Close Freighter Conversion Loophole

[TheEdge]

Something that is currently do-able and really feels like it shouldn't be, or at least is cheesy at best is the wholesale conversion of freighters the second the design is certified. I noticed one airline sitting on hundreds of factory fresh passenger A330-200 for years and then the moment the A330-200F was certified they converted them all and basically had an entire A330-200F fleet numbering in the hundreds in the time players who've ordered them maybe have two or three. Obviously its not against the rules but IMO its a massive loophole and should be closed. Not only does it feel unfair to those who are in competition with someone doing this but its also eating up slots for aircraft that wont be used for years, an issue big enough of a problem with the current fleet penalty. If this was real this implies that somewhere there is a business that could at once instantly convert hundred of airliners consecutively in a few months, which is just silly.

I feel like it could be fixed quite easily in a way that would only stop the cheese and not anyone else, either airframes being converted must have a token amount of flight hours, 500/1000, even just 1 would work as it means an airline can't sit on these aircraft for basically no cost as they'd have to be using them, somehow, even if it was 1 hour they'd have to sit there manually scheduling hundreds of aircraft, letting the game update and repeating.

And or have a maximum amount of airframes in conversion at a time, we have to wait for new ones because Airbus and Boeing can only build so many so it stands to reason the same should apply to conversions. During my AG run I've been converting aircraft from the UM at a decent rate and I don't think at any one time I've had more than 10/15 aircraft at a time. A limit of 10-20 at a time I doubt would impact anyone converting either UM purchases or aircraft they'd been replacing naturally.

Just out loud thoughts.

[Jake]

Speaking as someone who does this with both 747's and 777's, the storage fees and just the fact that you lose YEARS of the aircraft's lifespan in honestly not that cheap.
Usually by the time the conversions come around you are nearing the first D-checks in many cases so these are planes you will have to retire 7 years earlier regardless.
Personally feel like it makes up for the difference of getting new jets with longer lifespan vs "old" jets with shorter.


On the realism side i do fully agree with you though, imagine just sending out several hundred planes for conversion and getting them all done at the same time... 

[Sami]

Maybe a simple math that you can have only X planes on conversion at the same time.

X depends on your maintenance staff numbers.

What is a reasonable X then... ?

[lumberguy5]

A real life example is United's conversion of their narrowbodies to the new interior. Out of 700 planes, they are only doing like 20 at a time and the entire process is going to take 2-3 years. The last big US carrier 330/350/777/787 interior changes took years to complete, in many cases past 2 C-Checks per plane. They are probably scheduled to match with heavy maintenance, but if even the biggest real world airlines can only really do 10-30 interior mods a month and cant do it all during the next C/D check, ~20 conversions might be an upper bound.

[TheEdge]

Maybe a simple math that you can have only X planes on conversion at the same time.

X depends on your maintenance staff numbers.

What is a reasonable X then... ?

I'd agree with @lumberguy5 and say something around 20. I think at that level you'd struggle to hit it in normal play.

[TheEdge]

Speaking as someone who does this with both 747's and 777's, the storage fees and just the fact that you lose YEARS of the aircraft's lifespan in honestly not that cheap.
Usually by the time the conversions come around you are nearing the first D-checks in many cases so these are planes you will have to retire 7 years earlier regardless.
Personally feel like it makes up for the difference of getting new jets with longer lifespan vs "old" jets with shorter.

I mean that sounds like the price you pay for trying to cheese a mechanic like this...

It doesn't make it fair on everyone else that you can pop up one day with hundreds of new spec freighters in the time those of us who've ordered them have 3. Especially the only cost is the depreciation of billions of dollars of unused jet that your airline can afford to have sat around.

[Todorojoz]

I would argue that if the demand in real life for cargo planes was as it is in AWS, the cargo options would be coming out much sooner right along with the Pax planes. And airlines would order them up as cargo planes as well. And a lot of the reason for this stems from the 4th fleet penalty. Airlines have to rush a freighter transition because freighters come 10+ years after the Pax models have been flying.

I'm totally on board with a limit based on maintenance staff size for how many planes can be converted at a time. Maybe that should also include planes being pulled from storage. Or planes being reconfigured, but maybe reconfigurations can be done at a higher rate.

I also think it would help if you could still place 100 AC in for convertions at once, but it would cycle through them x number at a time and the rest would just wait in line and start as other finish up.

[schro]

It's also not fun to be the player that convets 200 frames on the first day as then you have 200 C/D checks synchronized which will cause cargo routes not to be flown resulting in RI drops that take another month of flying to fix so you're actually selling cargo space again...

That being said, it's also a good way to balance the 3 fleet limit (that's mostly applicable over 500-600 planes). Not everything in a simulation should mirror real life, as it quickly can become not fun. I think the pros and cons of the current setup is a reasonable game balance for the players...

[gazzz0x2z]

I fail to see what is the problem. It's a long and costly way of getting proper planes. Something that IA brokers should do, but don't. Some players therefore play the brokers, for themselves of for others. More than once, I've stockpiled 321s in the early 2010s for me or for others. More than half being converted into freighters.

This strategy answers to a need, the need of having a reserve of planes for later use. In may places, the need fo 321F skyrockets in the late 2010s/220s, so it's just preparing the future.

[TheEdge]

It's also not fun to be the player that convets 200 frames on the first day as then you have 200 C/D checks synchronized which will cause cargo routes not to be flown resulting in RI drops that take another month of flying to fix so you're actually selling cargo space again...

Again, that sounds like a suitable price for you to have to pay for cheesing the mechanic... 

I fail to see what is the problem. It's a long and costly way of getting proper planes. Something that IA brokers should do, but don't. Some players therefore play the brokers, for themselves of for others. More than once, I've stockpiled 321s in the early 2010s for me or for others. More than half being converted into freighters.

The issue is when it matters (in this case when the cargo A330 certifies), not the decade before hand when massive airlines can afford to stockpile A330s, these players get the instant benefit where players who've ordered as normal get slow deliveries. I'm still having to deal with the increased fuel burn of the DC-10 family with my 89 delivered A330Fs, meanwhile the other guy has almost 600 because he could afford to sit on and instant convert the A330s.

[groundbum2]

sounds like good old socialism; because the other guy has played well and is filthy rich he has to be brought down to my mediocre level

  

[gazzz0x2z]

That's bad old socialism in my book. But let's not debate politics, it won't lead anywhere. The bottom line is that I agree with you on this topic.

Someone has to play the broker, preventing planes stockpiling seems not a good idea to me. Brokering makes the game more fluid.

[Jagrov]

10% of fleet size max in conversion at any one time.

[gazzz0x2z]

10% of fleet size max in conversion at any one time.

Why? Why prevent me (well, that was 8 game years ago) to upgrade my DC8-63 fleet to DC8-72 fleet at once?

[Jagrov]

Why? Why prevent me (well, that was 8 game years ago) to upgrade my DC8-63 fleet to DC8-72 fleet at once?

Do you want a realistic game? We could add upgrade and conversion slots. Like the real world.

[NZelenkova]

I'm an on again, off again old timer. I want realism above game mechanics. I haven't yet played a scenario where I'm needing mass amounts of freighters nor have I gotten to a point where I owned a bunch of planes best suited for conversion. That said, I support the most realistic approach. No airline is ever going to buy dozens of planes they don't intend to fly until a cargo version arrives a decade later.

[c.q.q]

In real life, companies responsible for conversion have capacity limit and aircraft users have to wait for delivery just like users have to wait for delivery of new plane. I guess it might make a bit of sense for aircraft conversion to have a similar queue system as the new aircraft purchase slot system?