14 replies to this topic

[gba222]

It seems to me that the aircraft of choice for high capacity medium-to-long haul flying in sim2 is the A330-300. This is presumably because it completely stomps on competition from the likes of the 777-200 with its apparently superior economics and greater capacity. Further to this, I've seen virtually nobody using A340's (particularly the 300 and 500) and 767's due to the fact that its simply easier to buy an A333 and clean up. Yet in the 'real' world, we see plenty of carriers using A340's, 772's and 767's in preference to A330's. My question is, would it be possible to 'reign-in' the A333's capabilities a bit, so as to promote a game where fleets simply aren't just made up of Q400s, B739's, B753's, A333's and A380's. I'm fully aware as to why this is a bit of a pie-in-the-sky request and know pretty much why I'll probably get told that its unworkable, but I thought it'd be worth saying anyway. Any thoughts from developers?

[Glennos]

This has been mentioned before and you are right. The 747, 777 and others just does not make enough money and they are far more expensive to purchase.

The fuel burn and pricing needs adjusting I think to make them more competative.

[mikhail]

to add Long-Haul a/cs seem not to be long-haul at all! B744 and B744ER; A343, A345, A346; B773, B772LR are supposed to be the backbone of the long-haul to ultra-long haul flts. but they have the same hour alotment as the commuter planes thus limiting their full capabilities. eg A340s, B744s and B777s are used between hong kong - london, london-johannesburg, bangkok, singapore-new york and KL-AMS non-stop. i suggest long-haul hours should be increased based on its max range

[gba222]

Thats a very good point, however, increased hours on longhaul aircraft could lead to rampant cheating. There would have to be some way of blocking ultra-longhaul aircraft such as the 772LR, 773ER, 744ER, A380 and A345 from being used on shorthaul routes, otherwise we'd just see people using high-capacity aircraft on short and mediumhaul routes with twice as many hours as the shorter range A332's, A321's, 738's and 757's also plying them.

Perhaps a distinct 'class' of aircraft in the ultra-longhaul range could be introduced, with longer operating hours, but restricted only to routes over 7000nm or something? A side benefit of this could be that people stop using A380's on trunk routes. While its perfectly legitimate to do so (and many real airlines will, I imagine), its a bit of a lazy move in-game, in my opinion. So I'd be for it! The only real problems would be aircraft like the 787, which can legitimately be used on short, medium and longhaul routes - I think its hours would have to stay the same, to balance things out.

While we're at it though, perhaps more types need to be introduced to the game, in order to take the pressure of Airbus and Boeing as the only providers of larger aircraft? i.e. (relatively) recently out-of-production models such as the MD11, 767-200, MD90 or even the IL-96, Tu-205 and Tu-154, all at attractively cheap purchase prices, but with less attractive economics. Perhaps they could be bought 'used' from the manufacturers (as if they had been traded back to them by airlines, or returned from leases en masse), rather than needing to use the 2nd hand market?

We already have the Saab 2000, Dornier 328 and 757 series anyway. This cheap purchase/lower economics model could perhaps be retroactively applied to the A300, 763 and A310 as well, as nobody is really flying them? As far as I'm aware the models already exist in sim1 for types such as the 747-2/300/SP, DC10-30, Fokker 50/70/100, MD82/83, BAe ATP, BAe Jetstream 41, BAe full AVRO range, Saab 340, Shorts 360, L1011-200/500 and Fairchild Metro? So maybe this is a concept that wouldn't be amazingly hard to implement? At any rate, its not like there already isn't some disparity between old and new types in sim1, with the Dash 8-100 being offered alongside the ATR42-500 and the A310-200 vs. the 787-8. Sure a lot of these aircraft wouldn't be terribly competitive against newer types, but if they were cheap to purchase, I think you'd see quite a few of them purchased. Furthermore, I've seen plenty of Q100's in-game and even the (very) occasional A310, so it'd be workable, I think.

Obviously this isn't a critical gameplay issue or anything - getting the bugs fixed is a priority and I'm sure that a lot of this has probably already been mooted at some point...but, well...I'm too lazy to use the search function and figured I may as well contribute something! Still, would be nice to hear some thoughts on this! I've tried to be as comprehensive as possible, without getting bogged down - but if we could work an idea such as this through as far as possible on the forums, it would perhaps take a load off the developers' backs, so that all they need to do is code/implement it & identify the relevant bugs that may or may not crop up!

[mikhail]

i agree with you gb...i would say long-haul a/Cs should be limited on shorter routes but it's tricky coz in hi-dense routes these a/c are also used BUT i would say, are only allowed to have one round trip slot max. in this case the smaller a/c could still compete by adding more frequencies on the route. what A/C would fall into this cat? A33Os, A34Os B777s, B787s, B744 including 744D...

[fish10]

This has been mentioned before and you are right. The 747, 777 and others just does not make enough money and they are far more expensive to purchase.

The fuel burn and pricing needs adjusting I think to make them more competative.

If anyone can figure out the formulas originally used to figure the fuel burn then I'd be willing to work on this. I think I have a lot of the data we would need but have no idea how this was calculated. I had convinced Courtney to let me work on some other aircraft stuff right before he stoped administering the game and unfortunately could never get him to respond again with the formulas for that and gate rent (something else I was working on and now am doing again)

It seems to me that the aircraft of choice for high capacity medium-to-long haul flying in sim2 is the A330-300.

...

I've seen virtually nobody using A340's (particularly the 300 and 500) and 767's due to the fact that its simply easier to buy an A333 and clean up. Yet in the 'real' world, we see plenty of carriers using A340's, 772's and 767's in preference to A330's.

In the real world A330's are more efficient than 767's. Why do some carriers like Delta still prefer huge fleets of 767s? Well a nice gentleman's agreement with Boeing for one giving very favorable purchase prices and fleet comonality for another for maintenance and training costs. Appearantly these things make it worthwhile to continue operating these aircraft... be interesting to see what happens when they start integrating the NW planes as NW is one of the largest operators of the A330 in the world...

Other airlines like Continental are just waiting for their 787's to start arriving to dump off the 767's they have, they are also under the stronghold of Boeing unfortunately. I personally thing that's a poor business decision in general to remain so one track minded but they are still one of the most sucessful legacy airlines in the US market.

I'm honestly not sure about real world economics of the A340 vs B 777, that's something I'd look into if we can ever get the fuel burn equations. In the game at the moment the A340 models are basically worthless. If you see a player in the game with a route using an A340 model you can easily come in with certain other aircraft and drive their route into the red while still turning a decent profit... same thing with 767 models in the game.

[gba222]

Oh absolutely, I agree with pretty much everything you said - but I just think it'd be nice to see more types in operation in-game! Essentially, it'd be nice to be able to not just operate older generation widebodies in sim2, but be competitive with them, without having to wait until the late 70's - 1990's in sim1!

[doug_Or]

I don't think it is as much a problem of operating costs as it is of revenue. The A330-300 seating capacity is clearly all economy (as are our ticket prices), but most of the other long haul a/c seem to have their seating capacity derived from multi class layouts. This cripples all other a/c when compared to the mighty 333. I would be more than happy to research this and come up with a list of single class seating capacities. (I suggested this to Miller a few years ago and I think he was interested, but it was right before he took a break from the game)

to add Long-Haul a/cs seem not to be long-haul at all! B744 and B744ER; A343, A345, A346; B773, B772LR are supposed to be the backbone of the long-haul to ultra-long haul flts. but they have the same hour alotment as the commuter planes thus limiting their full capabilities. eg A340s, B744s and B777s are used between hong kong - london, london-johannesburg, bangkok, singapore-new york and KL-AMS non-stop. i suggest long-haul hours should be increased based on its max range

I don't think it would add any realism to the game to be able to fly a single plane more than 24 hours a day. If the goal is to be able to avoid 1-way bugs and operate these routes r/t, than how about offering longhual a/c in pairs? it would be sold like any other plane, except it would be called say, a "777-300ER pair", cost twice as much and have 44 hours instead?

In the real world A330's are more efficient than 767's. Why do some carriers like Delta still prefer huge fleets of 767s? Well a nice gentleman's agreement with Boeing for one giving very favorable purchase prices and fleet comonality for another for maintenance and training costs. Appearantly these things make it worthwhile to continue operating these aircraft... be interesting to see what happens when they start integrating the NW planes as NW is one of the largest operators of the A330 in the world...

It is also important to remember history here; Delta was flying the 767 10 years before the first A330s were in revenue service. I think the Boeing agreement probably had more to do with DL ordering 738s over A320s and 777s over A340s than it did with the 767 fleet.

[doug_Or]

While we're at it though, perhaps more types need to be introduced to the game, in order to take the pressure of Airbus and Boeing as the only providers of larger aircraft? i.e. (relatively) recently out-of-production models such as the MD11, 767-200, MD90 or even the IL-96, Tu-205 and Tu-154, all at attractively cheap purchase prices, but with less attractive economics. Perhaps they could be bought 'used' from the manufacturers (as if they had been traded back to them by airlines, or returned from leases en masse), rather than needing to use the 2nd hand market?

We already have the Saab 2000, Dornier 328 and 757 series anyway. This cheap purchase/lower economics model could perhaps be retroactively applied to the A300, 763 and A310 as well, as nobody is really flying them? As far as I'm aware the models already exist in sim1 for types such as the 747-2/300/SP, DC10-30, Fokker 50/70/100, MD82/83, BAe ATP, BAe Jetstream 41, BAe full AVRO range, Saab 340, Shorts 360, L1011-200/500 and Fairchild Metro? So maybe this is a concept that wouldn't be amazingly hard to implement? At any rate, its not like there already isn't some disparity between old and new types in sim1, with the Dash 8-100 being offered alongside the ATR42-500 and the A310-200 vs. the 787-8. Sure a lot of these aircraft wouldn't be terribly competitive against newer types, but if they were cheap to purchase, I think you'd see quite a few of them purchased. Furthermore, I've seen plenty of Q100's in-game and even the (very) occasional A310, so it'd be workable, I think.

I haven't played Sim 2 since the [somewhat disaterous] introduction of the [then] new used a/c market, but one of the ideas we'd talked about was having the used a/c market start with a/c in it. My understanding is that the used a/c market is now run by some kind of bank or something? Would it be possible to start each game with a certain number of older used a/c on the market?

[Yuxi]

I haven't played Sim 2 since the [somewhat disaterous] introduction of the [then] new used a/c market, but one of the ideas we'd talked about was having the used a/c market start with a/c in it. My understanding is that the used a/c market is now run by some kind of bank or something? Would it be possible to start each game with a certain number of older used a/c on the market?

Well it would make sense if aircraft appears only after someone sells them. It's only "used" after it passes through an airline's hands, right? What would the benefit of starting with existing used aircraft?

[mikhail]

i think i have the formula somewhere in one of my airways mags. i need to dig into them tonight then i will send it tonight if i find them. these are used for ETOPS fuel calculation though, but might be helpful

[doug_Or]

Well it would make sense if aircraft appears only after someone sells them. It's only "used" after it passes through an airline's hands, right? What would the benefit of starting with existing used aircraft?

The idea was that while those aircraft no longer in production could no longer be purchased from the manufacturer, there would still be a certain number of frames floating around in the used market. In this case used implied they were used before the AE round began.

[fish10]

Would it be possible to start each game with a certain number of older used a/c on the market?

This was going to be done in the past actually when TorqueWrench was working on the game. You can search and dig up the thread on it but the jist was that he was going to make the game randomly populate older airframes into the used market from time to time...

Now having said that it may not actually work out well... afterall, like we mentioned in this thread already the 767 and A340 models are mostly worthless in their current form... I can't imagine trying to operate an L-1011 or DC-10-30 and compete on routes with A330-300's. The cost savings on these "used" older frames wouldn't really be worth it if they can't produce reasonable profits... a well placed A330-300 can pay for itself in just a few game months (maybe less depending on the route and how late in the round it is)

[mikhail]

fish1O i only found this formula for tankering

Cbe=((RFCh+CmT)/F(1-R))×$/gal)


Cbe- break even cost difference

R- % of fuel

F- quantity of tankered fuel in gallon

Ch- price per gal at home base

Cm- maintenance cost per minute per flt

T- additional flt time incurred by added fuel weight

[the DOC]

fish1O i only found this formula for tankering

Cbe=((RFCh+CmT)/F(1-R))×$/gal)


Cbe- break even cost difference

R- % of fuel

F- quantity of tankered fuel in gallon

Ch- price per gal at home base

Cm- maintenance cost per minute per flt

T- additional flt time incurred by added fuel weight

I must say that is very interesting. I know this is almost exactly 5 years old but I just stumbled across it and thought that others should see this