4th fleet penalty and leased out aircraft

[bergquist77]

So I've been searching for some information about this penalty I've been hearing about when introducing a 4th fleet type into your total fleet. Can't really find any specifics on it other than operations becoming significantely more expensive. Are there any numbers on this or does it depend on the fleet type?

Also, I was wondering if this penalty comes into play if I have 4 fleet types but one of the fleets are leased out in its entirety? I.e. I'm only flying three fleet types myself.

[schro]

Fleet types only "count" towards the "penalty" if they are currently scheduled to fly. So you could have 53 types parked on the ground and 3 scheduled (for a total of 56 types) and only be hit with the commonality costs for 3 types.

[bergquist77]

Thanks for the quick and informative reply

[Sanabas]

And the numbers on it depend on how many planes you have. If you have 40 planes and add a 4th fleet, the commonality costs of all your planes will increase by maybe 50%. If you have 400 planes and add a 4th fleet, the commonality costs of all your planes will triple at least.

[jamier]

What's said above is correct and one of the major downfalls and limiting/unrealistic factors of this game unfortuantely!

[Adam42185]

And the numbers on it depend on how many planes you have. If you have 40 planes and add a 4th fleet, the commonality costs of all your planes will increase by maybe 50%. If you have 400 planes and add a 4th fleet, the commonality costs of all your planes will triple at least.

Thats interesting.  I would have thought that, with economies of scale, with a larger overall fleet, adding an additional subfleet would be less cost prohibitive than more.

[gazzz0x2z]

Thats interesting.  I would have thought that, with economies of scale, with a larger overall fleet, adding an additional subfleet would be less cost prohibitive than more.

That's probably a gameplay decision. If it was that easy to have 4-5 fleet types at 1000 aircraft, the big boys could easily crush the middl boys as me(250 aircraft, 50 to 120 seats each). Like that, the have to focus on the big seaters, & can't prevent me from existing.

There is a consequence to that : you have to choose a strategic domain, and stick to it. If you go small, you shall stay small. If you go big, you shall stay big.

[Kadachiman]

There are many threads throughout the Forums where smaller airlines complain about the bigger airlines

Keep in mind that ever single player has the opportunity to become one of the bigger airlines IF they play the game right
The current bigger airlines did not start the game with any extra game given advantage over any other player e.g. same $, same chance to chose airport, etc, etc

If your game plan is to play as a small Regional operation, then that is your choice as it is your game
If another player wants to play as one of the top 20 airlines in the world then that is their choice as it is their game
But complaining about how another players wants to play their game is pointless

As an example -
In GW#4 - I had the biggest airline in the world in pax numbers carried, but made bad decisions and went bankrupt, I restarted 3 times and finally then settled on the strategy that has me now placed in the bigger airline space....but some 25+ game years after the original game start date

Footnote -
A player starting now can still become one of the top 30 airlines in the world, so even a late start can still see you become a bigger airline by games end
My bet is that if either Curse, Schro, Sanabas and many others started a new airline today they would still finish the game as one of the 'big boys' IF that was their game plan

[JonesyUK]

The penalty is a bit of a bug bare of mine. Atm I'm planning on replacing my L1011's with A330's. im having to build up a reserve of nearly 200 A330s, which go straight into storage so that I ccan swap them all in one hit. Ridiculously its more cost effective to do it this way than gradually. I'm in the same situation with my 1-11s. I want to phase then out, but can't be doing with the hasel of changing 400 in one hit, each with 4-5 routes on them, so I'll keep flying them until 2020.

It also takes away the fun of the game. I enjoy using different types, especially in the jet age, such as the vc10, trident, etc, but have to stick to the fleet groups that allow a larger variation of ranges and sizes.