable.... where do we display this? Another page in the "Airline Overview", named "aircraft transactions" maybe?
I like the thinking though, with a bit of refinement, this could actually work!! Thanks!

Another unnecessary personal flaming topic....

I wish people could just stop doing this in general and have some fun, relax and let Sami do the investigations...

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 11:32:06 PM
This sounds like a good way, however it may be a bit unpracticable.... where do we display this? Another page in the "Airline Overview", named "aircraft transactions" maybe?
I like the thinking though, with a bit of refinement, this could actually work!! Thanks!

We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

Here is an example of Operational History:
11-Feb-2014  Bought by Jumbo Shrimp World 
30-Dec-2013  Returned from lease 
24-Mar-2008  Leased by VOVAIR 
15-Nov-2007  Delivered to North Africa Expedition 
25-Oct-2007  Aircraft constructed 

Any transaction would have the price at which the transaction took place.  All prices would be normalized to aircraft price - meaning lease transactions would not have monthly lease, but aircraft price from which the lease price was derived.

Quote from: [SC] - King Kong on July 25, 2014, 12:10:50 AM
and let Sami do the investigations...

That is exactly the point of this topic, Ingmar.

Sami has enough on his hands already, and doing all these investigations puts even more work at him. If rules were more clear, Sami would have less investigation to do, and people would less likely break rules due to misinterpretation. And those breaking it would be clearly doing it rather than by said misinterpretation.

So to fix 2 things at one time:
a) unintentional rule breaches
b) unnecessary workload for sami

We need clearer rulings.

QuoteAnother unnecessary personal flaming topic....

I wish people could just stop doing this in general and have some fun, relax and let Sami do the investigations...

I agree but some people seem to have an obsession with mocking/disrespecting other airlines/players in public forums on a continuous basis. If there are issues, these should be reported to Sami and let Sami make the announcements when necessary.

Certain rules around this should be introduced as well to keep these forums clean and avoid feuds on the forums.

QuoteWe have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

I agree.

Alternatively Sami could review the time frame of when the value of aircrafts for sale drop and perhaps not make it such a drastic drop in values but a staggered approach based on the length of the aircraft being on sale. Now it seems that after a few months, there is a huge drop off in aircraft sale valuations.

For example, when first listed, the range could be -5% or +5% of market value for that aircraft (or should it be book value?)... after 1month, it could be -6%, 2months -7% etc... with perhaps a cap at -25%. An airline knowing that they would have to wait nearly 2years for 25% discount would probably not bother, as economically it would make more sense to get the aircraft earlier and operate it.. from the seller's view the quicker it goes, the better as well..

Also it should be based on who it's listed to (if its private).. if you change the private listing to another player, it should reset the valuation range.

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 25, 2014, 12:22:52 AM
We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

Here is an example of Operational History:
11-Feb-2014  Bought by Jumbo Shrimp World 
30-Dec-2013  Returned from lease 
24-Mar-2008  Leased by VOVAIR 
15-Nov-2007  Delivered to North Africa Expedition 
25-Oct-2007  Aircraft constructed 

Any transaction would have the price at which the transaction took place.  All prices would be normalized to aircraft price - meaning lease transactions would not have monthly lease, but aircraft price from which the lease price was derived.

Sounds good to me.
And since leasing is always ~1/80th of the buy price, that would not be needed anyways :)

That would fix this issue, however not fixing the wobbly rules problem.

cheers,
Jona L.

Every single alliance does this. Honestly I don't see the big deal of it.

The main poster of this topic did it for me in other game worlds. Not sure why this is an issue now but its just apart of business.

I don't agree with this public posting of pricing or ban on alliance to alliance sales. Those are not the answers.

Airlines in real life sell to each other all day long. Anytime transactions occur the pricing is rarely discussed publicly or on an individual basis. A back stop to the financial reporting in the game must occur if this is going to be addressed.

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 24, 2014, 11:28:46 PM
I am sorry I have to say this, but this is the stupidest solution to combat a problem that affects less than 1% of player to player transactions.

It is the stupidest solution if you completely disregard everything else.  As I stated originally:

QuoteIf player-to-player leasing is eliminated and brokers were programmed to do their jobs more efficiently (providing liquidity, purchasing aircraft from players based on supply/demand/fair value) then there is absolutely no NEED for players to lease to other players.

In addition to solving the money transfer problem, you issues such as players cooperating to clog up production lines for fleet types they never intend on flying.  Slot transfers aren't allowed between players, so why are aircraft transfers?  They operate under the same system of finite pooled resources and are mission critical assets, yet transferring one is against the game rules and the other is not.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 11:29:06 PM
Dear Fred, explain a few things to me then:

a) Why did you not join ATA after you founded it a few years before with your well running airline in ATL?
    If you had done so, you would have paid a legitimate amount of money for these planes, and not been subsidized against KAW.

b) How did you explain to Sami, that this was not cheating, while it was effectively a scheme trying to avoid high prices in a fierce battle?
    What is also striking me is the fact, that the aircraft buying and killing leases for D-checks ended just shortly after it was reported. It seem you could explain a bit, but were still disallowed to continue as before. Which lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of your airline, showing how dependent it was on these cheap leases and cheaply sold aircraft.

I'm curious to hear an answer.


The avoided D-Checks saved at least $12.5 Millions while the cheaper than allowed leases and purchases saved a total of up to $100 Millions or, a more realistic figure, made the whole operation working at all in the first place.


This actions were clearly putting money into an airline and therefor forbidden. If frimp's statement is true (I doubt that) and it was allowed by administration we have another very good example of how important rules are everybody knows and everybody can follow instead of more or less random decisions we have right now.

Quote from: [ATA] b757capt on July 25, 2014, 02:12:35 AM
Every single alliance does this. Honestly I don't see the big deal of it.

It's good we have a discussioun thread then if many people do it.

Just because many people do it, just because it can not easily detected, just because the rules are short and may not be understand by all and just because investigation takes a while doesn't mean the status quo is acceptable. I guess Jona invested some time to find those examples for us so we can see these things actually happen often and just accepting illegal cash transfer between airlines does not seem to a solution to me - mostly because it then must be officially communicated so everybody can do it legally.

Very well thought out and very well written Jona as it is not a rant but a well presented factual post.

It really does annoy me that players find so many ways to cheat at this game, not only because it stuffs up other players game experience and game play but also due to the fact that a lot of Sami's time is continuously wasted in fixing cheat loop holes instead of him being able to invest his available time pro-actively and develop this game (e.g. City Based Demand) for all of us to keep enjoying.

Now lets get back to what Jona has requested being clarifications of rules so that airlines and/or Alliances do not abuse what they see as their interpretation of the rules

Current Working Example -

GW #4 - 2 airlines from the same alliance operating from Atlanta - is this against the rules or not? unfortunately it is left up to player interpretation

Positive reason
Player # 1 could be operating Domestic market only (which it appears to be the case, however 40+ Long Haul aircraft are on order)
Payer # 2 could be operating International market only

OR

Negative reason
It could be that the 2nd player went there to help crush any opposition so that his 1st alliance member could flourish

Which is it? Is it good play or is it cheating?
Unfortunately the answer will be 'dependant on what your personal alliance to another airline or another person is'

To me a classic example of what Jona is requesting - clear cut rules rather than player interpretation of rules

Note - I have no issue with any players involved, all I am highlighting is that many rules in this game are 'open to individual  interpretation' and we all have different opinions of what is fair and what is not fair

That's one of the problems, Darryl. I wrote a PM to sami some month ago about a similar thing and never received an answer - neither positive nor negative.

For Atlanta I wrote another PM and told my intention as well as the limits (I don't serve a single route my alliance mate serves) and asked for permission. This just takes time, it stops gameflow and it still feels a bit shady.



Explicit rules would have avoided that, something like: "If two members of the same alliance operate out of the same airport they are disallowed to share routes." (what, basically, my interpretation in this thing is)

Double basing for example is not forbidden by rule and in real life most European countries I'm very familiar with law this would be legal then. However, there were things in the past that were not clearly forbidden in AWS but were punished afterwards.

I agree Seb, it needs to be clarified so that we all know how to play this game without running the risk of being accused of cheating
It is no good making a rule retrospective and then punishing a player for 'his' interpretation which at the time was not wrong

IRL Airlines of the same alliance do share bases and pax demand
e.g.
Qantas and Ethiad both fly out of Sydney to some of the same destinations, and they do it amicably
But at the same time they are teaming (alliances and loyalty rewards) so that they take pax from Virgin...to me that is just good business, but to others e.g. Branson, that may be cheating, and we know how many times he has used that 'cheating' line against BA (his interpretation)

Regarding the deal between Kelrick Airways and United Pacific Fleet.

Ricky needed cash, i'm in the same alliance, so of course i helped him.
I had no idea about committing a crime, he told me that he will buy back the planes which means no one makes profit, though money was transferred, that's true. Next time, i'm going to ask advice from more experienced players before such transactions.
Or we will split the 4x 731s among 4 members, if it's allowed. (?)

I admit, before, i bought some planes from other (poor) members, too. Sometimes secretly, sometimes on purpose, just to help them out. Not for profit. I will do this again, helping out poor members.

This is the PM i received from Ricky:

Hi Kangkang

I am hitting some financial difficulties at the moment, I have two Elite members opened up in Atlanta trying to sqeeze me out (King Airways just opened).  I am closing routes now, would you be able to buy some planes off me at high prices as I am short of cash, if and when I recover I will buy back.

I would really appreciate it.

Regards

Rickyricky101


I bought 4x731s, put them in storage and was hoping that Ricky will buy them back.
If it is against the rules and i caused financial trouble and dreamless nights for other alliance members, i apologize.
In his next PM he had told me that due to King's attack his income is slashed, he leaves Cloud9 and we can meet in the next game World.
The 731s are on the market now.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 07:47:30 PM

Case 1)
Galaxy Express/frimp (bankrupted) and Connect America/xyeahtony in GameWorld #4.
Galaxy Express gave leased aircraft, some were leased from Connect America, back before their D-Check. While ate the same time acquiring replacement aircraft from the same user. In at least two cases an aircraft that was given back to Connect America was later again acquired by Galaxy Express - however, many aircraft were given back and other aircraft were taken. (To give you a picture: Player A gives back Aircraft X. Player B D-Checks aircraft X and leases it to player C. Player C gives back aircraft Y, Player B makes the D-Check and gives aircraft Y then to Player A).
Reason for this "aircraft carousel" were the fact Galaxy Express was undergoing heavy fights with his rival King Airways, short on cash, and each D-Check of about 1M would have brought him to BK sooner.

This means that D-Checks were outsourced to a rich de facto alliance member, which is in violation of the cash transfer rule.

Honestly, I don't see this as an issue. As a long term lessor, I've seen many cases my A/C is leased for 7 or 7.5 year and got returned before a heavy check. People even lease my 11.5 months from C check for 11 months. I'm pretty sure most if not all of us do so, to player or non-player brokers doesn't matter. I don't think anyone's in their right mind would lease an A/C for 8 years, do the D check before returning it to the lessor. Why is it a problem if it's involved Alliance members?

Violation of the cash transfer is when airline A short lease, for example 12 months, A/C X to airline B. Airline B, upon receiving X, does the D check, and terminates the leasing agreement. This would give A termination fee + free D check. That's what I call outsource D check to a rich alliance member

Anyway, i'm tired of this cheating accusation. Alliance members help each other.
Actually, i don't see other major point of being an alliance member than helping out each other during financial difficulties.
That's the main reason of being together, an airline family.

Shall i just stare at silently when my family member is dying and i have the ability to help him ? No ! Of course i will help out the member who needs it. I would feel guilty myself if i don't help him.

Now i understand Ricky's move. He was sure, no Elite member will open a base in Atlanta, because Sunjet was already there. He was wrong, the rules are interpreted in different ways. We should mark the future top airline of GW#4 with a *.

Quote from: Mr.HP on July 25, 2014, 08:02:03 AM
Honestly, I don't see this as an issue. As a long term lessor, I've seen many cases my A/C is leased for 7 or 7.5 year and got returned before a heavy check. People even lease my 11.5 months from C check for 11 months. I'm pretty sure most if not all of us do so, to player or non-player brokers doesn't matter. I don't think anyone's in their right mind would lease an A/C for 8 years, do the D check before returning it to the lessor. Why is it a problem if it's involved Alliance members?

Violation of the cash transfer is when airline A short lease, for example 12 months, A/C X to airline B. Airline B, upon receiving X, does the D check, and terminates the leasing agreement. This would give A termination fee + free D check. That's what I call outsource D check to a rich alliance member

Have you looked at the screenshots? frimp has not given back random aircraft to a random person and then organized new aircraft from a random person.

He even gave in at least two cases back the same specific aircraft he got back after the D-Check was made (!). http://i.imgur.com/zmdxIlT.jpg

While what you describe is the fastest and easiest way to transfer cash it is not the only one. Doing costly D-Checks for others is, as the example shows, another way. The rule doesn't state HOW the cash transfer that is made is illegal, it simply says any cas transfer is not allowed, either due to increasing profit or due to reduction of losses or due to other actions.

Again: Please read Jona's post carefully and look at the screenshots again. The problem is different than the one you described.

Quote from: kangkang on July 25, 2014, 07:59:24 AM
I had no idea about committing a crime, he told me that he will buy back the planes which means no one makes profit, though money was transferred, that's true.

I guess many people are not aware of the fact they step over rules. You just helped an alliance mate and while I can see why, it's - right now - not allowed.

Of course there are people who intent to break rules, see Case 1 and Case 2 as examples.

Quote from: CUR$E - King Airways on July 25, 2014, 09:11:05 AM
Have you looked at the screenshots? frimp has not given back random aircraft to a random person and then organized new aircraft from a random person.

He even gave in at least two cases back the same specific aircraft he got back after the D-Check was made (!). http://i.imgur.com/zmdxIlT.jpg

While what you describe is the fastest and easiest way to transfer cash it is not the only one. Doing costly D-Checks for others is, as the example shows, another way. The rule doesn't state HOW the cash transfer that is made is illegal, it simply says any cas transfer is not allowed, either due to increasing profit or due to reduction of losses or due to other actions.

Again: Please read Jona's post carefully and look at the screenshots again. The problem is different than the one you described.

What I saw from the screenshot was GE leased an A/C from CA for 3.5 years. GE terminated the leasing then about 4 months later, CA sold the same A/C to GE. What is wrong with that? I also lease many A/C to airlines (alliance members and not), and sometime they ask to sell them the A/C after the leasing is terminated

You talked about cash transfer but you couldn't prove it. How do you know the D check was done by CA? Even so, how do you know if CA hasn't increased price to compensate for his service? If GE sell that A/C back to CA or someone from the same alliance, then it'd be the case

Quote from: Mr.HP on July 25, 2014, 09:41:52 AM
What I saw from the screenshot was GE leased an A/C from CA for 3.5 years. GE terminated the leasing then about 4 months later, CA sold the same A/C to GE. What is wrong with that? I also lease many A/C to airlines (alliance members and not), and sometime they ask to sell them the A/C after the leasing is terminated

"Wrong" with it is the fact the lease cancellation was - totally coincidentially of course - right before the D-Check hit. This aircraft carousel therefor gave Galaxy Express illegal cash due to saving it from D-Check expenditures. If he would have gotten aircraft from other suppliers then it would be a normal aircraft change, the situation here however takes all the circumstances into account.

Quote from: Mr.HP on July 25, 2014, 09:41:52 AMYou talked about cash transfer but you couldn't prove it. How do you know the D check was done by CA? Even so, how do you know if CA hasn't increased price to compensate for his service? If GE sell that A/C back to CA or someone from the same alliance, then it'd be the case

There are screenshots and they prove all these things. I know the D-Check was not done by Galaxy Express because their was no $1 Million drop in airline value. We also know the aircraft was sold at the absolute minimum price due to the quarterly financial reports, together with used market data from "normal" aircraft.


Case 1 is also connected to Case 2.

To get back a bit to the actual topic:
What about a clear list of rules? That exactly mark the border between allowed and disallowed? And a fast enforcement (<48 hours) with status updates about investigations?

I don't think we need more and more hard coded walls.

It's allowed. The system lets you buy 2 planes from a member, then it warns you to wait, because you have exceeded the limit of buying from your alliance member.
It took 9 days while Kelrick Airways received 42 million dollars for 4 planes. Does this bother you so much ?

If i accuse someone with cheating - who simply keeps the rules by following the system, the way it allows currently to trade planes between alliance members, - then i would open a new topic and publicly apologize from the "cheaters". Strongly recommended !

To reiterate, if brokers are doing their job providing liquidity in the used market and buying reasonably priced aircraft off of players, there is zero need to allow player-to-player aircraft transactions (lease/buy).  When players do slot transfers it is "slot hogging" and illegal, but when players do it with new aircraft it is "production slot hogging" and "everyone does it" which makes it a requirement for entering the market and remaining competitive.  An alliance is supposed to be a group of airlines working in loose cooperation, not colluding to gain unfair advantages against the competition which is what many players believe the primary function to be.

Create a leaseback system for players to access equity, remove player-to-player transactions, and tweak the brokers to do their jobs in providing liquidity and be done with it.  Sami shouldn't have to babysit players because they take AWS way too seriously.

Quote from: kangkang on July 25, 2014, 12:02:28 PM
It's allowed. The system lets you buy 2 planes from a member, then it warns you to wait, because you have exceeded the limit of buying from your alliance member.
It took 9 days while Kelrick Airways received 42 million dollars for 4 planes. Does this bother you so much ?

If i accuse someone with cheating - who simply keeps the rules by following the system, the way it allows currently to trade planes between alliance members, - then i would open a new topic and publicly apologize from the "cheaters". Strongly recommended !

It's a general used aircraft market limit, not a special alliance trading limit.

There was also no "accusation" of cheating, there was shown - with links to the specific aircraft and a quote from the game rules - cheating happened.


Again, for you:

QuoteAlliance members are also forbidden to effectively transfer money between their member airlines by for example repeatedly selling and buying aircraft between each others. Normal one-time sales of aircraft is naturally allowed but transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable.

https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/General/Rules/#Alliances

And here you already admit the cheating:

Quote from: kangkang on July 25, 2014, 07:59:24 AM
Ricky needed cash, i'm in the same alliance, so of course i helped him.

Quote from: kangkang on July 25, 2014, 07:59:24 AM
This is the PM i received from Ricky:

Hi Kangkang

I am hitting some financial difficulties at the moment, I have two Elite members opened up in Atlanta trying to sqeeze me out (King Airways just opened).  I am closing routes now, would you be able to buy some planes off me at high prices as I am short of cash, if and when I recover I will buy back.

I would really appreciate it.

Regards

Rickyricky101

But, again, that's not the topic.

Quote"Wrong" with it is the fact the lease cancellation was - totally coincidentially of course - right before the D-Check hit. This aircraft carousel therefor gave Galaxy Express illegal cash due to saving it from D-Check expenditures. If he would have gotten aircraft from other suppliers then it would be a normal aircraft change, the situation here however takes all the circumstances into account.

To my understanding avoiding D checks is not illegal. There were other aircrafts available at the time on the used market so other aircrafts could be picked up to avoid these D checks, but given that there were cheaper options from an alliance member why should I choose the more expensive option and let him have grounded aircrafts. The issue you seem to have is that other players are doing the D checks. I think this is a widespread activity and if you ask me not a real issue. If I had done the D checks myself I would have extended the leases by another 8 years which would have lowered the monthly lease fee significantly and more than offset the D check cost.

Quotea) Why did you not join ATA after you founded it a few years before with your well running airline in ATL?
    If you had done so, you would have paid a legitimate amount of money for these planes, and not been subsidized against KAW.

I had every intention to join the alliance but due to competition oversupplying with capped seating on 722adv & cutting prices against my airline (read forcing/squeezing an airline out - also against the rules but not in this topic but perhaps should also be clarified.) this meant that my airline was running a profit margin of 0.5%, (with single fleet of B732adv & 18hr utilisation) given that the alliance fee is 1% I simply couldn't afford to join the alliance.

Also means that the alliance missed out on points being scored when I wasn't part of it.

Quoteb) How did you explain to Sami, that this was not cheating, while it was effectively a scheme trying to avoid high prices in a fierce battle?
    What is also striking me is the fact, that the aircraft buying and killing leases for D-checks ended just shortly after it was reported. It seem you could explain a bit, but were still disallowed to continue as before. Which lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of your airline, showing how dependent it was on these cheap leases and cheaply sold aircraft

When CA bought the aircrafts, we agreed that I would eventually buy these aircrafts from him. I leased for 8years and then paid the lowest allowed price.. The 8 year lease payments + aircraft sale value was higher than the acquisition cost & D check CA paid for..  The reason why it stopped was because I ran out of cash... If I had resold these owned aircrafts for a profit (which I did not as it's against the rules) then it would definately be generating cash profit, and there are some clear examples of this in gw2.

(see attachment at the bottom showing an example where 1 aircraft was bought from UM and then sold to alliance member at huge profit without operating it - i.e. generating cash - the airline who bought it isn't even flying the aircraft and has stalled it on the UM) this happened 2x and has meant the airline managed to survive...


To avoid these sort of debates, Sami needs to explain what is interpretted by generating profit/cash so we are all clear on what's allowed and what's not. The issue is that Sami doesnt actively play the game and doesn't necessarily understand all the possible scenarios that need to be clarified.

feel free to add scenarios to the list, I've only listed the ones I know of but I'm sure there are more (I've put my interpretations next to it)

• avoiding D checks on leased ac from brokers - not an issue
• avoiding D checks on leased ac from non-alliance members - not an issue
• avoiding D checks on leased ac from alliance members - not an issue
• buying aircrafts cheaply with an intent of operating them - not an issue  
• buying aircrafts cheaply with an intent of selling them again - clearly against the rules

Hey. What a sunny day outside! Did anyone noticed it?

Woah!

Quote from: Longbow on July 25, 2014, 01:46:56 PM
Hey. What a sunny day outside! Did anyone noticed it?

Woah!

Doesn't Look like it lol

So, since I'm not part of an alliance, and I'm not getting heavily discounted aircraft and free D checks, I guess I'm in suffering from anti-competitive practices.

So, do the alliance members just want to transfer like 100 million into my account, like they do for their friends? Kthx.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 07:47:30 PM
Point is:
New players, old players with a limited amout of time, the average Joe here who sometimes bankrupts and just wants to play a casual game. Those people simply got, and will get, wiped away by individuals or alliances/groups and in 99.9% they will never learn what happened, how, and why.

===>>>

Quote from: Jetsetter on July 25, 2014, 02:05:31 PM
So, since I'm not part of an alliance, and I'm not getting heavily discounted aircraft and free D checks, I guess I'm in suffering from anti-competitive practices.

So, do the alliance members just want to transfer like 100 million into my account, like they do for their friends? Kthx.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

This thread has been used to point out 'cheating' even though in the first 2 cases, no rules have been broken. The player involved said admin had discussed this with them and that no action was taken, therefore looking like no rules broken. The general tone of this thread indicates that this information was known by the original posters before the thread was started.

The OP indicates that this is in no way personal. It doesn't appear that way to me and probably to most people reading it, but if not the only explanation for this thread being created is to point out to the forum as a whole that they are unhappy that no sanctions were taken against the player(s) involved and the way that actions like this are dealt with by the site's admin. From what I've seen on here the person who runs the site does a good job and doesn't deserve his decisions to be dissected publicly like this.

Regarding the 3rd case it does look to me like rules have been broken. I don't know if this has been investigated and if not I think its unfair to be discussed on a public forum until which times as these discussions have been made.

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 05:48:42 PM

Well, you obviously missed two parts of the post.

A) The main intention is not to "reinvestigate" these cases publicly, it is to get rules straightened, so that exactly this whole thing gets avoided for the next time. And thus saving Sami valuable time to code the game, rather than to investigate this stuff.

B) The cases listed were, as I mentioned more than once examples, and just there as a base for discussion, so that we avoid discussing a theoretical problem which most people would get confused by.

Looking at your profile, I notice you have just been on here for 2 weeks, and with all due respect, I doubt that you can understand the depth of this problem in its entirety. Also I wonder how much experience in cheating/as victim of cheating you might have gotten by having no airlines so far?

And the third point you see to have missed, was that we wanted to have a discussion of possible solutions rather than discussing if/how/why the examples given are correct or not correct.


Feel free to join a discussion with constructive and creative solutions for the problem shown, if you have any. Thank you.

cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 25, 2014, 06:50:27 PM

Feel free to join a discussion with constructive and creative solutions for the problem shown, if you have any. Thank you.

Seems to me he did - but as it doesn't agree with your opinion you did what most 'older' players do in this forum and 'diss' the new person for speaking up. And Sami wonders why its hard to get and keep new players in AWS when anyone not part of certain cliques get slammed and ridiculed in these forums. Forums that are supposed to be used to make the WHOLE game of AWS better, not just one person or group.

@ bdnascar3

Please quote the constructive and creative solutions about the initial topic @dw1985 brought in here. Thanks.

since it happened to be in the same alliance with   4 of the people involved , the players in 2 first examples, fred and tony, the poster Jona and also seb, i have been into a situation that have bought new planes and leased them to all 4 of them in order to support their airlines. This continued and after the break of skyconnect. I don't want to take position into the personal thing between them and try to be more neutral.

So I have bought and leased big number of planes to the participants, in good faith, in order to support them , and most importantly to not make  profit (but also to not loose ). In many cases, i got aircrafts back just a bit before the D-check . And in many many cases i leased back or relisted the planes after I did the D-check. For me , this is within the rules. If otherwise, we all broke them.

I also remember that I helped alliance members when they had financial difficulties by buying some planes at high price, just to help my alliance and my friends.  I don't consider this to be a cheating anyway, the same happens in RL.

What I would say regarding the rules is that wherever there is an unclear spot, instead of having sami doing the serlock homs and trying to analyze the logs each time to see what has happened, to let sami give actually the solution.

one example. heathrow was blamed many times in the past regarding the slot thing. Sami finally programmed that no one can acquire more than 2*7 set of slots . First you have to schedule these 2 sets  and then you can continue. This alone made things more easy at EGLL , where in the past someone could aquire lots of slots and not schedule them immediately (me including in one case).
Sami again, programmed after lot's of discussion in the forums what happens when someone in slot restricted airports BK. Slot quota system. Again, this works at a fair level.

In our subject, Jona writes regarding the exploit in selling planes. It would be musch more constructive if we leave it to sami to find the best way to do it. Since the system as it is , seems to have a back door so to game the system, then only sami could fix this. His role is not investigator. He is professional in RL and as part time he has AWS. Some good ideas were thrown that sound ok from my side.
either make the system more transparent , by making public the transaction price, or/and
limit the low price someone can set as the selling price. (ex 1% more discount every 1-2 months) with a cap at max 25% after many months. This way you can't game the system.
or any other proposal towards a programming based solution

Every discussion on rules  and you did this and i did that, is not constructive and it spoils the game
of course a clear set of rules as asked by Jona is quite important and also helps in the right direction.
But when an exploit exists, i would blame the system and I would concentrate on making the system more transparent and close the back doors , instead of starting  the accusation game, which usually is targeting other alliance members, outside our alliance

just  my 2 cents

Just because @dw1985 posted it (and then deleted the post...) I just want to clarify a thing:

I never gave back aircraft without D-Checks and then organized the same aircraft or sort of aircraft, neither from the same supplier (as Galaxy Express did) nor from somebody else. Neither in GW#4, nor at any time else in the past.

Everyone is free to control the Comet 3, Comet 4, Comet 4B, Comet 4C, 727-100 and DC-8-43 I utilized from third player parties in GW#4 and then post evidence about that with aircraft link as Jona did in his initial post.


Jona's Dubai airline went BK 1963. He therefor had no chance to aquire aircraft from a 3rd party and give it back for D-Check as the GameWorld was 11 years old then and, of course, nobody was able to broker aircraft in the first 3 years.

After the restart there was no chance for such a behaviour on Jona's side, too, as he either gave aircraft back when he phased them out (mostly with D-Check as with JM's SVC-10) or he still flies them. Again: If one can provide a link that shows the opposite, feel free to do so.
To give a start here is one of the early BAC 400 I leased to Jona and he gave back to me as soon as he had enough BAC 500 on hand:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Aircraft/View/History/40823/

In his aircraft histoy list you can easily see he even D-Checks the ugly BAC 475:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Info/Airline/View/1258/141/#AirlineFleet



However, all this distracts from the real purpose of this thread: Gather ideas and discuss how and if new rules and a strict enforcement of such routes could make AirwaySim a better place.

Quote from: CUR$E - King Airways on July 25, 2014, 08:44:13 PM
Just because @dw1985 posted it (and then deleted the post...)

The reason the post was deleted is that on reflection if felt it best to leave the experts of this world to continue with the discussion. I should never have had the audacity to post on your forum in the first place, infact probably a lesson to every new member on here would be to steer clear of the forum if all that's going to happen is that you are shot down in flames. I gave my interpretation of the original post as I believe it looks personal and I won't be alone in thinking that way. Anyway carry on with your crusade.

So, you had no valid points and you still have none. That was expected.

The primary problem is not the fact you are a community member since less than two weeks. Or the fact you have no airline (and therefor you were not able to confirm the GW#4 links). The primary problem is therefor not the fact you are new, the problem is you don't support your statement with facts, evidence or whatever could be useful and constructive.

Neither did you do so in refutation of facts and arguments brought in by "the other side" nor did you add something to the rule overhaul that is the main point of this thread at all.



In contrary, you posted:

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 05:48:42 PM
This thread has been used to point out 'cheating' even though in the first 2 cases, no rules have been broken.

That is simply a lie. Case #2 is a clear rule violation while I see why people want to discuss Case #1. If you follow the words and the intention of the anti-cash-transfer rule it is a clear violation, too, but I see it can be easily done without intention.

To clarify this: Personally I think all the current AWS-rules are not useful. In the first month of law University things like "clear laws", "easy to find at one specific place", "enforcement of laws" and "no backdated punishment" are basic concepts and, unfortunately, the AWS-rules don't fullfill those basics in a way it would actually help the player.

I'm also no fan of the no-airline-cash-transfer rule. That of course doesn't mean I break it, intentionally or not.



Edit:
So, what do some of us expect?

1) Clear rules. Either something is allowed or it is forbidden, but no "maybe if...". A new airline is not "small or a new player" etc., it "is an airline that is less than 12 month old."
2) Easy to find rules. Things that are written in announcement threads, general forums or - even worse - the bug forum/GameWorld specific forums should be no rule.
3) Enforcement of rules. Each investigation should be finished within 48 hours of report, including an "start investigation now" and "investigation ended: RESULT XY" or, if it might take longer than 48 hours, a status update.
4) No backdated punishment. That's usually fine here. Good. :)

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 09:14:33 PM
The reason the post was deleted is that on reflection if felt it best to leave the experts of this world to continue with the discussion.

Your defensive approach may well tell its own story but at the end of the day it's your game. I'm not going to give opinions on new rules to be set up as I don't have the experience to justify any opinions I may have (as I have already said). The only opinion I stated was regarding the context of the original post, which has been addressed and I have attempted to step away from the discussion but you have referenced me again.

And for the record I am not a lair. I may be incorrect but you have to remember that no-one else in this world is perfect and people can make mistakes and have differing opinions. I would also not be happy if I was @jmaildom, after all it's not just me you are calling a liar.

As I said feel free to carry on your crusade.

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 09:42:31 PM
Your defensive approach may well tell its own story

Well, which story do you think it tells? The fact of the matter is: He is so sure of not having breached the rules, that he invites you (and everyone else) to feel free to check his old aircraft for exactly this kind of cheating. And from what I have seen, it hasn't happened. Unless you (or anyone else) can find proof for cheating in his airline, go ahead, post it here.

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 09:42:31 PM
I'm not going to give opinions on new rules to be set up as I don't have the experience to justify any opinions I may have (as I have already said). The only opinion I stated was regarding the context of the original post, which has been addressed and I have attempted to step away from the discussion but you have referenced me again.

Well... Yes, you don't have the experience, and that is not an offense, just a statement. In a new job the first thing you do won't be telling the boss how things are wrong. Especially without bringing forward any arguments.

I am not saying you should leave this forum, or this discussion, I/we are simply asking for you to bring arguments supporting the points you make, or arguments that dismantle the ones already brought forward.

Quote from: dw1985 on July 25, 2014, 09:42:31 PM
And for the record I am not a lair. I may be incorrect but you have to remember that no-one else in this world is perfect and people can make mistakes and have differing opinions. I would also not be happy if I was @jmaildom, after all it's not just me you are calling a liar.

As I said feel free to carry on your crusade.

No one has called JM a liar. He just interpreted the rules a bit stricter than others. Yes, he helped alliance members, me included. For example he ordered me Vickers Super VC10, and leased them to me at min alliance price, which is of course far more than Galaxy Express has been asked by Connect America to pay for these B732A (at least for the owned ones, there is no possibility to prove/disprove this for the leased a/c). And when I gave them back after roundabout 8 years, I actually D-checked them myself before giving them back. And that was in a time, when we weren't in the same alliance, so I wouldn't have been obliged to pay that high prices.

This is exactly the reason why we are asking for rules to be made clearer. If it were made clear what of this is still okay, and what is not, we wouldn't have to have this discussion at all.


cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 24, 2014, 09:19:40 PMThe solution is easy: don't allow players to lease to other players. If player-to-player leasing is eliminated and brokers were programmed to do their jobs more efficiently (providing liquidity, purchasing aircraft from players based on supply/demand/fair value) then there is absolutely no need for players to lease to other players.

And I am with you on this. The business of carrier leasing to another carrier is less than 0.001% in real life, short-term, and on a wet lease basis.
Hopefully Sami is reading.

LA

Quote from: LotusAirways on July 26, 2014, 11:13:52 AM
And I am with you on this. The business of carrier leasing to another carrier is less than 0.001% in real life, short-term, and on a wet lease basis.
Hopefully Sami is reading.

LA

Well, IRL production lines are also flexible to orders, while in AWS they are fixed to real world values, which we by far exceed, so a player-to-player market is essential in AWS to accomplish the targets we set ourselves.

So if you were to forbid the P2P sales/leasing market, you would also have to adjust production rates to become more flexible over time.
If there were 50 airlines IRL now ordering 100 B777 each, Boeing would sure as hell build a new production hall, and in 2-3years the production rate would massively increase. With small delays (i.e. 1-3 years depending on a/c size for example) production rates should be able to increase.

In fact, if things became more dynamic in AWS a lot would change, and the city based demand is a small step in the right direction. But that is a different topic.


The a/c trade is just a fraction of the overall thing we are trying to achieve: Clearer rules.

cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 26, 2014, 11:54:35 AM... also have to adjust production rates to become more flexible over time

And I am with you on this.

Orders and production should be linked, perhaps with a 12-24 months lag to simulate real life (finding suppliers, setting up new factories, hiring-training new people). But we also need to think on player-alliance abuse. For instance, perhaps the penalty for order cancellation as to increase to avoid a player-alliance ordering 500 --and by doing so accelerate the production rate-- and then cancelling the last 300.

With (1) no player to player sell-lease, (2) brokers doing what they are supposed to do as Lemon suggests, and (3) new airplanes production lines being linked to demand; I think we have a very good solution to the funky business that this topic is trying to address.

LA
Further reading: http://aviationweek.com/farnborough-2014/airbus-and-boeing-plan-increased-output and http://awin.aviationweek.com/portals/awin/Interactives/AWST/aircraftmarket/aircraftmarket.html

Quote from: Jona L. on July 26, 2014, 11:54:35 AM
a player-to-player market is essential in AWS to accomplish the targets we set ourselves.

So if you were to forbid the P2P sales/leasing market, you would also have to adjust production rates to become more flexible over time.
If there were 50 airlines IRL now ordering 100 B777 each, Boeing would sure as hell build a new production hall, and in 2-3years the production rate would massively increase. With small delays (i.e. 1-3 years depending on a/c size for example) production rates should be able to increase.

So instead of adjusting your strategy to fit the circumstances, the circumstances should be adjusted to fit your strategy?  Someone call Boeing and tell them I want a pony.  The net effect of "teaming up" with your buddies to order 100 B777 is that instead of 50 airlines ordering 100 B777, you have 25 airlines ordering 200 B777 and 0 airlines ordering 0.  It is anticompetitive and the exact reason why P2P leasing should be prohibited.  No one should be allowed to work the system to circumvent the limits put in place.  If you should be able to get aircraft at the double the rate, it would be programmed that way.

I'm not saying I haven't done the same in the past, but circumstances were different.  As a rule of thumb I try to avoid Airbus and Boeing like the plague, which means flying the less popular models.  Brokers fail miserably to buy aircraft (whitetails) and put them on the used market, leading to availability being zero.  There was another thread from GW2 before it was called GW2 where I had hundreds of BAe ATP.  I literally had every single example ever produced because I was the only one who ever ordered the aircraft, so if I didn't keep the production line moving I was facing huge costs for expansion since I'd have to add a fleet type.  The "we need rich players to provide liquidity" argument went out the door because players simply chose not to provide said liquidity and the brokers are broken.

So if P2P transactions were stopped and brokers did their jobs, you could still have players buying aircraft they won't fly, but only brokers can buy the aircraft.  The broker would then turn around and lease it out at a price they deem fit (instead of a price a player deems fit).  Even better is that instead of an alliance creating a monopoly on a production line, prohibiting other players from having a reasonable chance at ordering aircraft, it would be first come first serve on the used market as it is now.  I guarantee you this will significantly reduce the collusion that happens now and level the playing field where the marketplace is controlled by supply/demand versus what alliance you belong to.

So, LemonButt, 1) which less popular longrange aircraft do you suggest after 1990 out of Los Angeles or Johannesburg or Singapore, for example?
2) And what would be your narrowbody aircraft of choice out of Los Angeles after 2000 if you avoid A320 and 737classic/ng production lines?


And why do you suggest others should fit their strategy to circumstances when those circumstances don't exist right now - but you want them to be changed so they exist? Aren't you actually requesting others to fit into an environment while you don't fit into that environment right now yourself?


There is also no "alliance controlled production line". That simly does not work, even with 25 extreme rich airlines (and no alliance ever had 25 of those yet). Your argument therefor is invalid.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 02:58:34 PM
So instead of adjusting your strategy to fit the circumstances, the circumstances should be adjusted to fit your strategy?  Someone call Boeing and tell them I want a pony.  The net effect of "teaming up" with your buddies to order 100 B777 is that instead of 50 airlines ordering 100 B777, you have 25 airlines ordering 200 B777 and 0 airlines ordering 0.  It is anticompetitive and the exact reason why P2P leasing should be prohibited.  No one should be allowed to work the system to circumvent the limits put in place.  If you should be able to get aircraft at the double the rate, it would be programmed that way.

So what you are suggesting is this:

Create new circumstances which so far don't exist. And then asking ALL players* to adapt to these newly created circumstances? Very simple solution indeed. It would just need as little programming as city based demand needed, almost no work at all.


*except you, because you already adapted your own niche strategy, to which you would like sami to create the circumstances.


Asides, if you read the OP carefully, you would've stumbled across this line:

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 07:47:30 PM
[...] and getting carried away by people who didn't understand what this is about [...]

Quote from: LotusAirways on July 26, 2014, 02:22:30 PM
With (1) no player to player sell-lease, (2) brokers doing what they are supposed to do as Lemon suggests, and (3) new airplanes production lines being linked to demand; I think we have a very good solution to the funky business that this topic is trying to address.

Same here as I said to LemonButt in the post above:

Quote[...] and getting carried away by people who didn't understand what this is about [...]

The point of this topic has NEVER been to discuss P2P aircraft sales!
The point of this topic IS however, to get the rules set up/written more clearly as to what exactly is allowed and what is considered illegal or a rule violation. Also in terms of the aircraft trade between players, but that was on the matter of rules, not on the matter of finding a system to change AWS.


Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate such ideas, and I like your suggesting very much, but this is not the place for it. Probably the feature request forum, once Sami re-opens it.

cheers,
Jona L.

Ugh...I had a long reply, but it clearly doesn't matter what I have to say at this point.  What is the solution then?  Prohibiting P2P sales eliminates the ability to transfer money AND solves a variety of other issues.  You don't like my solution, yet no one has any better ideas.  No one has even attempted to come with a solution in this thread as it is all muckraking.

There is zero reason to allow P2P sales (assuming brokers do their job) other than circumventing the limits put in place and doubling/tripling down on new deliveries.  Allowing P2P sales is no different than P2P slot transfers as you are talking about finite resources being consumed to the detriment of other players.

I am not asking sami to create the circumstances that fit me--I'll admit I have a niche strategy, but I adapt my strategy to fit the existing system in place, not vice versa.

This is a business simulation--can you provide an example IRL of an airline placing a large order with a manufacturer to take deliveries of aircraft they have zero intention of flying and instead turn around and sell/lease immediately?  I can, however the business is not an airline, but a broker/leasing company because that IS their business model.  Yes, airlines lease out/sell aircraft to other airlines, but this only happens when they either have extenuating circumstances or are doing a fleet upgrade and are divesting assets.

So what new circumstances that don't exist am I proposing exactly?  If sami wanted airlines to double/triple down on deliveries, why can't they order that quantity of aircraft directly from the factory WITHOUT colluding with other airlines?  Clearly the intention, by design, was never to have airlines taking delivery of new aircraft at the rate that actually occurs in the game, otherwise the hard coded limits wouldn't be what they are.

So the ultimate solution which solves the issue of P2P sales being used to transfer money, airlines working together to clog production lines to the benefit of one airline doubling/tripling down on deliveries, and the availability/viability of less popular models (per my explanation with the BAe ATP) is prohibiting P2P transactions and tweaking the brokers to do their jobs better.  The reason we have game rules is so they aren't broken and the best way to ensure they aren't broken is by eliminating the opportunity to break the rules, which is why there are so many limits in place currently (how fast you can buy slots released from other players, tighter selling price ranges on aircraft, etc.).

From the game rules (Alliances section):
Normal airline management and route competition is allowed but unfair methods with coordinated, targeted and combined actions are considered unfair competition.

Would coordinated, targeted, and combined efforts to double/triple down on production slots not be considered unfair competition?

Perhaps the rules should be changed so that aircraft <10 years old can only be purchased by brokers (with brokers tweaked to rapidly acquire these late model aircraft) so that production lines are abused the way they are today.  However, that only solves the issue of players doubling/tripling down on deliveries and doesn't eliminate the cash transfer issue.  If you take it one step further and tweak the brokers to purchase ALL aircraft, it does.  If you further tweak brokers to buy whitetails and provide liquidity in the market (a function that several players say rich airlines do by buying aircraft they don't ever intend to fly) then you solve another problem that occurs on the low volume/less popular production lines.  Thus with these changes, there is zero reason to allow P2P aircraft transactions because every benefit that is lost is created by brokers, with the exception of being able to abuse production line delivery rates and transfer money, which are two problems (or at least one we can agree on) with the current model.

So if you want clarity on the rules, it's the same as slots.  The rules have always been no coordinated slot transfers, but the system (up until recently) has allowed coordinated slot transfers to take place, which means someone has to babysit and hand out penalties.  The current rules state transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable.  How does one determine intention?  It's all subjective, but as I've stated every benefit of P2P transactions can be maintained by brokers while eliminating all the bad stuff with the above changes.

Is there *any* reason why P2P transactions should be allowed, assuming the brokers are tweaked, other than to abuse the system?

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
Ugh...I had a long reply, but it clearly doesn't matter what I have to say at this point.  What is the solution then?  Prohibiting P2P sales eliminates the ability to transfer money AND solves a variety of other issues.  You don't like my solution, yet no one has any better ideas.  No one has even attempted to come with a solution in this thread as it is all muckraking.

If you would care to read what others say instead of just embracing your own suggestions, you may have seen that Lotus and I had a different suggestion about the P2P sales problem: Variable production lines, fitting the demand for aircraft, instead of having endless ques, as we have all seen, with 5000+ orders for A320 planes while the production line won't go beyond 40ish/mth, clogging the line for years to come. Even the frenchmen at Airbus wouldn't be dumb enough not to build another factory, and increase the production rate.

This however is NOT modelled into AWS. So what is the P2P market doing? Simulating exactly that. By having your alliance mate order you A320 on the side, you increase the delivery rate to you, as it would happen IRL, where Airbus would increase production and thus delivery rates.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
There is zero reason to allow P2P sales (assuming brokers do their job) other than circumventing the limits put in place and doubling/tripling down on new deliveries.  Allowing P2P sales is no different than P2P slot transfers as you are talking about finite resources being consumed to the detriment of other players.

Well, in AWS aircraft are NOT finite resources, as they are produced until no one wants any more of them, rather than stop being made while everyone still wants/needs more, making them incomparable to slots. If brokers did their job, you would revert to the old problem, that all major airlines would be hunting the UM for planes they want, leaving none for the newer airlines. The way it is now, the UM is better off with P2P than without. Even if you increased broker activity, it would have to fully replace P2P and at the same time work as broker, so brokers would need to have "shadow" production lines, being the same size as current ones on top.

P2P within an alliance ONLY exists because of the fixed production rates, not allowing for increased deliveries, thus slowing down fleet transitions and expansion unnecesarily.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
I am not asking sami to create the circumstances that fit me--I'll admit I have a niche strategy, but I adapt my strategy to fit the existing system in place, not vice versa.

You are asking for exactly that by removing P2P aircraft sales, which would support strategies other than yours. A major airline in AWS cannot do fleet replacements without these additional supplies, or incurring losses for decades, by which another fleet will have to be renewed. (Major being 500+ a/c, not the tiny 100 a/c airlines)

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
This is a business simulation--can you provide an example IRL of an airline placing a large order with a manufacturer to take deliveries of aircraft they have zero intention of flying and instead turn around and sell/lease immediately?  I can, however the business is not an airline, but a broker/leasing company because that IS their business model.  Yes, airlines lease out/sell aircraft to other airlines, but this only happens when they either have extenuating circumstances or are doing a fleet upgrade and are divesting assets.

I don't need to provide any RL examples, since RL is not based on AWS, yet AWS is based on RL. If IRL airlines had ordered double as many A320 series a/c, Airbus would make ~double as many planes each month, thus AWS would reflect it.
With the profit margins in AWS being a lot higher than real life, we of course see larger airlines emerge faster, and having larger needs for more aircraft at faster rates, thus in AWS it is not possible to reflect real world in that regard. The current P2P system works around that problem.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
So what new circumstances that don't exist am I proposing exactly?  If sami wanted airlines to double/triple down on deliveries, why can't they order that quantity of aircraft directly from the factory WITHOUT colluding with other airlines?  Clearly the intention, by design, was never to have airlines taking delivery of new aircraft at the rate that actually occurs in the game, otherwise the hard coded limits wouldn't be what they are.

You are proposing to add yet more pointless hardcoded glass walls into AWS, while it is already filled with those. In this specific case adding more rules as to how fast airlines can/are allowed to grow. As it seems you are unhappy with the fact that many players are able to grow faster/better/larger than yourself, and want to impose these -again unrealistic- limits to force players to grow at a pace that suits you. AWS already has loads of these unrealistic limits, reducing airline growth to a minimum (e.g. the 400 new a/c limit), and we don't need more of that. In fact less of these would solve part of the problem. If the 400 new orders rule would be removed, and production lines were made more dynamic, a large part of the P2P market would not be needed.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
So the ultimate solution which solves the issue of P2P sales being used to transfer money, airlines working together to clog production lines to the benefit of one airline doubling/tripling down on deliveries, and the availability/viability of less popular models (per my explanation with the BAe ATP) is prohibiting P2P transactions and tweaking the brokers to do their jobs better.  The reason we have game rules is so they aren't broken and the best way to ensure they aren't broken is by eliminating the opportunity to break the rules, which is why there are so many limits in place currently (how fast you can buy slots released from other players, tighter selling price ranges on aircraft, etc.).

Why do you (again) suggest that your (and only your) suggestion is the "ultimate solution" to the issue, while it makes it worse/makes AWS itself worse? Tell me how the BAe ATP would help an airline based in, for example, LAX? - That is right, it wouldn't.

You also have not answered Curse's question as to what "niche aircraft" you would suggest in case sami would include you additional un-realsim.

Quote from: CUR$E - King Airways on July 26, 2014, 03:05:46 PM
So, LemonButt, 1) which less popular longrange aircraft do you suggest after 1990 out of Los Angeles or Johannesburg or Singapore, for example?
2) And what would be your narrowbody aircraft of choice out of Los Angeles after 2000 if you avoid A320 and 737classic/ng production lines?

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
From the game rules (Alliances section):
Normal airline management and route competition is allowed but unfair methods with coordinated, targeted and combined actions are considered unfair competition.

Would coordinated, targeted, and combined efforts to double/triple down on production slots not be considered unfair competition?

Perhaps the rules should be changed so that aircraft <10 years old can only be purchased by brokers (with brokers tweaked to rapidly acquire these late model aircraft) so that production lines are abused the way they are today.  However, that only solves the issue of players doubling/tripling down on deliveries and doesn't eliminate the cash transfer issue.  If you take it one step further and tweak the brokers to purchase ALL aircraft, it does.  If you further tweak brokers to buy whitetails and provide liquidity in the market (a function that several players say rich airlines do by buying aircraft they don't ever intend to fly) then you solve another problem that occurs on the low volume/less popular production lines.  Thus with these changes, there is zero reason to allow P2P aircraft transactions because every benefit that is lost is created by brokers, with the exception of being able to abuse production line delivery rates and transfer money, which are two problems (or at least one we can agree on) with the current model.

With the current sales limits imposed, the only cash generation happening for a/c sold within the alliance is the inflation adjustment of aircraft value/price over the order price. There is a difference however, if a/c are sold by an airline using it to one that is not using it (as in case #3 from my OP involving Kelrick/United Pacific Fleet).

The main thing happening is the exchange of production slots, mostly with A330 <-> B777 and A320 <-> B737.
Airline A orders 50 A320 and 50 B738, airline B orders the same. Airline A sells all its A320s to Airline B, and airline B sells all its B738 to airline A. That way both airlines have 100 a/c of the same type, none make a profit (as both planes will be subject to roughly the same inflation rates), and no additional slots were used, as both airlines would have ordered 100 planes anyways.

The problem here is that AWS follows real world, and in real world other manufacturers (like BAC) went out of business years earlier, so there are no alternatives to A320/B738 in the 2000s. Same as there are no alternatives to A330/B777 in the 2000s. And I don't see how that can be fixed, except for inventing fictional aircraft, or allowing P2P. The only other solution would be variable production slots, as suggested by me (and adopted by LA) above a few times.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
So if you want clarity on the rules, it's the same as slots.  The rules have always been no coordinated slot transfers, but the system (up until recently) has allowed coordinated slot transfers to take place, which means someone has to babysit and hand out penalties.  The current rules state transferring aircraft with the only intention of at the same time generating profits/money to one airline is considered unacceptable.  How does one determine intention?  It's all subjective, but as I've stated every benefit of P2P transactions can be maintained by brokers while eliminating all the bad stuff with the above changes.

As explained in my paragraph above, there is no possibility to gain money on the inner alliance sales, except for inflation, which is money that has already been lost. Case #3 (Kelrick/United Pacific Fleet) however is a different story, in which the intention is very clear, so the question of how to determine it is irrelevant.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
Is there *any* reason why P2P transactions should be allowed, assuming the brokers are tweaked, other than to abuse the system?

I think I named quite a few reasons above as to why.


Again, I quote myself from the OP:

Quote from: Jona L. on July 24, 2014, 07:47:30 PM
[...] and getting carried away by people who didn't understand what this is about [...]

We have veered way of course with this discussion about P2P sales.

Quote from: Jona L. on July 26, 2014, 03:26:32 PM
The point of this topic has NEVER been to discuss P2P aircraft sales!
The point of this topic IS however, to get the rules set up/written more clearly as to what exactly is allowed and what is considered illegal or a rule violation. Also in terms of the aircraft trade between players, but that was on the matter of rules, not on the matter of finding a system to change AWS.

Feel free to make a feature request or a general discussion thread about P2P sales, but stop discussing this in this topic, please, since it has nothing to do with creating clearer rules out of the elastic rubber rules that are in place right now.

cheers,
Jona L.


P.S.

Quote from: LemonButt on July 26, 2014, 04:09:10 PM
Ugh...I had a long reply

You consider your current post short?!

Granted it turned into a long reply.  To answer Curse--if you started an airline today IRL you would be stuck waiting 3 years for a new 737 from the manufacturer or you go to the secondary (used) market and fly something older.  If you base at an airport where the only viable option(s) is a backlogged production line then you have to adjust your strategy to fit your circumstances.  You don't base at LHR with zero slots available and then expect other players to divest slots so you can execute a predetermined strategy.  You don't base in Tahiti in the 1950's and expect to fly anywhere.  If you have a strategy, find an airport that fits your strategy.  If you have circumstances, find a strategy that fits the circumstances.

The title of this thread is "cheating through rule violating cash transfers" and the subject of P2P aircraft sales is how it is happening.  I agree production lines could be more responsive/elastic in response to actual orders, but even IRL this is a big capital expenditure and wouldn't necessarily double/triple deliveries.  I also agree with (most) others that the fourth fleet penalty should be adjusted so that those large fleet replacements don't end up BK'ing players.

I say my suggestion is the ultimate solution because it solves multiple problems and there is no one else offering any solution other than sami babysitting.  As you mentioned, transfers happen where players just sit on aircraft and not use it which means babysitting.  Making sure aircraft aren't sold repeatedly requires babysitting.  AWS is a simulation and is also sold as an educational tool and I am stating that P2P transfers (most of the time) are unrealistic and never/rarely happen IRL the way they do in AWS.  The ATP doesn't have to benefit the LAX airline because the point is that one of the main arguments FOR P2P is creating UM liquidity, which only happens selectively because brokers aren't providing the liquidity based on market conditions.

I honestly don't care how fast/big airlines grow (and am not unhappy with the fact they do) as my goal in the game is never to run the biggest airline (been there, done that, was bored out of my mind).  Jealousy has nothing to do with any of this.  I'm a proponent of completely opening the system up where the only constraint is money (in spite of being called a communist among other things)--not slots, aircraft production slots, or who you know/alliance you belong to.  If you are willing to pay enough money, airport authorities will expand (i.e terminals) and aircraft producers will find a way to increase production.  But until that happens, we are sharing a finite pool of resources where prices are allowed to rise to infinity, which is why the existing limits exist and players routinely circumvent them.  While growth is throttled in AWS by many of those hardcoded limits/glass ceilings, it is still completely unrealistic as many airlines go from zero to 100+ aircraft in less than a year because many other market forces aren't modeled in the game.

So again, if my solution is a bad one then what is the solution?  Variable production lines partially solve the double/triple delivery problem, but still don't prevent cash transfers (the title of this thread).  The rules used to be no constant refreshing of the used market and now we have to call the used market to refresh because of abuse.  The rules said no slot transfers between players but it has happened so many times that hard coded slot acquisition limits are now in place.  The rules say no cash transfers, yet it happens with relative frequency.  Do you see where this is going?  As long as the mechanism exists to cheat and violate the rules, players are going to do it which has been proven in time.  Sami could clarify the rules that buying an aircraft from an alliance member and not flying it is against the rules, but unless he is babysitting players it is going to happen again and again and again (and again).

I'm more than willing to be wrong on any/all of this and whether the rules stay the same or change drastically it really doesn't impact me because as you stated I have a niche strategy and if two big airlines decide to transfer cash, double/triple up on deliveries, etc. the impact on me is little to none because I am not flying the popular models with jammed up production lines.  Likewise with you and the reason you started this thread--it's about fair play and ensuring we're all operating under the same system.  If sami is going to clarify the rules on this, he should also clarify the rules for doubling/tripling up on deliveries through P2P aircraft sales and have both explicitly stated in the rules/manual.  That is, if doubling/tripling up on deliveries is determined to be within the rules and deemed an acceptable strategy, it should be explicitly stated in the rules as such to remove any ambiguity because currently it can be interpreted as being in violation of the rules and an unfair practice (it's gray area/highly subjective).

Also as a side note just clarify--you said tweaking the brokers would have to fully replace P2P sales, which is exactly what I'm proposing happens.  If a player ordered 50 aircraft they never intended to fly, they could list it, it would be purchased rather quickly by a broker, broker would turn around and sell it on the UM and every player would get a fair shot at it.  The net effect would be instead of an alliance member having a monopoly on those 50 production slots, everyone would have a fair shot.  Likewise if the player never ordered the 50 aircraft to begin with, every player would have had a fair shot at securing those production slots.  This would nullify the benefit of an airline ordering aircraft they never intend on flying.  You say aircraft are not a finite resource because they are produced forever, but perhaps a better way to explain it would be aircraft production slots are finite, because while they may go on forever, there are only a finite amount each month and once they are gone they are gone.


Sorry for another long post :)

That's no answer to my question. You said people should go for alternative aircraft when players can't trade aircraft anymore. I asked what alternative aircraft an airline, for example out of Los Angeles, those are, when smart people - according to you - should avoid Boeing and Airbus.

Again, here are my questions:

Quote from: CUR$E - King Airways on July 26, 2014, 03:05:46 PM
So, LemonButt, 1) which less popular longrange aircraft do you suggest after 1990 out of Los Angeles or Johannesburg or Singapore, for example?
2) And what would be your narrowbody aircraft of choice out of Los Angeles after 2000 if you avoid A320 and 737classic/ng production lines?

Also, your idea is not basically bad. It's just way too complex and doesn't prevent lots of other cheating methods - that's why Jona's intention, according to him, was to talk about the introduction of strict written rules that are enforced as opposite to rules that can be interpreted on a large scale and are often not enforced as it is right now.

Now your just putting words in my mouth.  I stated MY general strategy is to avoid Airbus/Boeing like the plague and rely on the less popular aircraft and it has nothing to do with avoiding them being "smart", although there are a lot of advantages most people overlook.  Obviously if you are basing at places where you're pigeon holed into long range aircraft you are stuck with Boeing/Airbus and that's just the way it is.  You don't base in Tahiti and expect to fly CRJs.  I'm flying B777 in GW2 simply because Airbus/Boeing are the only options available in 2016.  There are a couple MD11 on the market, but there are only 19 aircraft available in the entire game world (production line shutdown), which tweaking the brokers to provide liquidity would help remedy (I'm flying 42 B777 instead).

In GW3 (year 2002) the used market is flush with 737 classic and for longer range, A300/310 which means you do not *have* to fly 737NG or A330/340 to fly routes.  There is also a huge selection of 757 and 747 on the used market--not the most efficient/popular aircraft in the game, but easy to get your hands on and start an airline until the more efficient aircraft become viable.  The market is also flush with DC-10, MD11, and MD80 plus the F100, B717, MD90, and Tu204 lines are wide open with the CRJ1000 on the horizon.  Less than ideal aircraft, sure, but running a business is about doing what you can with what you have.

And the issue isn't players should go for alternative aircraft when they can't trade anymore--being able to do P2P transactions have nothing to do with it.  The only difference between what we currently have and what I proposed is that instead of selling player-to-player transactions would occur player-to-broker-to-player, which would provide the same result as it does currently while removing the element of gaining an unfair advantage through cooperation, whether it is cash transfers or doubling/tripling down on deliveries.  To make this happen, broker behavior would need to be tweaked to provide liquidity so instead of listing an aircraft and waiting months for a broker to act, they would purchase and relist on the used market in short order.  Instead of players creating huge leasing arms, they could give interest bearing loans to brokers which would create the liquidity in the used market based on market conditions and provide a return on assets to airlines.  That means instead of players creating liquidity by purchasing popular aircraft they'll never fly, brokers will create liquidity by purchasing aircraft across all models based on market conditions to provide liquidity for all models.  It's essentially the same thing that happens today except the cash comes from private investors and not airlines (publicly traded companies like Air Lease, Aircastle, etc.).  See the MD11 example above.  I'm sure there are airlines in the game who would fly the MD11 if they could, but if there are only 19 aircraft available in the entire gameworld then it simply isn't a viable fleet type under current conditions (4th fleet type penalty, etc.).

In looking at the special rules world thread, making brokers more active and prohibiting P2P sales were actually mentioned by Sanabas: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,51630.msg293819.html#msg293819

Ahm, yeah, maybe you want to discuss these things there.

This thread here is about the written rules ( https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/General/Rules/ ) that need a major overhaul.

Hopefully  you guys are having fun flaming each other and basically starting a thread that becomes barely readable.  Not exactly sure who did what to who, but ultimately it seems we have SAMI working on enough crazy things to counter someone else crazy things.

Thankfully the days where one alliance could gang tackle you in the multi stop world...running every flight imaginable to your base and then onwards are over.   That's about all I think was really over the top wrong and long ago addressed.

Frankly I find it annoying that I need a certain plane and I see it on the UM via an alliance member and I can't buy it because it's over priced and the alliance member is MIA.  Can I have a special SAMI program /work around for this? Of course not. 

I ultimately don't even know what this whine is about.  If you want a high demand plane, then you are going to pay up.  If someone wants to sell a plane to someone else to D check and then sell back, so what?  What are they saving ...up to $4m?  I can't think of a more time consuming , boring thing, but to each there own...and if you are struggling to Pay for D checks...are you really all that viable in long run?  I have a feeling no.

If someone in or out of an alliance wants to lease / buy any planes from me; I have about 20 listed at a price well below book value and only accessible to non alliance members...they aren't moving so should SAMI program in a plane fairy to buy the unloved planes I thought I wanted but then changed my mind and apparently no one else wants either?  what rule does that fall under when I list a plane well below the alliance limit and possibly another airline in another alliance benefits by getting an absurdly cheap plane?  There's a certain guy in GW1 that got a bargain.  Was I purposely giving him a competitive advantage? No...just happy to get rid of them and not have to wait 5 weeks to scrap them.


As far as two alliance members in same hub.  Seen it before.  Thought there was already a rule that two alliance members on same route are subject to the combined 200% rule vs 200% each.   So it's not really different than 2 US carriers each with 4 hubs having to code share the routes between them. 

If the two alliance members are specifically targeting one airline, then Send SAMI a PM to deal with it as he has done in the past.

The game is already getting beyond complex for the casual player who didn't get a major in accounting and just likes sim games that we don't need to have a major in government regulation on top of the accounting degree. 

Seriously if there something nefarious then by all means send a not to SAMI but this over-engineering every minute detail of the game is getting nuts.

Spiff, you haven't gotten a single bit of what this is about. Please read what we are discussing (apart from what LemonButt said, because he just as well missed the point).

I'll explain it (again) briefly:

We are asking for a clarification of the rules as to what certain things mean, as many things are open for interpretation, and thus it is hard to tell if it is breaking the rules or not.
For example:
What does the section on new airlines mean?

Quote
The game worlds receive new players and airlines on regular basis. The longer the game world has been active the more likely it is that a new airline will be based to an airport with one or more other airlines already operating from. In such cases the owners of the existing airlines should keep in mind that coordinated attacks or other uncompetitive ways to use their power as a larger or more dominant airline may be disallowed.

What is a "new airline"? 1 real life day? 1 AWS year?

This is just an example, there are quite a few more points that are written like this, where it is unclear what exactly is a breach of rules. And especially for newer players or people with little time it is hard to know or recall every bit of clarification sami may or may not have given on certain rules in some reply to a thread far down the list. Or worse even, those made in PM to only one or a few players.

Another example:

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Competition is generally free in the sim but any clearly unfair competition measures such as flying routes with huge overcapacity and with very low prices and deliberately targeting many/all routes of a single airline are considered unfair competition, especially if the "target" is a new / small airline.

What are "very low prices"? Default -10%? -25%? or -80%?
- If you had an annoying competitor and you were to lower prices, and you go to -50%, because you consider it not to be "very low", but sami does, it is a breach of the rules without you intending to, or even knowing. That is because this is not clarified.

THAT is what this topic is about.
Those cases given in my OP are just there to not discuss theoretical problems, but have examples to use for making points.

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As there hasn't been much said lately, I'll just ask: are there any further opinions on this whole thing, or is something unclear? If you have anything to add or to say about the topic of clarifying the rules, please do so. If you want to discuss player to player (P2P) sales, please make a new topic for that, LemonButt has had some ideas about that, and will likely help you with it :)

cheers,
Jona L.

Quote from: [Remover of SkyConnect] Jona L. on July 29, 2014, 04:23:40 AM
you haven't gotten a single bit of what this is about. Please read what we are discussing.

I'll explain it (again) briefly:

We are asking for a clarification of the rules as to what certain things mean, as many things are open for interpretation, and thus it is hard to tell if it is breaking the rules or not.

I think most of us got the point of this post. But what I think your missing is 1) if you had wanted to make your point you should not have attacked anyone, just explain the facts. and 2) Black and White rules almost never exist. There is always some sort of interpretation in rules. If you feel there is a violation, report it, but if it is investigated then that should be it. Maybe at some point there should be a complete revision of the rules and clarification of the grey areas.

Quote from: bdnascar3 on July 29, 2014, 12:37:35 PM
1) if you had wanted to make your point you should not have attacked anyone, just explain the facts.

I don't see where Jona attacked someone. To claim his point he gave you guys three examples from a real GameWorld to show there is a real problem, not just a theoretical one.

Quote from: bdnascar3 on July 29, 2014, 12:37:35 PM
and 2) Black and White rules almost never exist. There is always some sort of interpretation in rules.

I don't know how these things are in other countries, in Germany (and the countries that are based on German like, like Austria or Japan) and the European Union laws are exactly that - black and white. The interpretation is basically about the intention of the law (not in all countries) and words, however, these words are also defined somewhere else, either due to law or due to jurisdiction.

In short: We need clear rules. Every country has them, except maybe some failed states like Somalia.

Quote from: bdnascar3 on July 29, 2014, 12:37:35 PM
If you feel there is a violation, report it, but if it is investigated then that should be it. Maybe at some point there should be a complete revision of the rules and clarification of the grey areas.

Why do you think there was no report to administration? Why do you think one of the key points is administration actually investigates before one of the participants BK and sends status messages?

And why there should be a revision of the rules "at some point" - and not now, when rule violations are common?

Quote from: JumboShrimp on July 25, 2014, 12:22:52 AM
We have "Operational History" for each aircraft.  Adding an extra column - Price - is all that would be needed.  It would be a great anti-cheating tool.

Here is an example of Operational History:
11-Feb-2014  Bought by Jumbo Shrimp World 
30-Dec-2013  Returned from lease 
24-Mar-2008  Leased by VOVAIR 
15-Nov-2007  Delivered to North Africa Expedition 
25-Oct-2007  Aircraft constructed 

Any transaction would have the price at which the transaction took place.  All prices would be normalized to aircraft price - meaning lease transactions would not have monthly lease, but aircraft price from which the lease price was derived.

I agree, simply publishing the prices/transaction costs next to the history would be a good solution. I don't see this whole thing as a big problem, airlines help each other all the time in the real world, so why can't we?

So, the rules are still the same and it seems many people - unfortunately also some that were caught and used as example here - tolerate, promote and use rule breaking.

Is this really the way we want this game go?

Really, stop these unnecessary accusations. (just had to bump the thread again for that..?)

You said that this thread was about talking of new rules, but really don't think so... I am yet to see any single real suggestion on improvements here (that wouldn't have been already discussed), so this thread is locked since it's going nowhere other than unnecessary fighting.