- Not counting LR, A321neo currently come with three different light variants in the game: light - 80t, medium - 93t, heavy - 93.5t. I do not see any 93.0t MTOW weight variant offered by Airbus on their site now, and it being only 0.5t less than heavy also seems strange, why this weight variant exists in AS?
- A reason behind the many use of A321neo light is that its capability is mostly similar to other A321neo but its purchase price is like 15% less than other variants. It didn’t seems realistic that changing the MTOW could result in this much saving in purchase price. Wouldn’t it usually be more like 1 or 2 million price differencce between different weight variance, from some random articles I saw online? Shouldn’t the low weight variant version of A321neo be more expensive?
- Also, it seems like Airbus nowadays have a program that allow airlines to easily switch the weight variant the aircraft is rated for, is there any plan to implement that in the game?
- In real world, one of the advantage for aircraft with low MTOW is lower ATC fee and lower handling fee. Yet when I compare A321neo light and A321neo heavy on a route, they appears to be charged the same for these two fees?
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The updated 321N will include 89T, 93.5T, 97T, 101T MTOW versions. I take notes for all WVs used and which APMs the data comes from. Airbus has done some interesting things with their WVs depending on which APM you’re looking at. They have reused the same WV number even when that WV can be quite different then before but it has since been updated.
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Pricing can always be updated.
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I’ve only ever seen the certified MTOW be allowed to go up and that depends on which WV the aircraft started as. It seems that it is usually a 1 time 1 way change and only up. It costs airlines money to make that change.
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That’s a @martin question.
I concur with the A321neo light being grossly imbalanced - also compared to the A320 variants. The A321 is way too cheap to lease.
In AS, handling is based on “aircraft size” (an arbitrary, AS-specific category) and ATC on certified PAX/cargo capacity. Especially the latter doesn’t look very “realistic” and could/should probably be based on MTOW, indeed. The former is “fine” for the moment, but is something I’d likely look into once I start working on more dynamic airport NPCs or ground handling in general.
We already have two different pricing schemes in place. More recent game worlds have “formula-based” aircraft prices that factor in the actual performance characteristics of a given type. Older game worlds have manually defined prices…roughly based on real-world prices, but I am actually not sure about that 
. Either way, prices in both schemes can be adjusted if needed.
Hey, I was referring to Quimby - this being a… rather new game world 
. The overall costs of the A321neo are on par with the A320neo for medium-length routes (2500-4000kms - so 100% payload range), with the per seat costs being lower than for any other aircraft type in the game here. The closer you get to the max payload/max range for the type, the more obvious this is. There are scenarios where it is cheaper to sacrifice a few seats on the “light” instead of going for the “medium”.
The balancing could imho be “fixed” by shifting the prices to e.g. 48 instead of 43M AS$ (above the A320s, below the A321neos).
As it is, the capital costs for the A320neo medium and heavy are higher than for the A321neo light.
I am reading Weight Variant | Airbus for switching weight variants
It’s an interesting cost saving feature but information is pretty limited on how the process works and how quickly you could switch between them.
I can’t find any info on MTOW switching in the US since it’s a certified weight and it first must be certified prior to flying at that weight. So I don’t think it could be switched quickly. Depending on the MTOW or WV the aircraft started as going higher might require structural changes while others it’s just paperwork.
In the grand scheme of things there isnt enough data nor does the amount of work it would require justify the reward IMO.