New Long-Term Game World in June: Help us Pick a Configuration!

Game Worlds
21

I prefer to get one more game world as Hoover has been monopolied by one gamer I believe.

I believe most third world countries can be opened for investment, as demands at the main airports in those countries are very low and hard to attact pax.

If there can be $75m initial the game, that will be good for the beginning. I reckon the demand level, night ban and slots still need to follow up the real world. IPO and old a/c are available.

Please confirm whether C919 will be available in the new game world.

Thanks

22

Thanks for asking our opinion about the future configuration!

holding number: I suggest one holding per player. In combination with the investment open countries this should be enough.

interlining: Interlining under one holding should be allowed.

countries open for investment: I would love to see all countries open where biggest airport has 7 bars or less. Only exception to this could be the EU and New Zealand.

IPO: Bring back the stock market please :slight_smile:

initial capital: Up to 30.000.000 AS$ should be fine (but only if there are NO used aircraft at the beginning)

used aircraft: For players with less time and/or who start later, it becomes exponentially harder to gain a foothold in competitive markets.

nighttime bans: PAX do not care about time, why should an airline?

available aircraft to order: Only currently avaible aircrafts should be available to order. Maybe removing the TU’s… it is only used as a cheap starter plane recently.

demand: 100% (less at start, increasing to 100% over time)

slots: Normal slots

4 Likes
23

To me the most important thing for a new long term server is to make it last long. If someone wants to build a Delta Air Lines sized airline in 3 months, there are short term servers for that. So, my preferred settings aim to make the world last longer.

Holding number: 1
More holdings would mean more aggregate growth and thus a faster pace overall.

Countries open for investment: None
Open investment countries are in general just another way for the largest airlines to grow further by going beyond country borders.

IPO: Ambivalent
IPOs don’t increase the money available for growing airlines, it just redistributes it a bit. Usually it’s the bigger airlines/holdings giving away a bit of their money to help grow smaller airlines. This could help small airlines catch up with the bigger ones, but could also be a way for the biggest airlines to help their friends and grow even further.

Initial capital: 10 million AS$ or somewhat higher
Due to the profitability of airlines at the start of most servers airlines grow big. Usually successful airlines can double their valuation in about 3 weeks. So, a starting capital of 20 million AS$ instead of 10 million only pushes saturation of the server forward by about 3 weeks. Not that big of a difference on a server duration of years and, if done right, saturation of the market taking a year or more. So, to me anything from 10 million up to 20 million AS$ seems fine.

Used aircraft: No
Used aircraft usually have a higher return on investment, thus increase the pace of the server.

Nighttime bans: Yes
Just a realism thing

Available aircraft to order: Only current models
More recent aircraft have higher base prices, thus reduce the rate at which new aircraft can be ordered.

Demand: Increase to 100%, but very slow.
Doesn’t need explanation I think.

Slots: Normal slot number

Another thing I would change is the aircraft production rate. Slowing this down might give a very interesting dynamic to the world. It not only slows down the pace of the server, but might also put more emphasis on optimizing route networks as airlines can’t just be successful by growing fast. Optimizing a routenetwork becomes more important. On current server (at least at the start) a poorly performing route has a minor impact on the overall performance of the airline as within a day a new aircraft can be added to the fleet, adding three, four or five new routes, brining in more passengers and connections and more often than not, the poorly performing route has gained so many new connections that it’s doing decently or even good. As rescheduling an aircraft takes about three days it’s often not worth it to try new routes because before the new routes start showing if you made the right choice, reality of all those new aircraft caught up to you.

And for other things: New ORS, UK out of EU Open Skies and if possible update costs for staff, tickets, aircraft prices, fuel costs, etc. to more realistic 2023 levels.

10 Likes
24

I think AirlineSim is very heavily weighted in prefering old and big airlines over new entrants which frustrates a lot of newbies.

Would be best if things that cause this were addressed on this new server so that the game world is more dynamic and competitive.

Some reasons:

  • ORS favours connections too highly IMHO which means large established fleets easily make way more profit than new airlines with me routes and fewer connections.

  • no debt financing available at all except for very large airlines.

  • not allowing investment or traffic across borders. This obviously limits competition and creates monopolies.

  • once a company has a high reputation in the game, that’s entrenched and they can never lose it as that parameter is set to change very slowly for older airlines. In real life this is more dynamic and airlines can lose reputation much faster.

There are other things that just mean old airlines that are making profit can just be set and forgotten and they will make money for years without any risk. But in real life airlines are expected to pay dividends and taxes, and subject to a constantly changing, etc so big airlines could go into loss at any time.

1 Like
25

I would like to see:

Initial Capital: $20M

IPO: I would like to see this implemented again, it’s a good way to gain more capital if you need it to help you grow OR to address the problem of not having enough cash, have a new loan system where we can borrow $10M, $20M etc. that we payback over time but is not tied to outright buying a new aircraft.

Holding Number: Max 2, maybe 3 if their are restrictions on IPO and stock buying between holdings of the same user.

Countries Open for Investment: No, if you can have more than one holding, than you can have the opportunity to play in a different market.

Available Aircraft Order: Either only current aircraft or all aircraft. However if all aircraft are available to lease/buy (out of factory leases) than old models like the DC-8/B727/B737-200/etc. need to be priced competitively, meaning they aren’t 1/10th of the cost to lease in comparison to their modern counterparts. I would be very discouraged to play with modern aircraft, growing at a normal pace, while a competitor has 300 aircraft in a matter of a month by using DC-8’s and B737-200’s, that is not realistic nor fun, in my opinion.

Used Aircraft Market: Yes, if only current aircraft are being ordered. No, if all aircraft can be ordered.

Slots: Doubled

Nighttime Bans: Yes, if it mirrors the real world airport restrictions. No if not.

Demand: Doubles over time

1 Like
26

HUGE HUGE opportunity here - Please please please make server which mixes the best from the old servers with the new features of later servers - make it as REALISTIC as possible as of 2023

An example config could be:

Demand - 100% from start (however I understand why growing demand might be needed)

Used market - 100% yes - but make it realistic as of 2023 - so no DC-9-10s etc. For example have more 737Classics, 757-200s, MD-80s, maybe do a search for every type available in the game that has airlines using them in real life for actual operations - You can do a search on Airfleets.net for how many fokker 50s are left flying ( lets say 7) and only have 7 available to the market to begin with? Also if its possible, make the maintenance costs very high on older models.

At the start though the feed should be drip fed, so don’t have 50 737-400s, 70 737-300s available to start with, do 7-10 over 5 months randomly so airlines cannot start with huge fleets and will cause bidding wars to make those 737-400s that do pop up high enough leases to keep it realistic

Cargo conversion planes - 100% yes, get those A320 P2F available, 777-300P2F etc as well

Ordering planes - only planes available to order new in real life, are available to order new in game

IPOs - Yes, was one of my favourite features on the old servers (with monitoring from the AS competition and monopoly team TBC???)

Normal Slots - you start doubling slots it is not realistic anymore and ruins it when airlines have 10k departures from LHR for example

Night bans: yes - again with the LHR example, the moment you allow airlines to fly 200 flights an hour to LHR at 3am youve lost the realism

UK out of EU - Of course

Capital - Maybe 15mill for a change? I do like the ideas that you get less money the higher demand airport you start at (but I guess that is difficult to code?).

Russia - Maybe have a Russian ban for the first year to the EU and US, but not China, turkey etc, to be lifted after 6 months? I understand if thats a bit too political to include

ORS - 100% new ORS

New open investment countries - do a few different counties, I know that Brazil in real life is now open investment, which could turn into a bloodbath (exciting though), I think Saudi Arabia as well is, Oman etc there are few that are open to foreign investment

IF any of you think this is a good idea, please like this post so it gets high up on the agenda

2 Likes
27

I’ve seen this higher capital with lower demand start concept before in this thread. I don’t think this could work on an airport basis. If I open my headquarter in Appleton, Wisconsin I can still start all my flights from Atlanta, Georgia. So, it would be easy to game the system.

The only exception to this is if starting funds are dependent on country you start in. So, starting in the USA would give the least amount of funds and starting in say Kiribati gives the most amount of funds. But making this distinction woud be difficult to make and very controversial, because how do you compare Qatar with Chile. Qatar has no domestic market, so the total passenger numbers for Chile might be higher, however, due to the location of Qatar it has much more potential in the game to develop a world leading airline. And to complicate things further, Australia and New Zealand have some shared traffic rights, as do the EU, some African countries and most of the Caribbean. New Zealand on its own isn’t a major market, but with the access to Australia one can build a big airline there.

I think going down this routes opens up a whole lot of debate and possible frustration.

2 Likes
28

I hope we get a new Standard long term game world, with realism at its core

For example:

Demand - build to 100% over a short space of time
Used Aircraft - Yes but keep it realistic as to what planes are flying today, so no 707s or anything like that - I like the idea put by SRNP whereby the used planes should be drip fed over the first year or so so there isnt 50+ 737s ready from the off
IPO - Yes but monitored by staff, maybe block complete takeovers?
Slots - Normal, keep it realistic, the slot system works as it is
Nighttime ban - as normal
ORS - New ORS
Open investment - Id love some new open investment countries to spice it up, maybe do counties that often get left behind on long term servers. I often see places like Egypt and Oman completely empty on older servers

3 Likes
29

Personal preferences:
Open countries: yes - usual list

Initial capital: 15 Mio.

Demand: Increasing over time

Allowed holdings per account: two - no IL between these companies

Slots: double or single with improved measures against slot-blocking (i.e. a holding can use only 50% of the slots per airport)

Nightban: yes

IPO: no

Used aircrafts: no

Aircraft selection: current

Interlining There are airlines which interlines with everyone. So I’d like to have an IL Limitation or an double costs and staff for an IL

3 Likes
30

Need to make right maintenance system . As owner of airline company , I have to see cost of maintenance each type of aircraft with every provider not just 'GOOD" , “POOR” and etc.

31

Personal preferences:

Initial capital: 10 or 20 mio. Not too much due to the world being long term
Slots: double. Or if possible start at normal and increase it with time.
Used aircrafts: No. I don‘t like having airlines on the first day with 30+ planes
Aircraft types: old and new.
IPO: yes
Nightban: no.
Allowed holdings per account: one or max 2

Already excited for it

2 Likes
32

Thanks for your asking!

My Personal preferences:

Initial capital: 15 to 25 mio.
Slots: double. Or if possible start at normal and increase it with time.
Used aircrafts: No
Aircraft types: old and new.
IPO: yes
Nightban: no.
Allowed holdings per account: one

2 Likes
33

I’d prefer to have a low starting budget, between 10 - 20 mio, not more.
Because it’s a long term world, there shouldn’t be used planes. Would be annoying to have airlines already having 50 aircrafts and over 250k passengers after 1 week.
IPO would be fun.
Nighttime ban off
Max. of 2 Holdings per account
Slots 200-300%

2 Likes
34

Can I ask why some people want double slots and no nighttime bans?

The double slots doesn’t stop airlines hording all the slots, those same airlines that get 90% of slots at a mega hub will just have double the amount of slots to horde, giving them more money, more room to expand and dominate, worlds with double slots are horrendous. In real life British airways does not have 15k depatures a week at LHR for example, they have to deal with what they can get.

In real life you cannot just set up a new airline at ATL/LHR/CDG and compete with Delta, British Airways and Air France on day one, its never ever going to happen. You have to build slowly with patience.

The nighttime ban for me is just “Do I want realism or do I want an unrealistic experience?” And I dont understand why you’d pick the unrealistic option

I guess its just preferences , but I’d love to know why people like these double slots/nighttime bans or whether there is a reason I am completely missing, because it isnt to do with helping new airlines, it actually helps the bigger airlines become even bigger?

5 Likes
35

I do think double slots leads to these bigger airlines becoming invincible juggernauts, maybe the players wanting double slots are those players that like the least amount of limitations as possible?

@martin could a monopoly rule be put in place on 8 bar + airports?

Something like no airline can have more than 85% of slots of airports with 8 bars or more, meaning there is always room for airlines to fly into, expand, compete?

I believe in real life there is something in place to stop monopolies? Wasnt united forced to give away flights to Southwest and Jetblue at Newark for monopoly reasons?

4 Likes
36

Also could there be a rule whereby you can only IL with a max 2 airlines from the same country?

You sometimes get airlines IL with 10 airlines in China, wouldnt happen in real life?

2 Likes
37

Limiting the number of airlines (or holdings) to which foreign airlines may interline with may be harmful to new entrants as foreign airlines would be most interested in IL with the big krakens instead to get maximum feed.

If you would like to limit the number of IL per country, I would suggest the limit be placed on the number of holdings. Airlines (RL and AS) often have regional subsidiaries, who will also be interlining with foreign airlines together with their parent mainline airlines.

2 Likes
38

Open countries: yes - list A

Initial capital: 20 Mio.

Demand: Increasing over time

Allowed holdings per account: two - no IL between these companies

Slots: double

Nightban: yes

IPO: yes

Used aircrafts: yes

Aircraft selection: current aircraft for order and used market and older aircraft that are no longer in production but still in commercial service are only on the used market

39

As real as it gets should be the aim. Nighttimebans, slots and old Aircraft should be as in reality. It just makes the game kind of lame. Their are enough game worlds out there, that have all kind of special configuration. If you are looking for that, just play on one of those. Open countries should be list B, I see no value in (de-facto) opening up Australia. Personally I believe that 10 million are perfectly fine to start an airline. If you can’t make it with 10, you won’t do any better with 20 or 50. It’s not about how much money you have at the start. In the end only a few airlines will benefit from that extra money and have a larger fleet from the beginning. And that what many players are actually complaining about.

4 Likes
40

should we just setup a poll so everybody can just vote for it? Making it easier to see what the people want?