398 replies to this topic

[the DOC]

Well time tabling is coming with AE4 (God the amount of times I've said that )

[KillztreakBulls]

What I wanted to say is:

 

1)

In AE, new players start off in a world and they almost always go into the negatives. What I think is that we should have a new airline's luck sort of system. Basically what it is, is for example a board. What the board does is help you out, for example giving you discounts, helping you in getting that formula for ticket prices on that route that your making negatives in. It's just basically a computer generated system. We could also have the "board" give cash prizes depending on how much money the player has. For example we can have it say "A local investor has decided to invest into you, here's $10 million." Or something like that. This should cap off whenever the airline either reaches 50 airplanes in his/her fleet, or whenever the airlines' value reaches a certain number.

 

2) 

No route flooding. All the big airlines in most worlds just flood the routes and if there is a demand for 2,000, there are over 6,000 seats on the market. It basically makes it impossible to do fly profitable routes. So basically we can code it in a way so there is a "cap" of seats you can put on the market for a route like SFO-JFK. And for example if it is a big airline, the cap should be lower? That way beginners get to make some more money.

 

3)

We should have a stock market. If we can create a stock market for AE, we could have large airlines investing into smaller and beginner airlines so that they don't go into negatives. 

[the DOC]

What I wanted to say is:

 

1)

In AE, new players start off in a world and they almost always go into the negatives. What I think is that we should have a new airline's luck sort of system. Basically what it is, is for example a board. What the board does is help you out, for example giving you discounts, helping you in getting that formula for ticket prices on that route that your making negatives in. It's just basically a computer generated system. We could also have the "board" give cash prizes depending on how much money the player has. For example we can have it say "A local investor has decided to invest into you, here's $10 million." Or something like that. This should cap off whenever the airline either reaches 50 airplanes in his/her fleet, or whenever the airlines' value reaches a certain number.

 

2) 

No route flooding. All the big airlines in most worlds just flood the routes and if there is a demand for 2,000, there are over 6,000 seats on the market. It basically makes it impossible to do fly profitable routes. So basically we can code it in a way so there is a "cap" of seats you can put on the market for a route like SFO-JFK. And for example if it is a big airline, the cap should be lower? That way beginners get to make some more money.

 

3)

We should have a stock market. If we can create a stock market for AE, we could have large airlines investing into smaller and beginner airlines so that they don't go into negatives. 

1) We have a sandbox world for new players where it's impossible to fail.

 

2) Route flooding is part of life. It happens in real life too.

 

3) Coming in AE4 or AE 5 so if you stay around another year or so you should have it

[zipp]

Also, by Year, doc means an AE year, so anywhere between 1 year and 1 century

[the DOC]

Also, by Year, doc means an AE year, so anywhere between 1 year and 1 century

Perhaps that is a "development year"

[iquit]

1) Agreed, though I think the biggest benefit to the game will be limiting deliveries from the second hand market as I noted above.

I believe expansions are limited by capital in real life rather than aircraft delivery, however.

 

We should have a stock market. If we can create a stock market for AE, we could have large airlines investing into smaller and beginner airlines so that they don't go into negatives. 

I would rather stick to an airline game (i.e. ticket sales being sole source of income) though, I can always play another game if I wanted to play a stock market game.

[the DOC]

I believe expansions are limited by capital in real life rather than aircraft delivery, however.

 

I would rather stick to an airline game (i.e. ticket sales being sole source of income) though, I can always play another game if I wanted to play a stock market game.

1) I agree but capital is never a shortage on AE  

2) Investopedia is a good investment game... Seriously, I think it would be nice since I do follow the markets and it would add another element of realism and excitement 

[SQ747]

Many, many great suggestions above!!

 

My 2 cents - sorry if its been said!

 

This may get confusing! - I think another way to even up the playing field (besides other great suggestions, like lower ticket prices, raise overheads etc), would be to allocate the actual % of passengers flying more evenly around the airlines and their daily frequencies on a specific route (while taking advertising, hard/soft product and price, etc into account). currently all you have to do to dominate - however temporary it is - is to lower the ticket price, and BAM! 100% LF, which is a bit over simplistic, and pretty damn annoying when someone capacity dumps 4000 seats (we all know it happens!) and makes the route an instant success for them, and instant loss for you - which doesn't happen in real life - unless the airline you run really sucks and deserves to go down in flames!

 

For example - if you have 900 demand SIN - SYD, with 1 airline - SIA serving it, he will potentially get 900 passengers, which he can spread over however many frequencies/seats he likes.

 

IF 3 airlines competing for the seats on the market. then considering their products, reputation and ticket price were equal, then each should technically each get 300 passengers. This makes aircraft choice a big consideration - a Qantas A333 with 300 seats will have a 100% LF, and will have a cost advantage over SIA's A380 with 600 seats with a 50% LF.

 

However, if QF is just beginning the route on his A333 and has a poor rep, advertising level etc, then his percentage of the allocated demand should be reduced say to 10% initially, so he would get 90 passengers / 30% LF, and as his rep, and time serving the route increased then this will increase to the full 33% of demand (1/3 of market considering 3 airlines on route).

 

The next step in the algorithm is for TICKET PRICE to have its own limited percentage of sway on the passenger allocation. say a MAXIMUM 20% sway, meaning even a drastic price reduction would only ever net him 20% extra market share, so SIA could gain up to 500 seats for his A380, (however the lower ticket price SHOULD mean a hit in his profits on the route - perhaps unsustainably), or keep his price the same and choose the A333. If all prices are equal then 33% of the demand is reasonable.

 

The next part - possibly harder still!! is for the amount of frequencies to make a difference - eg. SIN - NRT with 1000 demand and 3 airlines competing, if SIA has 2 daily frequencies, while JAL and ANA had 1 daily each, then all factors being equal would potentially gain 500 of the seats. leaving 250 for JAL and ANA each. this would change based on the same factors (price, rep, product, adverts etc).

 

There is an obvious downside though! - it would possibly turn into a frequency war instead of price war, by making it possible to run 8 daily 737's and get a massive 80% of the market! making Larger aircraft less fun to have around (which would suck tbh). Some overhead and setup cost penalties for running large amount of frequencies may offset this?

 

In the end though to over supply the route now becomes airline suicide. It makes in a bit more of an airline fight in essence, and no airline should dominate to an unreasonable level. Although well run airlines should always perform well!

 

Worth a thought? its a step closer to real life airlines, 

 

Who knows...

 

SQ747

[Trogdor]

IMO, some thoughts on routes, ticket prices etc. For simplicities sake, I’ll just assume only one class - economy

 

I’d go about it this way – lets imagine we have a route (say SIN-SYD). The game sets a volume of pax who want to travel on the route (say 900 pax/day) and a price they’re happy to pay (say $1,000).

 

Airlines start with a neutral (50%) route reputation, modified by the following items:-

• Route frequency
• IFS
• Legroom
• Price
• Overall airline reputation (which would be a factor of fleet age, employee happiness, number of destinations, advertising etc)

So in theory, three airlines with exactly the same route rep would each get 1/3^rd of the total traffic – i.e. 300 pax per day., excluding connecting traffic from their alliance if they have one (whoich should add no more than 10% more pax).

 

However, I’d have one more factor in play.

 

If you run a route at a significant discount factor (say starting at 50% of the base "what people will pay" price), you can draw in more traffic onto your route, which reflects the real-world experience of discount airlines – think Jetstar or Scoot on SYD-SIN.

 

So using the above example – Scoot joins the SIN-SYD route and sells tickets for $450. It has crap IFS, crowded planes and only flies once/day – bringing down its route rep – meaning it only picks up a small portion of the 900 pax/day “pie – maybe just 10%

 

However,  because of the “discount factor” it brings in a certain % more pax who would not normally fly the route, meaning it can still compete and fill planes – say 20% additional pax. So Scoot gets 10% * 900 pax from the original 900 pax/day + 20% * 900 "draw in pax" = 270 pax per day. Meanwhile the original high-cost airlines still have the remaining 810 pax/day (they don’t get “discount pax”) split between each of them.

 

IMO this solution stops seat dumping, deters spamlines, gives everyone a reasonable chance of success, and gives a more realistic model for low-cost entrants.

[Chernobyl]

Problem with encouraging discount airlines is that as of now price wars just aren't fun. They're another hassle and they require constant maintinence.

[yalda]

Call me a Facebooker!!! But im begging to throw money at this game!!! I'd love to pay USD for some Planes or in game dollars! At the very least I think scheduling should have peak and offpeak demands of passengers and airlines can ask for more money or less respectively...

[ar157]

At the very least I think scheduling should have peak and offpeak demands of passengers and airlines can ask for more money or less respectively...

The problem with this is that the game progresses so rapidly thats its almost pointless to change the price, that is unless you could pre-program the ticket prices which would change according to peak/off peak.

[TNT88]

How about new in-flight product, like how we can chose the business class seat design or the amount of the food on tray (main course, salad/soup, desserts/cheese, appetizer, drink choice, seat arrangements, you know, the essentials thing that impacted the passengers the most

[Czar_Alek]

Yuxi, I have read your original post and this is a reply to that. 

 

I loved AE when I first started playing it, but I only was interested for a few weeks because it got very repetitive quickly. I got bored of just buying planes and adding more routes. 

 

The thing that would get me most interested in the game would become more of a sandbox game in a way. To "win" in AE, I feel like I need to expand my airline. 

 

Here are my sugestions on how to fix the problem of huge, unrealistic airlines that are no fun. 

 

First, facilitate fun gameplay for all types of airlines. This means a huge overhaul of the passenger system. This allows for different types of airlines such as LowCostCarriers, legacy airlines, regionals, transit airlines, Flag carriers, leisure airlines, etc.

So put passengers in different catagories:

Business travelers

premium passengers

vacationers

budget travelers

diaspora/immigrants

etc

 

and then passengers have more choices about how to get to their destinations, just like in real life. For example, airlines flying LHR to IST would also have to compete with a airline based in CDG that offers conections to both IST from LHR. 

 

Next, also classify airports into different catagories:

Capitols (extra demands between two capitols, especially between friendly nations and neighbors) 

Vacation spots (seasonal demand)

Business centers (more business demand)

 

Also make modifiers for passenger demand between certain countries. In real life, there are six daily flights between Belgrade and Tivat, but in AE, there is only demand for one small plane every week. This could be fixed by linking certain countries such as Serbia-Montenegro, Romania-Spain (over a million Romanians living in Spain). 

 

So in conclusion, overhaul of the entire passenger demand system would completely redesign the game and make it more realistic/interesting. 

 

My dream is being able to build an airline in Baku that can just survive on transit passengers between Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, but right now that isn't possible because the current system only really focuses on point-to-point travel. 

[grimsleeper]

 

 

I loved AE when I first started playing it, but I only was interested for a few weeks because it got very repetitive quickly. I got bored of just buying planes and adding more routes. 

 

The thing that would get me most interested in the game would become more of a sandbox game in a way. To "win" in AE, I feel like I need to expand my airline. 

 

 

I kind of agree.

 

The only 'winning' way is to get big.  Of course, this is how real airlines 'win'.

Maybe if there were things to do with money other than expand to get more money and some victory condition that uses them.

 

Where AE is now feels kinda like a game of Civilization where the only way to win is military.  All the wonders, building, culture, and tech are second to the military.

I think, even if it is a bit game we need other ways to 'win', after all for many why play if not to 'win'.

[Wyldon]

Right now, it doesn't matter what type of an airline network one would like to set up, all airlines are rated by "valuation" and "reputation" as far as game end awards go.  Perhaps growth can be curbed a bit by classing an airline by total seats available and only airlines that have total seats available within that specified range are "rated" by valuation and reputation against each other?  There are many airlines who take a somewhat realistic approach to their network and operations in AE who'll never be recognized for their well-earned reputations not based on a large game end investment in advertising, but serivces provided, on-time percentage, pricing, frequencies, etc.   And, they may also boast a very nice profit margin while not using "spam IFS" to do so.  These airlines will nevertheless be on the "smaller" side, are well-run and well-reputed, but pale when compared against the gluttonous airlines...but, they're actually BETTER just not according to the current method for ratings.  So, perhaps, if the system were more geared towards classifying airlines by total seats available, for example (or some other reasonable context) and airlines are rated against each other within that particular network class, perhaps some may not want to compete against the gluttonous and opt to compete within a self-regulated network with less total seats available.   That said, an airline that tried for the top spot in the network class of "unlimited" for example, may realize it will not reap any rewards and seek to dump aircraft attempting to lower its total available seats and qualify for rewards in a lower network class.  In order to prevent this, the current valuation and reputation methods need to be reconsidered.  Perhaps AE can develop a rating system similar to the Airline Quality Rating (AQR), but include ticket price which the AQR currently doesn't do.  To prevent the game end massive investment in advertising to achieve a 100% reputation, the rating would be based on one's daily reputation.  In terms of valuation, perhaps overall profit-margin can be the means to differentiate between those well-run airlines within each network class and those that are not?  Of course, as others have said, there still needs to be an end to crap IFS that offsets the need to actually compete when a better run airline enters a market.  And, while seats on market will likely always exceed demand, the actual seats filled shouldn't.  I believe this "may" inherently reduce the number of people expanding just to expand and even if they do, the airline should be rated on how well it's run financially (without use of current AE quirks to offset the need to compete reasonably) and how satisfied the customers are based on sustained superior customer service...not 263 days of crap service with a 1 day advertising blitz.  ;-)

[Wyldon]

The common engine suggestion is a good one. Yet I still believe, if you want to look at how to curb expansion & make it more realistic, you must look at the "roots". How does an airline expand? With an airplane. If an airplane is suddenly gone--the airline takes a hit & expansion is curbed. Yet, you need to make it "fair". Ok.

 

Settings exist for paying labor. Excellent. An airline cuts labor costs to have more $$$ to buy planes, the result would be a strike. Thus no airplanes flying & the airline losing on a daily basis whatever they were earning. So the debt is growing larger every day & the cost of labor needs to rise...result less money.

 

Settings exist for in-flight services---great.

 

Settings exist for marketing TV-Newspaper, etc----I don't have a clue how these work & if any true ROI exists.

 

Why not have a setting for Maintenance, instead of it being a fixed cost that the user can't manipulate? A player could then lower the maintenance costs & reap short term benefits of more $$$...however, cost cutting on maintenance, just like with Labor needs to have a real $$$ impact. Cost cutting on on Labor may not result in a Strike, but on the monthly finances it will appear due to attrition & the need to retrain. Cost cutting on maintenance would result in either a loss of a plane due to an "accident" or a grounding & the player would be notified by the admin email that their 767 fleet is grounded...player would then raise the $$$ for maintaining their 767's & after 1 week they would take to the skies again---in the interim the player could do nothing with their 767's except sell them. A real world example----Air Tran....they were ValuJet & had crappy maintenance that ultimately shut them down...but they re-invented themselves.

Would love to see these implemented...

[ar157]

In response to Wyldon's proposals about how scam ifs etc is nasty, now i could be misunderstanding you but often airlines that attempt to be realistic, let alone quality will have to implement scam ifs in order to stay in the black.

[mxax-ai]

In response to Wyldon's proposals about how scam ifs etc is nasty, now i could be misunderstanding you but often airlines that attempt to be realistic, let alone quality will have to implement scam ifs in order to stay in the black.

You don't have to. As long as you avoid combining all bad choices, you're ok (e. g. 4/12/100 VC-10 + eco 5*-IFS + LHR + 100 $/h per pilot). What would be something to avoid scam IFS is letting quality and good IFS have a higher impact on the price.

[Stevphfeniey]

We could make it such that anybody using scam IFS or IFE gets an immediate permaban.