Elchie

Hi everybody,

I startet implementation for a new (more realistic) fuel calculation. The new way of being will be introduced with the next reset, additional where are ATC handling fees upcoming. I will introduce both to give you a hint.

1. ATC Handling fees

I took the formula of DFS (the German aviation authority, a German version of the FAA) and changed it a little bit:

Formula for start/landing fees: sqrt(MTOW) * factor
Formula for enroute fees: sqrt(MTOW) * (distance in miles/50) * factor

First the start/landing formula will be applied two times for every flight (once for start, once for landing) - so for a round trip you have to pay this fee four times.

As you see the MTOW of an aircraft is influencing the result, I collected the MTOW data of all aircrafts within the game, in the new version you will see this data also on aircraft information pages and when buying an aircraft.

Very important: the factor. This factor depends on the MTOW. The principle is: Heavy aircraft with a high maximum take-off weight (MTOW) will result in higher fees. There is a simple rule:

• MTOW < 125 t = 75 $
• MTOW >= 125 t = 125 $
• MTOW >= 250 t = 150 $
• MTOW >= 350 t = 200 $

(This values are not fixed)

For example the fees for a Embraer 190 LR (MTOW: 51.8 t) on a roundtrip between LHR and FCO (896.5 miles) will be:

• ATC factor: 75 $
• Start and landing fee for one flight: 1079.58 $
• Enroute fee for one flight: 9678.36 $
• ATC fee for round-trip: 21515,88

2. Fuel calculation

There will be a new fuel calculation, the old was based on some assumptions on the TSFC - these assumptions went wrong for long flights (so perhaps a Boeing 747 resulted in a fuel load on a long trip which exceeded the max. fuel load of the aircraft).

Now the calculation is a little bit more realistic (but not realistic) - it depends on the max. fuel load and the range - and 30 minutes as taxi reserve.

To mention the example flight LHR-FCO (round trip) with an E190LR again:

• Old fuel calculation: 91724 lbs
• New fuel calculation: 40142 lbs
• You will save about 20.000 $ for fuel on this flight

For short/mid-hauls normally the new ATC fees will assimilate the fuel savings, but on long hauls this behaviour will be different - so more long flights will be profitable.

For the future there will be another, more realistic fuel calculation which respects different fuel burns in different flight levels and flight states (the take-off will require more fuel than the landing and so on). This very complex model is on the agenda, the first step will be the mentioned range-max-fuel-model.

Hi together,

today I introduced the first premium features within Sim2 (Sim3 will follow soon). You can remove all ads from your account and activate route suggestions also when your aircraft has more than 5 hours available (at least one flight is required).

Right know only PayPal is a supported payment provider, Amazon InstantPay will follow. You can book the new features via the Premium features menu entry.

- There are no subscriptions, you have to order x months of the feature you want.
- If you run into trouble with the payment process or the premium features: Just let me know, I will fix it soon.
- Booked premium features won't be deleted with an game reset - they stay valid until the date mentioned on the Premium features-page.

Another point: A game reset on Sim2 is planned for Wednesday (Oct 7th), 05:00 GMT. The game will start again on Oct 9th 10:00 GMT.

Hi folks,

very late - but finally decided to do it: At the moment I'm restoring the database to a version just before the stock market got introduced. The backup was made at July 9th, 05:30 GMT (thats about one hour before the stock market got introduced).

I also deactivated the stock market, so I think thats the best version (data and code) playable right know.

The restore is still in progress, the database is even big (not even terrabytes - but it will take some time), so stay tuned, within the next let's say 20-30 minutes you will get a "No suitable nodes are available to serve your request." messages, but this will be gone when the restore has been finished.

Hey folks,

as you all realized: The stock market was/is a desaster. Thats true, in the beginning something was wrong with the stock price calculation, so some company got a market capitalization of trillions of billions, and if you try to sell some shares, the broker charged you with trillions of $ of fees.

Now the prices are stable, but some of us lost money (me too). Some of the top players stopped playin within this round, I can understand this (although I regret this). Some players called for a reset. I can understand this too and under normal circumstances I would proceed with a reset.

With a reset in the current situation I have some problems. Currently I'm working on some changes on the core (no not on the LF-script), which requires a reset soon. So the connected flight system, a new delivery system, a changed flight cost calculation and ads-free accounts will take place soon.

Having this in mind, a reset now and again in lets say 2 weeks are bad - and it doesn't make sense to enjoy a now restarted round if there is another reset soon. Now the question is: Why do we require the new features soon/why is a reset required for some of the new features? Well, I will explain the features (or better: changes) here in place and why a reset is required.

First the connected flight system, which is a change that was requested over and over again, and I prefer this change. At this time you can set up strange route networks with an aircraft, so for example you can start multiple one-way flights with the same aircraft out of the same airport, which is not possible without a warp-technology (the aircraft is only once a day at this specific airport and can't start more than one flight from there...). Now there is also another problem: You can only create flights starting at a airport there the selected aircraft is flying through - but you can create such a network and delete later single flights, the aircraft will still fly the other routes, but there is no connection between two airports. This will changed with the new system: You can only create one-way-flights where it makes sense and all flights have to be connected together to a network, so if you delete a flight of an aircraft and it can't get from a destination of route A to the departure of route B the aircraft will be grounded and won't fly any route. This will decrease strange cheating effects used by some players, and it will also limit the expansive growth. In short: You have to plan better, and the game will be more interesting. Here comes the problem: A check of all existing flights/aircraft flights would be very complicated and would cost many time - so a reset is required.

New delivery system: As you know, every player gets 2 aircrafts per manufacturer and month right know. In the future you have to bargain with the manufacturer about the delivery date of your orders, which will be more interesting, you have to schedule better. With the new system we will use a manufacturer-capacity-based system instead of a user-based system. You can safe money if you can wait longer for new aircrafts - if you require them within a short time, you have to pay more for your aircrafts. Also here: To prevent a in-game switch (which means that some players that ordered based on the old 2-per-month-system won't get their ordered aircrafts as planned) a reset is strictly required.

Flight cost calculation: Right know the only costs for a flight are the fuel costs, and the calculation of them is just wrong. At the moment the fuel for the whole flight is calculated based on a full throttle over the whole flight, in the future it will be based on a more realistic fuel calculation. So the system will calculate taxi fuel, trip fuel, contigency fuel, alternate fuel and a fuel reserve to get the required fuel amount. In addition to this there will be some additional fees to pay for (air traffic control fees, landing and take-off fees). A recalculation of all flights would take some time and would lead into massive rechecks of all routes for some players. A reset is also the better way here.

Ad-free accounts: As I mentioned some weeks (months?) ago, there will be some features you can pay for. The first thing that will come up is the removl of all ads within your account. To come up with facts: For 1,75 $ all ads will be removed, this will come soon. Later there will be other features addable to a payed-account. For clarification: There will be absolutly no features you can pay for that will affect the game in a agressive way, so for example you will not be able to buy money or get cheaper aircrafts or gates. There will be just come up some useful tools, but you can life without these additions too and can continue playing Airline Empires for free if you want - so one of the tools for example is the "Show suggested routes" feature also for aircrafts with more than 5 hours available. At every time AE will be kept free. For all players spend money in the last weeks (thanks for this again): Don't be worry, you will get some coupons for an ad-free account.

Now I will come to an end - yeah it was a quite long post, but I hope it's understandable why I won't reset the game now. I'm just preventing a very short round.

One thing: Expect a restart in about let's say two to three weeks - I have to finish another web project and my newest book (which is delayed also now by two months - this delay is partly related to the AE engagement) - so give me some time. I know this is not easy at every time, and there are bugs within the game (some of them are very annoying), the work is in progress but there are some other "jobs" beside AE for the developers [thats true for David and me]. Unless this: Continue with reporting bugs and suggest new features - both of them are the source for a better game.

Bye,

Tobias

Hi all,

on July 18/19 the data center will perform a performance upgrade to the storage infrastructur within the Dallas Forth Worh data center in which the Airline Empires 2 servers are located.

During the maintenance period, you may be unable to access the game webpage. A "We are performing system maintenance" message will appear.

Time window in different time zones:

- July 18 21:00 - July 19 02:00 MST [e. g. Arizona]
- July 18 23:00 - July 19 04:00 CDT [e.g. Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin]
- July 19 00:00 - July 19 05:00 EDT [e.g. Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Ohio]
- July 19 04:00 - July 19 09:00 UTC [e. g. London]
- July 19 06:00 - July 19 11:00 CEST [e. g. Paris, Zuerich, Berlin, Vienna, Prague]

Hopefully I calculated the times correct