19 replies to this topic

[ChrisGroll]

Hi,

first of all I want to say that I really like AE! The website has a nice appearance and some details are really good. But I have started my third airline now and I really find it very easy to grow. I just set up a few routes after some minutes of research, lease some aircrafts and there it goes. After some (real) days I log in again and my profit is up in the sky. It's somehow unrealistic to make profit so easy. There should be more difficulties like not getting a plane to fast and easily, it should take some time until a route is known to passengers and will make profit. Delays or even broken engines or accidents or strikes should make it harder be successful getting customers. I think there are lots of ideas which could make the sim more difficult and more realistic and therefore more exciting in long therm.

Just a few thoughts....

CG

[SirMoo]

The goal is to make it harder, it's just a matter of finding out how to do it in a proper way. This proper way is through realistic taxes and charges as well as increase in airport fees.

[mariowebbocious]

I think the idea of making the pax dynamic is a good idea.
Seems like in AE, if a route has 100 pax in demands, this number will always stay like that...
Sometimes the pax 98, or sometimes 102. But still, it's still around that number which makes our profit stable..

i'm thinking about AE doesn't guarantee this 100 pax everyday. in example: Day 1 maybe 90 pax, Day 2 56 pax, Day 3 130 pax, and this number change every day in a month, or even in a year, so in several days we can make profit, but in some days we may face loses...

and i agree so much with you for making AE lil bit more harder. I love this game so much. But sometimes it gets boring to play when my airlines has grow and powerful and cannot be taken away from its rank.

[ChrisGroll]

Does anyone know who is programming AE? Is it an open project? Is there some team-work?

[Conor]

Developers are: Yuxi | Un1 | Simmaster

[KanKinKun]

I think the idea of making the pax dynamic is a good idea.
Seems like in AE, if a route has 100 pax in demands, this number will always stay like that...
Sometimes the pax 98, or sometimes 102. But still, it's still around that number which makes our profit stable..

i'm thinking about AE doesn't guarantee this 100 pax everyday. in example: Day 1 maybe 90 pax, Day 2 56 pax, Day 3 130 pax, and this number change every day in a month, or even in a year, so in several days we can make profit, but in some days we may face loses...

and i agree so much with you for making AE lil bit more harder. I love this game so much. But sometimes it gets boring to play when my airlines has grow and powerful and cannot be taken away from its rank.

Yeah, I think so. When my airlines was growing too much, I feel much bored.

[Mr Tree]

But I don't want it too hard. I left Cyber-Airlines because it was virtually impossible for my small airline to grow for weeks.

[Moldova96]

The game did have fluctuating demand that is being worked on.

[X-Wing @Aliciousness]

The real problem is that it's too easy to grow at the beggining, so within a few weeks you have several enormous airlines. Once that happens its virtually impossible to compete against them and therefore impossible to start a new airline. what we really need is a way to limit growth. there's a reason no airline in real life is worth over about 20 billion dollars (united is the largest and they are worth 18 billion, and it took them several decades to get their. same with all the other legacy carriers). its just been 2 years in AE6 and several airlines are now about to surpass this. Something about the real airline business prohibits growth beyond the 20 Billion mark, but AE doesnt seem to, so you get HUGE airlines that are impossible to compete with. If you want to start an airline in AE6, you'd better hurry, I predict it will be impossible within 2 weeks. the realistic betas are already impossible, i've tried about 6 times. I failed all of them, and am failing on my 7th. Yet I am the 45th biggest airline in AE6 (AgreJet America) currently worth 1.5 billion and making 11 million a day.

Again, something about the real world prohibits growth beyond a certain point, and AE just isn't simulating that.

[BritAbroad]

Again, something about the real world prohibits growth beyond a certain point, and AE just isn't simulating that.

Amongst other things - anti-trust legislation, unionised workforce, political and economic interference, human failings, publicity and even military action are all things that hinder airline growth in the real world. They are / may be modelled in AE at some stage and to varying degrees, but it may make things over-complicated.

[Moldova96]

As a person who has 60% share at HKG I will agree that a dop of $44 million is what some carrier make in 1 year let alone a day, waht we need is increased ways to limit thge profitablity of the airlines when they get big.

[CaptainStooby]

One problem the way I see is that costs are always around the same level but revenues are always increasing as the airline gets bigger. You can level out the playing field by making it very costly to open up many hubs. Say, three or four hubs is relatively normal, but once you open up your fifth, sixth, seventh (twentieth?), your organization the costs of opening up a hub could be 3x, 4x-gate cost due to the extra overhead. The same argument could go for aircraft maintenance as well.

I've also suggested that building terminals should take time instead of being completed immediately, which could slow down to rush to add tons of flights.

[Pineair]

One problem the way I see is that costs are always around the same level but revenues are always increasing as the airline gets bigger. You can level out the playing field by making it very costly to open up many hubs. Say, three or four hubs is relatively normal, but once you open up your fifth, sixth, seventh (twentieth?), your organization the costs of opening up a hub could be 3x, 4x-gate cost due to the extra overhead. The same argument could go for aircraft maintenance as well.

I've also suggested that building terminals should take time instead of being completed immediately, which could slow down to rush to add tons of flights.

Agree on the building of terminals could perhaps be a planning application made with approval to build six month later, would be relatively straight forward piece of programming. Costs are not always around the same level as your airline grows, and becomes more profitable, you get hit with what they calls as income tax my monthly income tax bill is approaching $200,000,000 hat is $2.4billion a year.

[flyguy1]

More tax! The bigger the airline the more tax, maintenance ect,

[Gardemus]

In my opinion one of the major problems is the huge demand for different airports serving the same city. For exemple London has 5 main airports serving it, but apparently each one has a huge demand of its own! I think that the demand for London should be split between the airports serving it. The same for other cities, Moscow, NY, Miami (MIA and FLL) and many others. Another is demand being way too high in international flights and to low on flights within the same country. On the other hand I think connecting passengers should pay at least 90% of the ticket instead of the current 50% (I believe). I also think connecting traffic for each hub should be calculated the following way: (total O&D px carried*X)/ (nº of hubs) where X is whatever % you want to give it. That way an airline having 30 hubs won't be able to survive because the O&D will be alot less (I'm talking about 40-50% of what it is now) and connecting traffic will be minimal because it's spread over all the hubs (bigger hubs should still have somehow more connecting passengers than smaller ones)

[BritAbroad]

In my opinion one of the major problems is the huge demand for different airports serving the same city. For exemple London has 5 main airports serving it, but apparently each one has a huge demand of its own! I think that the demand for London should be split between the airports serving it. The same for other cities, Moscow, NY, Miami (MIA and FLL) and many others.

I appreciate what you are saying, but AE data is calculated based upon latest real world passenger numbers for individual airports. So the huge demand from each airport is probably a reasonable figure. If we were to have a single "London" pool (which I am in favour of - make airlines on LHR-JFK compete with LGW-JFK), we'd probably add all passenger figures for all London airports together and there would be even more potential demand.

[Gardemus]

I appreciate what you are saying, but AE data is calculated based upon latest real world passenger numbers for individual airports. So the huge demand from each airport is probably a reasonable figure. If we were to have a single "London" pool (which I am in favour of - make airlines on LHR-JFK compete with LGW-JFK), we'd probably add all passenger figures for all London airports together and there would be even more potential demand.

That is if demand stays as it is at the moment. But if you reduce international demand then the figures for London (for example) might be about right don't you agree?

[BritAbroad]

The game works by staff like myself inputting a single value for passenger numbers from each airport. A code works out demand on individual routes. The code would need tinkering with to give the effect you want. Its not impossible, but may take a lot of work. Watch this space though!

[Yuxi]

Again, something about the real world prohibits growth beyond a certain point, and AE just isn't simulating that.

A large part of the problem is that we start with an empty world, so for the first few years most routes are a vacuum. If we start with the markets already saturated and at equilibrium (much more realistic compared to the real world), it will always be a challenge to grow (or even survive). How much fun would that be?

[sviridovt]

A large part of the problem is that we start with an empty world, so for the first few years most routes are a vacuum. If we start with the markets already saturated and at equilibrium (much more realistic compared to the real world), it will always be a challenge to grow (or even survive). How much fun would that be?

No, bad yuxi, bad!