Hi,
Not trying to unleash a discussion of Airbus vs. Boeing however: I feel like the way the game is programmed favors Airbus. Why?
When making fleet plans I come down to Airbus quite a bit more often because:
- From the 80's onwards I can have one Large aircraft type to stay with me to the end (A320), whereas with Boeing I'd have to wait until the 90's.
- For widebody jets Airbus offers one family which has a small, medium, large aircraft, some that are more suited for medium haul and some that are good for ultra long haul AND with a replacement option for the game end (NEO's). With Boeing you either have the smaller 767, 787 or the larger 777. This is a huge disadvantage given the fourth fleet penalty...
I definitely get why these things are in place, but come on! Give Boeing a better chance ;)
One could argue about the 737 Classic vs 737NGs, but well, it's also true that they have different speed. Should we give the 737 Classic's speed to the NGs and MAXs? But well, ok, let's merge them (purely rhetoric).
Still, that wouldn't solve the WB "issue" you're talking about. And for that part you can't accuse the game, it's just different fleet types and it happens (IRL, not in the game) that the A330/340 family is just more versatile and that on the other hand Boeing offers 3 different fleet types with different capacity. What would you want the game to fix about that?
Arguably, one could also say that Airbus offers the A350 as well.
So yes, on the NB side, there is some bias in favor of Airbus, but I wouldn't really know how to solve it but by nerfing the NGs/MAXs.
And anyway, even with the Boeing NBs, that's still 40 years of gameplay without a renewal. Not bad. Vs 45 years for Airbus. Not really a big deal.
and 737 classics also are good enough and (usually) cheap enough to be pushed up to the end game. I never did, but one game I replaced them as late as 2020, and it was not that a big change to switch to MAX. Worth doing, but not mandatory. A fleet group you can keep from 1980 do 2035. Not bad, hey?
Both brands have their advantages, I tend to appreciate Airbuses on bigger bases for their increased capacity, and boeing on smaller bases, for their longer range. Similar, but not equivalent. In some games, finding airbuses can be really a headache, too.
I am personally most bothered by the widebody issue.
The 777/787 are designed to complement each other, having a common typerating and being marketed by Boeing as a pair.
Thus the fourth fleet penalty should not be (as heavy) for this combination... A like type function would be the best solution.
In the meanwhile I think this game favours the Airbus too much and makes it an incredibly easy type to select.
A placeholder solution could be to split the A330/A340... But that is far from ideal.
p.s. I didn't post this in feature request/bug report for a reason. This request is already posted. This is more to see what others think of this...
Quote from: gazzz0x2z on May 11, 2018, 09:36:13 AM
and 737 classics also are good enough and (usually) cheap enough to be pushed up to the end game.
I can confirm this. I've skipped the NGs and instead bought new -300s to replace my old ones, and flown the type into the 2030s. I've also done this with the MD90/717. Are the NG/MAX better? Absolutely. But they cost a lot more and the Classics and MadDogs remain competitive for a long time.
Hey NC, just food for thought: the EASA grants the 777/787 a common type-rating, while the FAA doesn't. I completely understand your point, but it's not as clear cut in real life either.
I'm also sometimes puzzled by the way certain airframes are grouped in AWS and others aren't, but I understand that the line has to be drawn somewhere.
But back to your point: the whole idea of the A320 and A330/340 families was to allow for great commonality in real life, so that should be modeled in the game. Boeing may sell the 777/787 as one family, but it's not even anywhere close the it, their system and structural architectures are quite different. So to sum it up: I think those models are all grouped correctly. If anything the game-play and game-mechanics (such as order backlog and adjustment of prices) should allow for the types to get more similar operational results.
Cheers,
Cedric
Yet, commonality represents far more than the training of the pilots who fly the planes. There's likely very little crossover between parts between the 777 and 787 (designed more than 20 years apart from each other) yet the 330 and 340 were designed together and share a very significant number of parts between them. Then you look into the training for support personnel other than pilots - aircraft systems are vastly different between the 777 and 787, but virtually identical in the 330/340.
Of course, given the above argument, you could say that the 757 and 767 could be considered the same fleet type, but that feature request has been open for years.
Fleet commonality in this game represents all of the differential costs, not just the pilot differences.
Quote from: schro on May 11, 2018, 04:41:20 PM
Yet, commonality represents far more than the training of the pilots who fly the planes. There's likely very little crossover between parts between the 777 and 787 (designed more than 20 years apart from each other) yet the 330 and 340 were designed together and share a very significant number of parts between them. Then you look into the training for support personnel other than pilots - aircraft systems are vastly different between the 777 and 787, but virtually identical in the 330/340.
Of course, given the above argument, you could say that the 757 and 767 could be considered the same fleet type, but that feature request has been open for years.
Fleet commonality in this game represents all of the differential costs, not just the pilot differences.
Fair enough and hence the like type....
(and if I wanted to be pedant, I'd say that it's not a question of programming, but a question or parameters..... But that would be horribly pedantic)