Tech Demonstrator - Lounges, Expanded Fare Class, ASRouteMap

English Boards Suggestions and Ideas
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Hi All -

I just wanted to throw in my two-cents with some thoughts on what I would like to see eventually incorporated into the next iteration of AirlineSim:

Expanded Fare Classes
I know this has been talked about before, but I just wanted to add that I think an expansion of fare classes is definitely something that should be considered, although I am not sure having the entire pool of IATA fare class codes is really all that necessary. Personally, I would like to see the following codes made available:

A: Premium First Class
F: First Class
G: Premium Business Class
C: Business Class
W: Premium Economy Class
Y: Economy Class
X: Basic Economy Class

Of course, demand for premium fare classes should likely be higher on longer routes as opposed to short-haul, meaning it wouldn’t make much sense to have an CRJ900 configured to have an A,G,W cabin as no one would likely pay for a ticket priced like that in real life. I also think it should be permitted to allow users to install as many of the seven cabins as they wish - although most probably wouldn’t just as most of us don’t mess with first class cabins for the majority of our routes now.

Lounges:
I would like to see the option to build passenger lounges at airports. The idea behind this is to improve image with and attract more customers. The upfront cost should be large enough to prevent larger users from placing a lounge at every airport, yet low enough that developing airlines could take advantage of the benefit. A couple of considerations here:
*Add the ability to restrict airline lounges to individual fare classes. For example, by allowing passengers of all fare classes access to the lounge, traffic at the lounge increases and passenger satisfaction drops. Restricting the lounge to A and F fare codes decreases traffic and increases passenger satisfaction, but the image benefit only applies to the passengers permitted to use it.
*Add the ability to customize lounges, offering things like Bathrooms: public, private, basic showers, luxury showers; Dining: vending machines, cold food options, hot buffet, full-service restaurant; Seating: benches, chairs, recliners, chaise lounges; Private Rooms: none, small sitting room, medium office, large suite. Basically, mirror the way we can currently customize onboard service and apply that to customizing airport lounges. Finally, there should be an option to charge individual passengers to use the facility. This should range from $0, where the airline would cover costs of the lounge from passenger fares, all the way up to a price high enough to discourage even the spendiest first-class passengers from visiting.

To me, it makes more sense to offer the ability to create lounges rather than the existing terminal option.

AS Route Map
Lastly, I think the AS Route Map tool should be reprogrammed as a built-in feature of AirlineSim. As most of us know, the tool as it exists today is at risk of going offline as a result of classic asp loosing support from webhosts, even if nothing were to change on the AS side. As an asp.net programmer myself, I understand the huge undertaking it would be to convert the tool as it is now to something as foreign (to me) as PHP. I would only have to assume that the next version of AS will not be compatible with the tool given the many changes coming, so the end of ASRouteMap is seemingly fast approaching.

For me, ASRouteMap is a critical tool for my enjoyment of the game, and should it end up becoming unavailable, I question how much I would really want to return to the game and continue, especially in a long term world. There are a handful of enhancements that could me made to that particular tool on its own to make it better, and that would be a discussion for another day - but in the end ASRouteMap does so much that is not available within AS itself that I really don’t see myself enjoying the game without it being available.

I just wanted to get my ideas out there and possibly get some discussion going about what everyone would like to see going forward.

Thanks!

4 Likes
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Thanks a lot for your input! I am going to keep my response short since I am not supposed to be in the office :smiley:

Re fare classes: The ASTD will definitely expand the currently available service classes to (at least) add Premium Economy. But that’s just the service classes…you will be able to create and configure up to 26 booking classes as you see fit, including how they are allocated to physical cabins. @Counterpoint can make sure we have the “desire for better service on longer routes” covered somewhere in the specs…either directly or indirectly :wink:

Re lounges: While almost certainly not part of the initial ASTD prototype, they are definitely something on the agenda for later. Whether it will be something akin to the almost “mini game” you described remains to be seen :slight_smile:

Re route map: The next generation of AS will almost certainly have a much better and much more powerful map integration the the current one. Which isn’t hard of course…but you are completely right in your assessment that it is a crucial thing for AS to have.

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Can I point something out as well that id like to have changed

I hate the terminals that you can build, its not realistic to see heathrow with 74 terminal buildings on old game worlds

Can we change terminal name to simply say “lounge space” and you can pay for better lounges at airports and keep the system similar to what it is with terminals

I think that would make a huge difference to the realism

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They way I look at it is while LHR might be on Terminal #74 there are probably at most 8 terminals currently open. So I think of it as they were torn down and rebuilt. Still I would love to see the ability for airlines to go in together on terminals do joint use and joint payment.

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Building terminals is definitely on the “tertiary features list”, at best. With the ASTD and beyond, we really want to focus on the airline aspect of the simulation. Player-owned terminals really neither bring all that much to the game (beyond some late-game content for large players) nor are they all that common in reality (I can really only think of Terminal 2 in Munich, 50% of which is owned by Lufthansa).

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That makes more sense, thank you

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Thanks for the insight.

Additionally, I’d like to see the following as well:

Two-Week Scheduling: to allow for routes where you cannot make 7 round trips with maintenance windows in a weeks time. It would be nice to have an option to set a schedule for even and odd game weeks, perhaps with a toggle that would allow users to enter into a two week scheduler from a default single week scheduler (as this would be most common).

Ability to move money between subsidiaries: This would avoid the unrealistic hassle of buying an aircraft only to transfer it and sell it for cash. Could set a transfer tax on any funds sent between subsidiaries to keep things challenging.

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Re scheduling: I have a different idea that would solve the issue you described, but don’t want to talk about it until we actually get to the implementation stage and I know whether it’ll work :wink:

Re cash transfers: Again, subsidiaries are almost certainly not going to be part of the TD. How, to what extend and in which development phase they are going to be a thing after the TD remains to be seen.

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As far as subsidiaries go, are they potentially going to be discontinued in the final build or are you saying that it’s simply unnecessary to include in the TD? It seems like it’s not really much of a groundbreaking concept so I could understand why it wouldn’t be included in the early stages.

You have me interested in the new scheduling concept - another game required players to schedule C and D checks, which I admittedly hated. But since you have something new in the works, I just wanted to mention that and leave it for later.

Thanks for the update!

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The latter. Similar to terminals, all the functionality offered by having subsidiaries in the first place falls into the late-game content category. As such, it’s going to be something that gets added once there is enough early- and mid-game content.

It is indeed motivated by C/D checks, among other things. Because that is just how maintenance works in the real world. But as you said yourself, having players schedule those checks by hand quickly becomes tedious. Or more formally: It’s an operational task and we don’t really want to have those in our tactical/strategic simulation. Still…don’t want to talk about the details just yet…too many things still to figure our :smiley:

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Excellent feedback - all points to a promising update. Thanks!

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I guess the biggest difference between AS and real life is that in real life aircraft aren’t assigned aa fixed schedule. The schedule is fixed and aircraft are assigned on a daily basis.
Whilst this would create a huge amount of work for players, I wonder if something along the lines of a function that automatically assigned aircraft to schedules, rather than schedules to aircraft, would be feasible.