Before ETAD, this wasn't an issue, because limits would be the same in both directions. But now flights are different lengths in each direction, it'd be really helpful to be able to split the cargo different ways. Same for pax limits, but that's less of an impact. Or just a more efficient way to specify actual numbers for CL/CS/CH for a specific plane type & config would also save a lot of guesswork.
Would also be good if limiting seats didn't always take away Y seats, if we could specify our 90/15/3 default would go to 85/0/0 or 80/5/0 or 67/15/3 or some point in between if we've set limit to 85. Or even further, if the plane's actual config is 90/15/3, but it's on a route with mostly Y demand, if we could say 'limit F seats to 0, limit C seats to 5', and supply 103/5/0, with some lucky pax paying for a Y seat but getting a bit more comfort than they expected.
It's especially noticeable on routes that are volume limited in one direction, but range limited in the other. e.g. in AoF, my route 3611. DC8-54CF flying RJOO-KPHL. The assigned split is 25/45/30. On the outbound leg, I'm volume limited, so my actual split is 1910/8610/11480, 25/45/30 turns into 9/39/52. On the return leg, I have a headwind and am range limited, actual split is 3890/6990/4660, that split is actually 25/45/30. I have multiple similar routes.
The practical outcome is that if I configure my load split for the return leg, to get all the CH, it means the outbound leg gives me far too much CH, I miss out on a lot of CL/CS. If I configure for the outbound leg, then I miss a lot of CH on the return leg.
And as I said, similar deal for pax, though less impactful. e.g. RJOO-VOMM. Right now, it has ~110 pax demand, 2700kg cargo outbound, 500kg return. On a Bristol 305, it's limited to 109 pax outbound, unlimited return. Ideally, I'd fly the outbound with 80/2/0 and the full 2700kg of cargo capacity, and return with 110 seats. But I can either not set a pax limit, in which case I miss out on all the more profitable cargo outbound (and have 10 C/F seats empty while Y demand goes unserved), or I can manually set a limit of 82, get the outbound cargo, but now have ~30 seats on the return leg sit empty even though there is demand and capacity to fly them.
We can already manage prices individually for each leg, it would be a good start if we could do pax limits/cargo splits independently for each leg. Would also solve the issue of getting an oversupply warning on one leg while undersupplying the other, something that happens occasionally now and will potentially occur more often once CBD happens for pax.
It would seem if ABCBA routes ever come back, it would seem this functionality would be a requirement. I'm desperately trying to expand an airport that is stuck at infra1 in HaF and have come to some additional conclusions regarding cargo and making the game more playable that dovetails off these thoughts.
Right now there are a lot of cargo aircraft that are largely useless as they can't be run economically/profitably. Part of this is an inherent weakness in the CBD system and how things are allocated and part of it is due to the arbitrary restrictions on aircraft. We all know short haul cargo is largely unprofitable, which in turn makes aircraft like the Cessna Super Cargomaster and other aircraft with decent payload, but very low range basically impossible to use. Small freighters can only carry light cargo whereas Large pax aircraft can have light+standard as belly cargo. I think these limitations need to be changed in both directions. The belly cargo door of a 737-800 is 48 inches wide by 35 inches tall and the cargo door of a Cargomaster is 50 inches wide by 49 inches tall--that means, in theory, there is cargo that a Cargomaster can carry that a 737-800 cannot. When you take one step up and consider the cargo door on the CRJ200F, the door is 94 inches wide by 70 inches tall--the door is approximately 4x the size of the 737-800, but they have the same cargo class limitations (light+standard). Obviously there is more to cargo than the size of the door, but the Cargomaster has a max payload of 1672kg but can only carry 1250kg due to the light cargo restriction--you are paying for a full aircraft but can only use 75% of it due to the cargo class limits in place.
The cargo setup also creates CBD issues. I am currently trying to expand Gary - Chicago, competing against O'Hare and Midway for cargo. Since Gary is stuck with small/medium aircraft, I can't carry heavy cargo at all. Thus, I'm running medium freighters that only have light/standard cargo and I have found it nearly impossible to shift demand due to the belly cargo capabilities. For the catchment area of Gary to Atlanta, the cargo potential for standard cargo is 67800kg. This catchment area is 100% overlapped by ORD and MDW and those two airports have a total of 57 daily flights from ORD and 22 daily flights from MDW for a total of 79 daily flights. Not all, but most of these flights are large aircraft that can carry standard cargo. The result is that 67800kg in cargo based purely on frequency gets chopped up and split across 50+ flights. The net effect is out of that Gary is currently getting 2880kg in standard cargo and my single medium freighter that can carry 7000kg (the only medium freighter available in the game) is oversupplying the route with a single flight with no prospects for every flying full even with a medium freighter. Going back to Gary and only being able to carry light+standard with my medium aircraft (at a loss), if I were able to carry heavy cargo to the thin routes I have then it would be a gamechanger. For example, I am flying from Gary to Hot Springs (GYY-HOT) and Hot Springs has zero overlapping catchment areas and there is zero pax demand out of ORD or MDW. As a result, I have a monopoly on the Chicago to Hot Springs route right now and this is the only route I've identified where cargo has been effective. There is currently 8000kg of heavy cargo I can't do anything about though and even if Gary expands, I still can't get because Hot Springs is stuck at infra1 also. So as a result, this cargo is stuck in purgatory as demand that is impossible to fulfill, but doesn't change the fact it still exists.
Cargo is complex and the light/standard/heavy cargo is an arbitrary simplification, but in terms of game balance and better reflecting aircraft capabilities, I think the cargo sizes need to all shift be shifted by one spot. Right now large pax aircraft can carry light+standard cargo--I think all pax aircraft should only be capable of carrying light cargo only with the exception of very large aircraft being able to carry light+standard. For freighters, they can all carry light+standard and any aircraft medium or larger can carry heavy cargo. This means the Cargomaster can actually use it's full capacity while flying more lucrative standard cargo and actually be viable and that CRJ200F also becomes viable for short haul heavy cargo. This also prevents the high frequency short haul routes from permanently shifting standard cargo to the big airports (i.e. you can fly that Cargomaster without buying slots that cost more than the aircraft).
Also as a legit "bug report", the manual shows cargo classes as "light/medium/heavy" in several places instead of "light/standard/heavy" :)
Been thinking some more as I've been going through routes. Whenever it is range limited, the split is intuitively correct.
I'm not 100% sure how the algorithm that assigns things works, I think it starts by assigning say 25% of the volume to CL, capped at 25% of weight limit. Doesn't matter whether 25% of volume filled with CL weighs 5% of the weight limit or 25% of the weight limit, that's the volume you get.
I think that if the algorithm looked just at the available weight rather than volume, and started at the other end, CH rather than CL, it'd produce more intuitive numbers. i.e. it allocates x% of that weight to CH, where x is the CH% set on the route planning, then takes y% of that weight for CS, and then simply allocated the remaining volume/weight (whichever is lower) to CL, we wouldn't get splits where CS/CH is suddenly far higher than expected. We'd still get less CL than expected in some cases, but it'd be a far less dramatic shift than now, and it'd be far easier to not accidentally oversupply. Plus it'd work the same way for both weight limited and volume limited routes.
QuoteWe can already manage prices individually for each leg, it would be a good start if we could do pax limits/cargo splits independently for each leg
+1 from me! Please make this happen, yesterday!