Once a server is over a year old starting a new startup is very difficult. Especially in established markets with big players. With that in mind I think that after a year has passed a new startup should be given more capital at startup. Instead of the original $10 million they could get $20 or $30 million at startup. This would allow them to create a few more connections on startup and actually give them a slightly better chance at competing in existing servers. (Better mind you....not good)
This could allow more "shakeup" of old servers. And give people a bigger reason to try to break into old servers.
In real life a potential new startup would almost certainly start with more cash than the legacy carriers. If for no other reason than inflation as newer planes always costs more. And with the bigger carriers having millions (or more) in cash you could hardly consider a new startup getting $30 million an advantage.
Though I think some of the arguments (i.e. inflation) are not the right ones, I agree that giving new startups on old servers some more cash could spice up those worlds. I doubt that 30 Mio. AS$ would actually enough, but that’s free to be defined.
Whether those (cash fueled) startups are more successful than the ones currently needs to proved. I am not sure about that, but at least the chance to to do is a bit higher.
Hmmm... But it would not be fair. Just because someone is coming late, why he should be granted an additional 20mio?
Those big players starts from 10mio, from a craziness of server start, and they survive.
I don't hate the idea of new airlines having more money to compete and step up the competition. But it is technically not fair.
How about after two years of server start, new airlines are granted the choice to take a loan up to 20, or let say 30mio, which he has to pay anytime soon. His original money is 10, but there is an option of taking loan.
Todays airline, in real life, many of them have a huge starting capital because of many sponsors and loans. (Or I thought that way. Hehe.)
Technically unfair? I really don't think so. You are at a gross disadvantage no matter what you do at startup on an old server trying to compete in the big markets. With $30 million you could get somewhere around 15-20 E-195's (just as an example) and this just begins to start a decent network for connections. If the big boys notice you they can still flood your market with flights and drive you out of business pretty quickly. With $30 million you'll just last a little longer before they put you under and perhaps make it a little more interesting.
Starting a company in the green fields of an empty server vs starting a company in a saturated market are two completely different beasts. $10M is plenty to create a competitive airline in the greenfields of server startup but woefully inadequate to attempt in a saturated game controlled by a few airlines in big markets.
And this doesn't even begin to scratch the biggest problem you'll face. A lack of good slots in the most important airports.
And private capital does not help someone that just starts this game and doesn't know anyone yet. Completely unfair way of raising capital. I will say this, usually you can find a small niche market you can fill without competition. And then perhaps to unrestricted markets.
And private capital does not help someone that just starts this game and doesn't know anyone yet. Completely unfair way of raising capital. I will say this, usually you can find a small niche market you can fill without competition. And then perhaps to unrestricted markets.
Some big boys have more money than they know what to do with... I know some of them. They might be interested to invest maybe 50-100 million in a new startup in a restricted country, with let's say 49% private placement interest, but the payout would need to be more than 15% of the profits, and then their investment percentage. It would need to be 49% of all weekly profits, for example, or even better, the payout ratio could be set up mutually among players and confirmed by both of them. So in the beginning the investor could get smaller payout to allow the airline to grow, and after couple of months, the payout could reach his 49% share. Also, private placement investors would automatically become owners of subsidiaries as well, if and when those are created. Asset transfers would be permitted in this case as the investors would participate proportionally in every new subsidiary. This could lead to alliances supporting new players to start airlines in places where they cannot legally go, and it would give advantage to new players to raise maybe 50-100 million AS in capital in a day. It would create more interaction among players (player and his investor) and would make the worlds more dynamic. By myself I consider creating such private placement investment model an excellent idea.
Well, if we talk about it "technically", it is absolutely unfair.
One was granted 10 million, and a year later, someone is granted 30 million.
Regardless what happen in the particular world, it is still technically unfair.
Like I said before, I dont hate the idea of new player having mooooorreee money when they enter an old server. But not that way. Not that free 20 million additional money for coming late to the server. Just find other way which won't make the early player regret their decision of playing it at the server opening. I played in Stapleton now, when the market is saturated when I came in. And now I have become the biggest one in my country. I personally find it challenging to start in an old server compared to new server. You'll find the art of playing airlinesim when you dive into old server. New server is a world where the forum will be flooded with questions like, "Is he cheating? Why does he has so many aircraft? he is using the unlimited demand to take advantage! He is not playing it realistically! Bla bla bla..."
Some big boys have more money than they know what to do with... I know some of them. They might be interested to invest maybe 50-100 million in a new startup in a restricted country, with let's say 49% private placement interest, but the payout would need to be more than 15% of the profits, and then their investment percentage. It would need to be 49% of all weekly profits, for example, or even better, the payout ratio could be set up mutually among players and confirmed by both of them. So in the beginning the investor could get smaller payout to allow the airline to grow, and after couple of months, the payout could reach his 49% share. Also, private placement investors would automatically become owners of subsidiaries as well, if and when those are created. Asset transfers would be permitted in this case as the investors would participate proportionally in every new subsidiary. This could lead to alliances supporting new players to start airlines in places where they cannot legally go, and it would give advantage to new players to raise maybe 50-100 million AS in capital in a day. It would create more interaction among players (player and his investor) and would make the worlds more dynamic. By myself I consider creating such private placement investment model an excellent idea.
I'm not too sure whether this really is a good idea or the exact opposite.
How about:
I'm sitting in a restricted market and have some billion$ cash to fool around and see a "big player" in another restricted market competing there with an airline of a friend of mine.
Now I could invest my $$$ with his or a "friend of this friends" airline and am guaranteed to force the other "big player" out of the market. Just for the fun of it...
Unrestricted private placement would open doors for unfair gameplay.
The idea in general is worth a thought, but I'd restrict such private placements to a certain amount of money - say 10m.$ per player (account)
And even then you still could force others out of a certain market. Let's look at small restricted markets.
A player has established his airline there and alliance X would like to ruin him for whatever reason. With ten alliance members you could still raise 100m$ - probably enough to give him a hard time.
I also like the fundraising idea and agree with AK, that it needs to be limited (probably with a total limit as well). Beside new options for cheating, providing too much cash for restricted markets doesn’t really drive good competition, as cash is for some people not the bottle-neck. So the amount needs some limit.
There are restricted markets where I would invest AS$ with even a zero interest rate just for strategic reasons. And I really don’t want to have that new strategic dimension used by me or any other.
So coming back to the initial idea, a limited start-up loan would be a nice feature. First, to provide another investment dimension, second, to reduce later stage market entrance barriers and third, investors would be encouraged to provide some guidance to newbies.
This isn’t true, just look on US Star and Alti Aviation on Fornebu, they both started in crowded markets and became huge, all with 10 million AS$. There are always opportunities and possibilities to start on old server and you can even start in popular countries but you must have patience of years to grow into something big. Of course if you want to become big in 3 months, than your only chance is a new server. But I find older severs more relaxing with less rush.
It would not be possible to open server for fewer players because server resources required would ultimately be same as for a server with 1200 players, because with time the demand would be filled by smaller number of players and its demand calculations of ORS that take up server resources, not the number of players. That’s why it was said that running e.g. private sever for just few players would en very expensive because it would require same resources as a full fledged server. (I fully expect rpandugita to step in and say that an imposter does not know what he is talking about and it isn’t that way because it is not a statement from AS.)
What I could imagine are smaller regional severs e.g. Europe server, North America Server, Asia server etc. Demand and calculations on those would be limited to the region only.
If you have a good business model you will go far and push out the big boys out of your town. This is completely unfair as on every server I can promise you there are atleast 60 6< bar airports.
AS is for all to try but not all can master it.
Also think of it a start up in the real world would most likely start whit only 1 prop. Or like Virgin Atlantic an old 747, which would equal less then 10 million As$.
Totally don't agree.... i'm not a very experienced player but e.g. starting small with 1 A321, 2 Embrear 195 and 190. Starting in Brussels. Gameworld Gatow. All my flights have a very good ORS rating.
Still only the 3th or 4th flight for most of the destinations. I choose Brussels because not to crowded. But still being overclassed by other big carriers on their flight to brussels....
You are mentioning to have patience... all previous attempts I show patience but I lose too much money and end-up with all leased aircrafts hand-over again to the lessor...
Furthermore, have a bit respect for other people... "AS is for all to try but not all can master it."...
Furthermore, have a bit respect for other people... "AS is for all to try but not all can master it."...
But it's meerely the truth? It's just like soccer. It's for all, but not everyone is Ronaldo.
I have been invited to play basketball, a lot of times. And I suck at it. But it’s for everone. And I do not master it.
But if you need any help, just let people know. We are some people around, who are happy to help!
(I just took a look at your airline, and I’m wondering wether you have spent some time, reading in the forums? Because your airline really do need some big changes, in order to work )
Totally don't agree.... i'm not a very experienced player but e.g. starting small with 1 A321, 2 Embrear 195 and 190. Starting in Brussels. Gameworld Gatow. All my flights have a very good ORS rating.
Still only the 3th or 4th flight for most of the destinations. I choose Brussels because not to crowded. But still being overclassed by other big carriers on their flight to brussels…
You are mentioning to have patience… all previous attempts I show patience but I lose too much money and end-up with all leased aircrafts hand-over again to the lessor…
Furthermore, have a bit respect for other people… “AS is for all to try but not all can master it.”…
Starting whit an A321 is just stupid. I can mentor you when I come home (2 weeks).
I think another issue, apart from money, is the slot availablility. If one looks at LHR, CDG, JFK, DXB or any other mega airports in established servers, there are often less than 20 slot pairs per day that is open to the newbies. It is almost impossible for newbies to fly there because the slots have all been taken up by the big players.
Therefore I would like to propose a system for which slots are generated randomly at random times, on top of the current fixed number of slots that will always be available. The number of slots generated in this system has to be limited (and relative to the current fixed number of slots) and once they are unused for certain short period of time after being picked up, or that it was not used at all for a long period of time, they will be recycled to another timeslot, so that there are opportunities for newbies to start flying there without benefiting the big players too much
(of course, if they are patient enough and keep looking for slots they will find it, but its time-consuming and managing a big airline is in itself already time-consuming, so the system would therefore be inclined towards the small players)
I could imagine some kind of remedy slots for new players at large airports but that most likely would be too time consuming to program, with little overall game benefit. Something along the "immediate aircraft delivery" lines. Those aircraft are not available to market if the airline is deleted, and remedy slots could function in the same way. They would be given to a new airline not flying to a certain city X, but they would be virtual slots, gone after the airline is deleted. For example, if an airport has less than 5% of slots available, a new airline could get 4 remedy slot pairs at that airport besides the available slots. Any regular slot used by the airline would limit the number of remedy slots available, so the airline would first need to use remedy slots before using generally available slot pairs. This would allow an airline to create 4 hub waves (thus 4 remedy slot pairs) to any major airport, even from a smaller 5, 6 or 7 bar airport. Also to prevent further remedy slot abuse, if an airline uses remedy slots but then it gets 6 or more regular slot pairs, it would need to forfeit the remedy slot pairs. In order words, an airline cannot use more than 10 slot pairs at an airport X (70 weekly departures) if it uses remedy slots at that airport, and if it wants to have more departures and use more regular slots, it needs to give up remedy slots. Remedy slots could partially help start up players on highly saturated markets, because they would be able to create perfect hub waves from their main airport (which is supposed to have many free slots) even if the major airports are out of slots (or out of slots at times that would make best fit for new player's wave system).
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