Quick beta available

[Sami]

I would hope its more than JUST price at work in these cases, that seat comfort,

We are talking and comparing just ONE thing here now (price). The other things mentioned are factored in as well with the same style, just excluded from this particular test now (like I posted).

[brique]

perhaps badly phrased, I was responding to what seemed like a slightly blinkered focus on price and price alone and wanted to add that other factors would come into play when the re-worked game goes 'live'

but, nuff said, apologies, I'll shut up and go play quietly in the corner...

[Sami]

Total pax, standard prices: 946;  Total pax while one airline offers 50% off: 953

Adjusted, new total demand when 5 flights std price, 6 flights -50% ==> 1143. (+20%)

If all 11 flights are -50%, the new total demand is 1427. (+50%)

Total pax, standard prices: 946
Total pax while one airline doubles prices: 955

The roundings are messing that up; not feasible to compare single passengers. Anyway; the demand will decrease when the overall supply of products is bad; not if only one airline of many is supplying a bad product (in that case the pax just moves to the other guy). As it would make no sense to count this based on the average - jack up the prices and competition would lose sales too in that case.



To all; With these few adjustments, the pricing effects are finalized for now (for this update). Feel free to post in feature rq if changes are needed. Gotta focus on finalizing the systems before MT#7.

[schro]

Did you squash the RI != 100 bug with this update?  If so, I'd like to go test....

[Sami]

Did you squash the RI != 100 bug with this update?  If so, I'd like to go test....

Working on it. (and the updates above are not uploaded yet either)


Edit: Also the credit refund (2 Cr) has been issued to all players who are currently members of the test world (as per "terms" stated in the first instructions posting). Visible in credit balance only, not on credit history page.


Edit 2: Seems to be working now:

New route; true demand (Y class) is 510 seats. We have 0 route image and two daily flights (no "penalties" of adverse flight dep/arr times, or such), only airline serving the route. With default prices sales are 51 seats per flight (total 102). With -50% prices sales are 99 per flight (198 tot.). With -20% prices sales are 71 per flight (142). When prices are +20% (RI 0 still), sales are 37 per flight (74 total).

[Sami]

Making a new post of this to be sure it's seen.

- The latest revision is now active in test world.

- This includes changes / adjustments to effects in pricing, and also price vs. RI (and low RI generally).

- Demand vs. price effect is also adjusted.

- All other flight variables (seats, flight times etc) are also active.

- Has to be noted that the "cabin comfort" factor is modelled poorly, like in existing game worlds too; since paxes do not really understand yet the difference of sitting in ATR for 4 hours or having a seat in A320 for 2 hours on the same flight, comfortwise (my ears hurt after 30 mins in ATR .. ) - since we do not have a global pax comfort factor here yet. This is being factored in with different variables such as route flight time effect, and certain aircraft type pax comfort factor... etc. So in effect 4 hr ATR is worse than 2 hr Airbus flight, but not as much as it would be in real life. But something to be added for future. Just for info. (= not really a change)


Please test "everything" as much as you can (also some "silly" things please). My goal is to launch MT#7 on Sunday evening, and my time is rather limited for the next few days, as I shall be away during whole saturday and sunday morning/afternoon (have to attend to a wedding .. will be quite drunk, hopefully. ). So if you have any feedback, please post them asap.

Minor adjustments are possible later on too, but at this time all of the main aspects are done. And I am focusing on fixing any problems and inconsistencies that could still arise.

[esquireflyer]

- All other flight variables (seats, flight times etc) are also active.

- Has to be noted that the "cabin comfort" factor modelled poorly, like in existing game worlds too; since paxes do not really understand yet the difference of sitting in ATR for 4 hours or having a seat in A320 for 2 hours on the same flight, comfortwise (my ears hurt after 30 mins in ATR .. ) - since we do not have a global pax comfort factor here yet. This is being factored in with different variables such as route flight time effect... etc. So in effect 4 hr ATR is worse than 2 hr Airbus flight, but not as much as it would be in real life. But something to be added for future. Just for info. (= not really a change)

Just to clarify re "cabin comfort": you mean that seat quality (e.g. benefit of using premium vs standard seats) is now fully modeled, and it's just "plane type" (e.g. propeller noise) that is weakly modeled / not really modeled, right?

[Sami]

Seat quality itself is modelled. But it makes no difference if you have a HD seat in ATR or HD seat in A319.

The ATR vs. A319 (example) difference comes then from a) flight duration and b) fleet group related "aircraft type vs. pax comfort index" (where new jets have a higher rating over props or old jet models). But "b)" is a rather small factor overall, since generally passengers make no difference between a 737 or 757 for example, so it cannot be very dominant factor.

(In the future this is an area to be improved.)

[ArcherII]

For same type of seat pax won't notice then. But what about a full-flat C cabin against a standard C layout? Would it be worthwhile in order to gain market?

[Sami]

For same type of seat pax won't notice then. But what about a full-flat C cabin against a standard C layout? Would it be worthwhile in order to gain market?

Have not tested that in effect, the formula for seat comfort is the same as before.

[Jona L.]

I have no idea what you have done, or what has happened, but all of my load factors have all of a sudden (from last week to this week) dropped by at least 15%-points (going from 90+% eco to 83%, from 90% to 70% in C-class, and from 85 to 69% in F-class).

For trying to get it "fixed", I reset prices to default, and then lowered them by 5% (was at standard before, refreshed last about 3 ingame weeks ago).

cheers,
Jona L.

[esquireflyer]

Have not tested that in effect, the formula for seat comfort is the same as before.

Premium or luxury seats should provide an actual, measurable benefit over standard seats, shouldn't they? The manual/game text state that it does, so that should be modeled in the formula... otherwise, it's just a sucker option that kills noobs by lowering aircraft capacity when better seats are installed.

[schro]

Premium or luxury seats should provide an actual, measurable benefit over standard seats, shouldn't they? The manual/game text state that it does, so that should be modeled in the formula... otherwise, it's just a sucker option that kills noobs by lowering aircraft capacity when better seats are installed.

The problem is that the load factor will increase because there's less seats, and you might sell more seats than you would with standard seating, but your total revenue will be lower because you burned half the plane on a single lie flat seat instead of 300 sardine tins....

[esquireflyer]

The problem is that the load factor will increase because there's less seats, and you might sell more seats than you would with standard seating, but your total revenue will be lower because you burned half the plane on a single lie flat seat instead of 300 sardine tins....

The problem is that what you said above is a problem.

For comparison, changing Y seats into F or C seats also lowers capacity (and potentially raises load factor for that reason) but does not lower total revenue (provided that there is F/C demand to fill your seats) even if you "burn half the plane on a single lie flat seat instead of 300 sardine tins."

If pax are willing to pay more for F and C seats, they should also be willing to pay more (to a lesser extent) for better seats within Y (or within F or C).

Similarly, when a route is oversupplied, improving seat quality should cause more passengers to want to fly with that airline (an entirely realistic outcome), rather than causing less passengers fly with that airline because the system only looks at total number of seats supplied and the airline is now doing less market-flooding than before (the current outcome, and totally unrealistic). In reality, passengers do not care how many empty seats an airline is flying around, but they do care about the quality of the seat that they are sitting in. So, for an airline upgrading its seats to cause it to lose passengers (in absolute numbers, not LF%) in an oversupply/competition situation makes no sense at all.

What the game does not need is another sucker option (such as "aircraft insurance") which all experienced players ignore and which serves only to put newbies at a disadvantage to experienced players (because newbies rely on misleading text in-game and in the manual, and may purchase the sucker option as a result).

If premium and luxury seats are not going to make a difference, then they should be eliminated altogether (leaving only HD and standard). If premium and luxury are put in the game as options, they should actually provide a competitive advantage under some circumstances (when appropriately used), rather than being simply a newbie deathtrap.

[schro]

If premium and luxury seats are not going to make a difference, then they should be eliminated altogether (leaving only HD and standard). If premium and luxury are put in the game as options, they should actually provide a competitive advantage under some circumstances (when appropriately used), rather than being simply a newbie deathtrap.

They _do_ provide a competitive advantage. The problem is that they don't provide a profitable advantage.

If you want to pull the real world card, take a look at American's venture into offering economy+ in the whole cabin....

[Mr. Pete]

Sami, could you check one thing in my Airline: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Info/Airline/151/#AirlineInfo ?

I have ended 2 marketing campaigns: one worth 900k/week and one 800k/week. I opened instead 2, one campaign worth 3,5mln/week. And suddenly my CI droped, from CI 70 to CI 62. Also my LF droped around 5-6% (not sure if it is related with CI drop).

Last game scenario I played, there were not much difference what kind of campaign I used, all matter was total money spend on it. Did you adjust that lately?

[markj23]

I have no idea what you have done, or what has happened, but all of my load factors have all of a sudden (from last week to this week) dropped by at least 15%-points (going from 90+% eco to 83%, from 90% to 70% in C-class, and from 85 to 69% in F-class).

Ive seen similar sort of results - the consistency of the LFs (which i thought was realistic) seems to have gone

[Sami]

Premium or luxury seats should provide an actual, measurable benefit over standard seats, shouldn't they? The manual/game text state that it does, so that should be modeled in the formula...

Pls read again what I wrote. It is modelled, and I have not tested it particulaly for this update since it has not changed from the prev version.


The variations in loadfactors is probably also caused by the fact that random daily effects are on there at the moment (by mistake though...).

[Sami]

Sami, could you check one thing in my Airline

You CI is in steady decline. Which hints that delays have grown or marketing is not efficient as before.

And if latter has changed only recently, then I'd look there. (it has not changed for this update)

[Sami]

Small comparison on seat comfort:

1000 nm route, demand around 520, equipment A300-600 (scheduled time 3 hours), other flight (of the same airline) uses HD seats and other standard seat (seats are Y351 vs Y279), standard prices, no competition. Ticket price $170.

Route image 0: HD sells 45 seats ($7650), while STD sells 54 ($9180).
Route image 100: HD 233 ($39610), STD 274 ($46580).

So in this case it pays off to fit less seats to the plane since flight is longer than the "suggested" 2 hours with HD seats.