Jump to content

Russ's Content

There have been 161 items by Russ (Search limited from 12-June 23)



Sort by                Order  

#31826 Which 757 series?

Posted by Russ on 16 April 2006 - 09:19 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

After playing this round, I thought the 753 was the better airframe. Other than the range advantage, which is only valuable fron NE USA to EUR (can't speak to to asia) the additional seats of the 753 over the 739 and 752 are the determing factor. The addtional cost is not that great and for domestic routes, the additional range of other aircraft just increases the operating costs.



#28335 Where are our gates

Posted by Russ on 25 January 2006 - 06:57 PM in Bugs

so a question regarding all of this...

If I remove a plane that uses an invisible gate, ie LGA, will I lose the ability to use that gate for the sake of bumping to a larger aircraft?


I tried that and I was unable to use the gates (slots) that should have been opened up.



#29787 When to go to Jets

Posted by Russ on 09 February 2006 - 08:33 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

What factors should I consider when deciding to graduate from Q400 to A318/B737.

I am not sure that there is any value to go to a RJ. The ROI seems to be higher waiting a little while longer and getting the bigger plane.

And should I bother with the 318 0r -600 or go bigger?



#31078 When to go to Jets

Posted by Russ on 09 March 2006 - 10:37 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

A couple of other things I have learned to take into consideration since I posted this.

I think your DOP is also important. I posted this with a 5-600K DOP and it takes about 4 days to get a 737. In the mean time, I can't expand because my aircraft are fully commited. I will wait until my DOP is higher next time. I feel I lost growth opportunities that could have be satisfied by the Q400. I kept my J-31's longer than I wanted because I needed to hold gates.

The other thing is that my network was not as developed as I needed. This relates to the above. Gates became more important than aircraft as the game progressed. And not being able to add gates hindered my airlines development.



#29794 When to go to Jets

Posted by Russ on 09 February 2006 - 09:13 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

When you run out of possible Q400 routes. A319 would be a good jet to start with.


What would you consider a good Q400 route? I have a feeling that I am not quite done with the Q400's but soon.



#29795 When to go to Jets

Posted by Russ on 09 February 2006 - 09:14 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

No 318s or -600s. 319s, 321s, -700s and 800s


Reading some previous threads, what about EMB170/190?



#31104 When to go to Jets

Posted by Russ on 10 March 2006 - 03:38 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

i jumped in early unsure of the outcome, but it has worked and i have replaced all my MAJOR Q400 routes with my first Airbus.. its nearly doubled my DOP but my DOP changes all the time. I risked it and it payed off for now, I suggest you work up some money just in case theres a stuff-up, try to wait for a good deal also :(


What I concluded was that as long as I was expanding that 2 Q400 were better than a 736/7. I could cover more gates and get an earlier return on investment. If on the other had, if your network is becoming staturated, switching to the jets is the thing to do.



#31569 What to do?

Posted by Russ on 04 April 2006 - 09:01 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

What is everybody's opinion (and no flaming, please) on the need of the game to impose some real market force that makes profitability hard, and makes expansion past some certain size more difficult? In the game, the faster an airline grows, the faster it can expand. In real life, the opposite holds true in most cases. Opinions? Thoughts?


Yes and No.

There should be some scaling related to airline size. This is a problem with open ended economic games, size matters too much. There are always natural limits in RL which reduce growth rate. For game purposes, this should be set up not as punishment for success but rather the better you get, the harder each level of improvement should be. You often see that in RPGs.

A couple logical limitations would be aircraft deliveries and gates (terminals). With a limitation on aircraft deliveries, growth is constrained. I have no idea what the optimal delivery rate would be, but I would suggest that it vary by size, so that it is harder to get large planes. (as it is in RL). Gates have been a limit in this round and I think it should be tweaked a little, for example, the suggestion on aircraft size in an airport. I am not sure that runway length will do it alone, because many airports have runways built for military or commercial emergency reasons, which don't refelct the ability of the airport infrastructure to handle large aircraft. Also, if terminals were limited to airports where the airline already has say 5 gates, that would prevent the big airlines from just spending $150M and building a presence.

But it is also very very important to allow all the layers to have a good time playing. It shouldn't be a dodgeball game where if you don't suceed in the first game year come back later. 200 airlines in RL don't fly in the US or Europe. But if you want 700 - 900 players, then you have to accomidate some unrealistic conditions. Worry less about the top 20, who in RL would have cleared the board, worry about making or keeping it fun for numbers 200-400.

So in conclusion, I think that there are some things which can be imposed to make the game more challenging but doing anything should be done cautiously so that it soesn't ruin it for the vast majority.



#31500 What to do?

Posted by Russ on 30 March 2006 - 07:56 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Impossible to have opinion without knowing when v3 to be released.

If in next 30 days, continue round.

If 3+ months - start new round.

If unknown but likely 3+ months, it makes no difference when.

If v3 ready, then let's do it.



#34485 What to do about airlines like this?

Posted by Russ on 01 June 2006 - 02:21 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Seems that Boing Airways has been playing silly buggers...

I'll be soon deleting all accounts and banning this user...


I thought it was AirVegas



#34547 Vacation mode

Posted by Russ on 02 June 2006 - 08:22 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

And if you leave a bunch of $1 routes and go on vacation?



#37611 V3 Finance Page

Posted by Russ on 21 August 2006 - 06:20 PM in Announcements

I like the percentage change also



#32693 used market ID Numbers to help stop feeders

Posted by Russ on 25 April 2006 - 04:43 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

We already have a cheating log, its just so large that searching it is large. However i've devised a new system to highlight cheaters automatically in V3.


Do you plan to slipstream any of this code into the current round?

I realize that a) design does not mean working code and :) there may be dependencies that force an all or nothing implementation and c) time spent adding features now means time not spent on v3.



#30051 Transferring gates

Posted by Russ on 13 February 2006 - 07:27 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

it is a good idea in practice. Although this would allow feeder airlines just to give their gates to another airline.

Another suggestion for this would be a buy feature at a minimum of 4x the value of the gate. This way if there are no gates available, someone has to pay through the nose for getting the gate.


Would have to put some obsticles in the way of peeps gaming the system. For example, cannot sell 'home' gates for 1 game year.



#33477 Time to help the competition...

Posted by Russ on 07 May 2006 - 05:36 PM in Announcements

Please keep the number of delivery's per manf at 2. That will help the smaller airlines who can only afford one airframe per month anyway.



#33487 Time to help the competition...

Posted by Russ on 07 May 2006 - 08:00 PM in Announcements

It has increased the used aircraft market.



#33489 Time to help the competition...

Posted by Russ on 07 May 2006 - 08:33 PM in Announcements

Increasing the used market should be good for everyone. The smaller airlines can now buy used aircraft cheaper and there are more aircraft available for all.


I agree, although it may take some time for the prices to come down below list. Initially it will help the larger airlines get more airframes per day.



#33855 This is getting insane......

Posted by Russ on 16 May 2006 - 10:21 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Yes, I guess a smaller AC would make a small difference, but then again I am by no means the one offering the most seats on the route. Plus, I happen to use the A319 on the route because I have the very hours for this route left on it after flying it SYD-SIN. And yes, I even plan to eventually bring on more capacity in the form of a Saab2000 dedicated to this route as with all my other domestic routes. I mean, I am Australia's biggest airline so a Saab dedicated to this route shouldn't be out of this world, should it? But for now I just find it insane how overcrowded this part of the world has become. I mean look at SYD-AKL where JAL has put a dedicated 737-900! As if there were no more routes in Japan or the rest of Asia!
So why do I fly here? Because this is my region of the world. I knew I would never make it in the top ten, but because I live downunder I think I can as well be downunder's leading airline.

The other alternative is to flood the route with capacity; taking the loss until the route is cleared out.

But realize that some people will never take the hint.



#31944 Take off Costs

Posted by Russ on 17 April 2006 - 06:31 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

Dont belive everything you read on the internet...

I try not too, that is why I threw that out to the experts and cited my rather shakey source. Like slashdot, some great info there but a lot of pure crap too. It did make some sense in that more fuel would be used in climbing than cruising.

Regardless, I was trying to come up with a reasonable solution for WB on short routes. At least in the US, they don't run the aircraft that way and it does give the big carriers an insurmountable advantage over any particular route.



#31761 Take off Costs

Posted by Russ on 13 April 2006 - 10:09 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

I was reading over in A.net that the rule of thumb for takeoffs is about 1 hour fuel.

I suggest that a 1 hour fuel cost be added for each route leg to reflect this. That change should be very easy to add to the programming.

This will change the economics of all those routes of less than one hour flying time, especially the WB on short routes.



#32772 Strategy: Saabs, Saabs, Saabs!

Posted by Russ on 26 April 2006 - 06:47 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

I can't belive it the order book for Q400s was 7 pages long this morning! I'm shure not gonna wait that long for a Q400 and now the SAAB order book is getting longer too but thats ok I found a better plane that I like


Yes, I think that we will see a much wider variety of airframes than we did in the last round.

But I do fear for when the game moves to jets and there are only two manufacturers for aircraft 150+. It may slow the growth of the the top players but I anticipate that the top 50 players will monopolize the order books.



#30932 Stock Prices

Posted by Russ on 06 March 2006 - 12:23 AM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

What do you mean stock rating? Do you mean sell, buy or hold?



#30914 Stock Prices

Posted by Russ on 05 March 2006 - 06:37 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

I know that the stock market is supposed to be in the works but instead of waiting for a full up system, I have a simple suggestion that may give some value.

Stock prices in RL are not simply a division of the companies book value by the number of outstanding stocks, but a more accurate measure is the P/E ratio (price to earnings).

My suggestion is to multiply the EPS by a factor and have that as the stock price. Since nobody makes any money in RL, I don't know what the ratio should be but some suggestions would be 30 (the P/E ratio of the services sector), 25 (SWA P/E and the P/E of the air cargo sector), or 15 (BA P/E). The particular factor is not as important as the formula.

This proposal has the advantage of reflecting the success of the the airline, rather than just it size. It is also very simple to implement requireing no new information and no changes to the DB.

I also realize that it is as simplistic as the current system and that there are many other factors that contribute to a stock price. In RL, even if an airline runs a loss, the stock price remains positive.



#30931 Stock Prices

Posted by Russ on 06 March 2006 - 12:22 AM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

I am trying to set something that is pretty simple to calculate but is more informative.

This calculation reflects the airlines profit margin, not its simple book value. So someone with a high book value but small profit could have a low stock value.

Hmm, based on that, I can see that the book value could be part of the calculation. Otherwise a small airline with a large profit margin would be more valuable than a larger airline with a small margin. (although that is true in RL. SWA market cap is $13.5B vs BA's 6.5B).

I am ignoring divedends because most of the newer airlines don't use them and they are the only ones making money.



#30647 Starting Point: Major or minor airport

Posted by Russ on 26 February 2006 - 07:19 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

What are the relative advantages of starting at a major airport vs a minor airport. What type of strategies work best?