21 replies to this topic

[h3llr4iser]

Hi all,

Just discovered another "flavour of the month": I have another player shadowing my routes and "stealing" them. In a nutshell whenever I open a new route, no matter how remote, desolate and/or marginally profitable it is (for example, carrying 50/pax a week for 10,000 miles on a 772LR), I find this other airline on the same route in a matter of hours.

Initially I tought it happened just randomly but as my routes started going towards smaller and smaller cities, with less demand and often producing only 10,000$ or less of profit a day, I am convinced this is no coincidence at all; Especially since there is always this one and only airline opening flights just after I do.

Question is, is this kind of behaviour acceptable? I ask because I tought about doing the same, flooding its main hubs/hq airport as it's doing, but of course don't want to be going against any rule/etiquette requirements.

[adityapratama]

yeah i have the same problem here . Even worse,that guy is not only copying all of my routes but also took my name as its airline (he is using Aditya Air as his airline name).

[bolli]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't it count as a "personal attack"?

[un1]

Happened to me all the time, I've been bankrupted by this twice. It's the only way to keep this game challenging.

It's also the only true reason realistic games exist.

[BritAbroad]

While I won't comment on your individual case - I'll point out that I was once accused of this. My plan was to hub at LHR, then open routes to all European cities, simply working my way down the gates list. Turns out somebody else was doing the same thing and got in touch via PM, accusing me of targetting him personally.

If there was some regulation about this, then I could have fallen foul of that with little proof to the contrary. As un1 says, its very hard to regulate against this, and it would also take an element away from the game. Simply put - in the real world, there's competition, and it just has to be dealt with.

[Yuxi]

Yep, it's competition, and within the game rules what is "acceptable" is highly subjective.

A personal attack is when one player insults or attacks another player (the target being a person, not his airlines). If someone is harassing you with PMs, that's a different story and should be brought to the staff's attention.

[h3llr4iser]

While I won't comment on your individual case - I'll point out that I was once accused of this. My plan was to hub at LHR, then open routes to all European cities, simply working my way down the gates list. Turns out somebody else was doing the same thing and got in touch via PM, accusing me of targetting him personally.

If there was some regulation about this, then I could have fallen foul of that with little proof to the contrary. As un1 says, its very hard to regulate against this, and it would also take an element away from the game. Simply put - in the real world, there's competition, and it just has to be dealt with.

Thought so initially, but this is different - it's always the same airline, on routes often connecting pairs of cities than 99% of mankind doesn't even know they existed...and it's clearly a very well-working strategy.
Add to it that this airline was opened on April 13th, and in less than three weeks amassed 1,000 airliners by just buying everything on the market (it has all of them from the A380s to a few Trislanders), growing exponentially with that and the fact that it runs absurd plane/destination combinations (A380s flying between smallish airports, for example) and the picture is complete...not too encouraging if you try to play a bit strategically and observing a hint of realism

[bolli]

Actually... thinking about it, this happens in reality
I recall SAS doing the same think to colour air...

[9M-TKS]

It's called competition, and it's a wonderful way to squash airlines, especially newer ones. I remember driving this guy out of my city by spamming a route with 100Y demand with 10x daily A300

[sviridovt]

It's called competition, and it's a wonderful way to squash airlines, especially newer ones. I remember driving this guy out of my city by spamming a route with 100Y demand with 10x daily A300

yep its part of the game, you have to drive people out of your hubs because if you dont you are not going to make profit. I spam routes in order to get rid of competition, and they do that too. I remember some guy driving me out of an BOS-SFO route this way by making his ticket price $10 (and I was a major airline on that route) which made this route very hard to make profit on eventually I just gave up and closed that route (but then reopened it after he raised the prices). Are you departing out of the same airport, maybe he is just trying to get rid of you from the AIRPORT and not make you go bankrupt. AE is a competitive game, where you need strong strategy, and flooding/tailing is a really good one. If you are starting your airline in the middle of the game, stay low until you have a good network so that people are less likely to go against you. If you are a small airline going into my hub YOU WILL SUFFER because thats the way the game works. In a AE there is only 1 objective that is SURVIVE, the higher your rank, the higher your chances of survival. As simple as that

[un1]

I remember kicking a guy out of LOS-JFK using IFE/IFS to give me a ticket price advantage so he couldn't make much more profit having a lower ticket price. At one point I think our prices were $100 a part. I didn't even spam the route, iirc we were both at 2x daily. Using IFE/IFS actually works (in the beta).

[bolli]

I remember kicking a guy out of LOS-JFK using IFE/IFS to give me a ticket price advantage so he couldn't make much more profit having a lower ticket price. At one point I think our prices were $100 a part. I didn't even spam the route, iirc we were both at 2x daily. Using IFE/IFS actually works (in the beta).

and to an effect in the old worlds

[h3llr4iser]

I remember kicking a guy out of LOS-JFK using IFE/IFS to give me a ticket price advantage so he couldn't make much more profit having a lower ticket price. At one point I think our prices were $100 a part. I didn't even spam the route, iirc we were both at 2x daily. Using IFE/IFS actually works (in the beta).

The Ryanair of AE

[h3llr4iser]

yep its part of the game, you have to drive people out of your hubs because if you dont you are not going to make profit. I spam routes in order to get rid of competition, and they do that too. I remember some guy driving me out of an BOS-SFO route this way by making his ticket price $10 (and I was a major airline on that route) which made this route very hard to make profit on eventually I just gave up and closed that route (but then reopened it after he raised the prices). Are you departing out of the same airport, maybe he is just trying to get rid of you from the AIRPORT and not make you go bankrupt. AE is a competitive game, where you need strong strategy, and flooding/tailing is a really good one. If you are starting your airline in the middle of the game, stay low until you have a good network so that people are less likely to go against you. If you are a small airline going into my hub YOU WILL SUFFER because thats the way the game works. In a AE there is only 1 objective that is SURVIVE, the higher your rank, the higher your chances of survival. As simple as that

That's the point...this is not a strong strategy, it's no strategy at all. The game doesn't punish the players enough for having messy airlines; Those big-huge-ginormous airlines have fleets that would bankrupt the prince of Bahrain in 3 days, flying everything they can find on the market. At some point, I had this competitor flying FCO-LHR in a mix of A319, CRJ200/700/900, B737, B777, A380 and IL-96...and wait, there's more: I don't know on what route he did use them, but this guy had (and still has) some Trislanders in his fleet, made of 28(!) types.

The fact that such strategy works should sound a big alarm instead of having people endorsing it. Make no mistake sviridovt, I understand what you say and agree, I tried myself and it works: having 1,000s of aircraft of different types and opening routes randomly, flooding them with 10x the route's seats requirements and stacking hub upon hub will make you grow fast and dart to the top of the rankings. This however takes everything out of the game...anyone can do it and, more so, it's the type of "strategy" somebody completely oblivious to how airlines work would take - the "let's dominate everything" approach.
If such a strategy worked and/or existed in the real world, it would make Ryanair and Southwest look like ultra-high quality carriers.

See guys, I'm trying to bring a point across here - this ruins the game for anyone that wants to play a bit "realistically". I know you're working towards improving this in AE3.1, but I already see the same approach in the beta worlds, and it still works.

[PacificAirways]

This has kind of been fixed in BETA with the addition of maintenance costs.

[bolli]

Mind you, some people are just thick. I came across one person flying AMS-EB (30 daily pax) with a 4x weekly a330....

[sviridovt]

That's the point...this is not a strong strategy, it's no strategy at all. The game doesn't punish the players enough for having messy airlines; Those big-huge-ginormous airlines have fleets that would bankrupt the prince of Bahrain in 3 days, flying everything they can find on the market. At some point, I had this competitor flying FCO-LHR in a mix of A319, CRJ200/700/900, B737, B777, A380 and IL-96...and wait, there's more: I don't know on what route he did use them, but this guy had (and still has) some Trislanders in his fleet, made of 28(!) types.

The fact that such strategy works should sound a big alarm instead of having people endorsing it. Make no mistake sviridovt, I understand what you say and agree, I tried myself and it works: having 1,000s of aircraft of different types and opening routes randomly, flooding them with 10x the route's seats requirements and stacking hub upon hub will make you grow fast and dart to the top of the rankings. This however takes everything out of the game...anyone can do it and, more so, it's the type of "strategy" somebody completely oblivious to how airlines work would take - the "let's dominate everything" approach.
If such a strategy worked and/or existed in the real world, it would make Ryanair and Southwest look like ultra-high quality carriers.

See guys, I'm trying to bring a point across here - this ruins the game for anyone that wants to play a bit "realistically". I know you're working towards improving this in AE3.1, but I already see the same approach in the beta worlds, and it still works.

I am not talking about flooding in general, I am talking about competition and we probably dont know half of what real airlines are doing with their competition. I do appreciate the new maintenance costs which make old aircraft hard to make profit on because I do prefer to play realistically and forcing airlines to upgrade aircraft is an awesome way to do that! I dont generally flood routes (I do put generally allot of frequencies on my routes because of high demand, and realism (you dont usually see airlines operating 1x day routes on domestic flights), sometimes I do try to flood the routes to get rid of competition but nothing more. Like I said, we dont know if real airlines use these strategies or not.

[h3llr4iser]

This has kind of been fixed in BETA with the addition of maintenance costs.

Doesn't work at all. If you go to the beta worlds, the top airlines are doing exactly the same - buy everything you could find, flood routes, win.

If you check the realistic BETA world, the top airline there has, right now:

BAC 1-11
Super VC-10
Super Trident 3
Boeing 707
Boeing 727
Boeing 737
Boeing 747
Douglas DC-8
Douglas DC-9
Douglas DC-10
Ilyushin IL-18
Tupolev Tu-154

It's a staggering 12 types after only 1 year and a half in-game. I'll keep following this guy, but that airline is certainly gonna balloon into a every-type-fits-everything type of airline.
This shows no strategic thinking - however it works brilliantly. That's just about it.

[sviridovt]

Doesn't work at all. If you go to the beta worlds, the top airlines are doing exactly the same - buy everything you could find, flood routes, win.

If you check the realistic BETA world, the top airline there has, right now:

BAC 1-11
Super VC-10
Super Trident 3
Boeing 707
Boeing 727
Boeing 737
Boeing 747
Douglas DC-8
Douglas DC-9
Douglas DC-10
Ilyushin IL-18
Tupolev Tu-154

It's a staggering 12 types after only 1 year and a half in-game. I'll keep following this guy, but that airline is certainly gonna balloon into a every-type-fits-everything type of airline.
This shows no strategic thinking - however it works brilliantly. That's just about it.

well, what in-game year is it

[Heartburn]

You guys complaining about that? I got a user who has two airlines headquartered in the same airport, flying a few identical routes gobbling up all the demand. He tried driving me off one of my long-standing routes using his two airlines combined. No, I'm no longer making the profit I was on the route, but I gained back the majority of market share. I can't understand why someone comes in using two airlines to gobble up a route with a benign demand of 390(economy). Meanwhile, while they're making a fool out of themselves, I've found about 15 routes with a demand of 400(Y) or higher & had no competition.