Visual Entertainment and Technologies Forum

(01-09-2014, 07:31 PM)geozero Wrote: [ -> ]Anyone ever play AIR BUCKS? Now THAT was a really good sim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Bucks

Others have tried to copy, the Airline Tycoon series dumbed it down.

Go check it out.

Thanks, I will se if I can try it

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Ah, ok, yes, I tried it, now I remember

It was surely a good game, but I find it a pretty too difficult

However, it can give plenty of ideas!

To me AIRBUCKS and AIRBUCKS 2was everything an airline sim should be. It allowed buying real aircraft, re-designing seat configurations (first class, coach, cargo, etc), ticket pricing, destinations, etc.

Every other sim that has followed has really screwed this up one way or another... either too monotonous and cartoony or simply way to complicated where it becomes looking like charts and graphs rather than a game.

Just my 2 cents...

(01-10-2014, 02:49 PM)geozero Wrote: [ -> ]To me AIRBUCKS and AIRBUCKS 2was everything an airline sim should be. It allowed buying real aircraft, re-designing seat configurations (first class, coach, cargo, etc), ticket pricing, destinations, etc.

Every other sim that has followed has really screwed this up one way or another... either too monotonous and cartoony or simply way to complicated where it becomes looking like charts and graphs rather than a game.

Just my 2 cents...

Check out airwaysim if you're into that. (Although they're a little charty)

Aeromogul will probably have real aircraft buying (name changes of course), sea configurations, ticket prices, etc.

The one thing we will not have is time scheduling. Most likely we'll have "day and night" routes per plane. Of course this is not set in stone yet, so might be something ya'll would want to discuss.

(01-10-2014, 02:54 PM)Eric.B Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-10-2014, 02:49 PM)geozero Wrote: [ -> ]To me AIRBUCKS and AIRBUCKS 2was everything an airline sim should be. It allowed buying real aircraft, re-designing seat configurations (first class, coach, cargo, etc), ticket pricing, destinations, etc.

Every other sim that has followed has really screwed this up one way or another... either too monotonous and cartoony or simply way to complicated where it becomes looking like charts and graphs rather than a game.

Just my 2 cents...

Check out airwaysim if you're into that. (Although they're a little charty)

Aeromogul will probably have real aircraft buying (name changes of course), sea configurations, ticket prices, etc.

The one thing we will not have is time scheduling. Most likely we'll have "day and night" routes per plane. Of course this is not set in stone yet, so might be something ya'll would want to discuss.

Scheduling is always tricky and I am sure a coding mess... sometimes it can be done right though.

One area seldom considered or done right (perhaps too complex code wise) is connecting flights. I think it would be easier to look at it this way:

1) determine if this is a direct non-stop flight or how many stops along the way.
2) determine how many flights per day given the distances between stops roundtrip, etc. and how many flight hours in a day, adding for occasional breakdowns, maintenance, etc.
3) if the flight has one or more stops will that stop be a connecting flight for another flight.... ex: Flight 001 from Los Angeles to New York with a stop in Dallas. Flight 002 from Denver to New York with a stop in Dallas... will these two flights be connecting flights? the final flight (#003 could be the one from Dallas to New York allowing the first two flights to go back to L.A. and Denver respectively OR either flight 001 or 002 is the one that continues to New York.

Once you have your head wrapped around that then you can go deeper into time schedules, even in increments of 30 minutes for example.

One area that always fascinated me was re-doing the seat configurations... my neighbor is an American Airlines pilot and he had mentioned that they had changed seating configurations on 737 jets to allow "more leg room"... that was the public marketing campaign. What really happened according to him was that the airline was short on flight attendants and wanted to save money as well, so the FAA has a flight attendant per seat ratio that has to be met. By eliminating a certain number of seats they could get rid of 1 person per flight... preeeeeetty sneaky.

Anyway, another tidbit to consider if you go down that route...

(01-10-2014, 05:25 PM)geozero Wrote: [ -> ]One area seldom considered or done right (perhaps too complex code wise) is connecting flights. I think it would be easier to look at it this way:

1) determine if this is a direct non-stop flight or how many stops along the way.
2) determine how many flights per day given the distances between stops roundtrip, etc. and how many flight hours in a day, adding for occasional breakdowns, maintenance, etc.
3) if the flight has one or more stops will that stop be a connecting flight for another flight.... ex: Flight 001 from Los Angeles to New York with a stop in Dallas. Flight 002 from Denver to New York with a stop in Dallas... will these two flights be connecting flights? the final flight (#003 could be the one from Dallas to New York allowing the first two flights to go back to L.A. and Denver respectively OR either flight 001 or 002 is the one that continues to New York.

Once you have your head wrapped around that then you can go deeper into time schedules, even in increments of 30 minutes for example.

I think there are a number of Bus/public transport games that simulate connecting services without requiring any extra input from the player.
Most of the ones ive played just let you set up routes and without your input let the actual people taking the services take connecting services if they want to get somewhere.

A recent example of this is Cities in Motion 2 (which ill just point out has the type of scheduling that i cant say i enjoy)
In this game the passengers will just take whatever service will get them closest to their destination. So for example they may board a bus, get off the bus and walk to a close train station, take a train then switch to a tram to get to their workplace.

I like this because it doesn't require extra input from the player. As long as your network reaches the location, its covered. (Though the passengers will obviously complain if it takes too long or is too expensive.)

My idea would be this:

Plane has 12 hours night flying, 12 hours day flying.
You assign a plane to a route, say MIA to LAX, that takes up 8 Hours (Flight Time, Turn Over time, etc)
That plane has 5 Hours of free time in day, you could say assign it to MIA to JFK (4 Hours) your day slots are now filled
You could then fill the plane with Night Slots, JFK to CDG ( ~12 hours) Probably could allow overlap as well. In which case this route wouldn't work, but that's the idea.


Customers will auto connect flights, If it wants to go LAX-CDG It'll buy a ticket for LAX-MIA, MIA-JFK, JFK-CDG. You'll be able to set discounts per leg.
It's just like a chess move search. However I might have to limit the depth at which it'll search (two or three legs at most)

There are of course some red eye flights.

In your example of MIA-LAX the flight is about 5 hours. I would say the downtime is about 30-45 minutes at LAX and you can get the plane back to MIA.

The trick is what time you want the flight to leave the first city. If you assign a flight at 9am you may have missed the business rush. As a business flyer I need to get out at 6:30am or 7am to make a meeting, etc. At the same time, I want to head back around 2-3pm, and not 5-6pm.

If in the game you have a flight that leaves at noon from MIA-LAX, it could in theory make it back to Miami at Midnight or 1am. Not sure how many passengers would fly.

Lastly, your ticket prices have to reflect peak times as they do in real life. I think the easiest way is to have player set a price (MIA-LAX $400) and then the AI makes subtle changes based on demand, your flight schedule takeoff time, etc. You would also need to account for travel agent discounts, and in later years internet discounts.

---

Auto connect would work IF there is a flight at the hub destination at a particular time...

DEN - MIA #1

LAX - MIA #2

Two flights heading for Miami. They both land in Dallas.

There's a DFW - LGA flight #3. It leaves at 10am.

That means #3 is leaving at a non-peak operating time, so less Dallas to New York passengers. BUT, it may be picking up some passengers from the Flights #1 and #2 that are connecting there to New York.

Flights #1 and #2 would need to leave early in order to be in DF by at least 9:30. It is a 3-3.5 hour flight from LAX. Which means you have to have Flight #2 depart at 6am or 6:30am... great for business travelers but not likely the same as a peak time of 8-10am.

For Flight #1 it would need to leave around 7-7:30am to make the connecting flight.

In an automated world, IF your passengers don't get there they have to camp overnight for tomorrow's flight. Not good PR.

This is where an airline sim will differ from Cities in Motion 2 (I play that too ) because that game is made up of a smaller scale area with lots and lots of travel patterns including just walking... trams, trains and buses. These options would not be available in an airline sim. You only have whatever planes and flights so have.

My only suggestion would be to have a wide and yet specific selection when it comes to the types of flights you are doing:

For instance, yes, you can have a simple Passenger/Cargo delineation, and I think that's great for the high level "What sort of airline do you want to make?" question, but when you get down to it, I'd love if there were different types of cargo/passengers you could further refine's mission/purpose.

I'd love if, when it comes to cargo you had:

Bulk Freight (shipping crates of merchandise)
Heavy Freight (Industrial materials, like cars, machinery, things of that nature)
Agricultural Goods/Foodstuffs
Mail
Special (Unique one-off type contracts that might come up if you have a sufficient reputation in this aspect)

And for passengers:
Tourism Charters (Air tours and that sort of thing)
Business/Executive Charters
Regular Passenger Services

=
Aside from that, the option to commission aircraft or otherwise influence the design by lobbying the firms that build them to make planes that better fit your needs. Either through the ability to tweak designs that you order (exchanging engines, adjusting the ratio of seats to cargo, special requests for certain cockpit features, things of that nature).

Maybe even let us play as an airplane manufacturer, creating our own designs in a manner similar to what you've done with GearCity as a complimentary mode for the airlines. And if you're being very daring, maybe even branch out ot create a subsidiary airline as that manufacturer that flies your planes exclusively... Or buy out a manufacturer as an airline in order to ensure you get exactly the designs you desire. I know that's a long shot, but that would definitely be part of the ultimate view of things, if you ask me.

Air bucks is quite realistic, but quite resource demanding if you ask me.
_____________________________________
Alexandra from Cargolution rates

Eric.B dateline='[url=tel:1389455321' Wrote: [ -> ]1389455321[/url]']
My idea would be this:

Plane has 12 hours night flying, 12 hours day flying.
You assign a plane to a route, say MIA to LAX, that takes up 8 Hours (Flight Time, Turn Over time, etc)
That plane has 5 Hours of free time in day, you could say assign it to MIA to JFK (4 Hours) your day slots are now filled
You could then fill the plane with Night Slots, JFK to CDG ( ~12 hours) Probably could allow overlap as well. In which case this route wouldn't work, but that's the idea.


Customers will auto connect flights, If it wants to go LAX-CDG It'll buy a ticket for LAX-MIA, MIA-JFK, JFK-CDG. You'll be able to set discounts per leg.
It's just like a chess move search. However I might have to limit the depth at which it'll search (two or three legs at most)

Hi Eric,

i have a lot of experience in playing transport- and flightsims and want to Share my 2 Cents.

• Hour-Based scheduling make no Sense because ist’s to time consuming and a Problem if you change Aircraft with Differenz speeds and so on
  
• You Need a Type of scheduling to differ the airlinemodells lowcost/Touristic (fly from 6 to 00:30 as much legs as possible) and the Classic Network Airlines (mostly hubwaves with rebooking to different Connections if some leg is fully Booked)
  
• You Need (only for Network airlines) a Solution to priorise bookings of the Connection flights from Long haul and Short haul to avoid that somebody Can‘t book Long haul because the Short haul flight is full.
  

I Can Imagine following solutions for the scheduleing:

• No time scheduling, But a toggle for every Route with direct and Network. Direct will be for the lowcost Model. Network will allow to Setup clock-times when your Waves Starts at an specific Airport to allow Transfer passender. The Game will shedule the flights automatic to this Waves. If Not possible -> error Message.
  
• Or easier: no scheduleing, you can enter for Exempel 14 flights/week for a route. The Game will plan the flights to every Morning/Evening and have to simulate the passender Transfer…
  

This Part is for me one of the Most Important Parts of the Game and the Solution Must allow to run lowcost,Touristik,Network and regional Airlines in a Balanced and understandable way.

As Addition it world be Good to simulate different passender Types (Tourist, Business) and find a way to handle flight cancellations because Problems with the Plane and wether. As Addition Short-/longterm Leasing will be cool.. For broken Planes or busy summertimes…

(05-26-2023, 11:33 AM)wasgehtdichdasan Wrote: [ -> ]

Eric.B dateline='[url=tel:1389455321' Wrote: [ -> ]1389455321[/url]']
My idea would be this:

Plane has 12 hours night flying, 12 hours day flying.
You assign a plane to a route, say MIA to LAX, that takes up 8 Hours (Flight Time, Turn Over time, etc)
That plane has 5 Hours of free time in day, you could say assign it to MIA to JFK (4 Hours) your day slots are now filled
You could then fill the plane with Night Slots, JFK to CDG ( ~12 hours) Probably could allow overlap as well. In which case this route wouldn't work, but that's the idea.


Customers will auto connect flights, If it wants to go LAX-CDG It'll buy a ticket for LAX-MIA, MIA-JFK, JFK-CDG. You'll be able to set discounts per leg.
It's just like a chess move search. However I might have to limit the depth at which it'll search (two or three legs at most)

Hi Eric,

i have a lot of experience in playing transport- and flightsims and want to Share my 2 Cents.

• Hour-Based scheduling make no Sense because ist’s to time consuming and a Problem if you change Aircraft with Differenz speeds and so on
  
• You Need a Type of scheduling to differ the airlinemodells lowcost/Touristic (fly from 6 to 00:30 as much legs as possible) and the Classic Network Airlines (mostly hubwaves with rebooking to different Connections if some leg is fully Booked)
  
• You Need (only for Network airlines) a Solution to priorise bookings of the Connection flights from Long haul and Short haul to avoid that somebody Can‘t book Long haul because the Short haul flight is full.
  

I Can Imagine following solutions for the scheduleing:

• No time scheduling, But a toggle for every Route with direct and Network. Direct will be for the lowcost Model. Network will allow to Setup clock-times when your Waves Starts at an specific Airport to allow Transfer passender. The Game will shedule the flights automatic to this Waves. If Not possible -> error Message.
  
• Or easier: no scheduleing, you can enter for Exempel 14 flights/week for a route. The Game will plan the flights to every Morning/Evening and have to simulate the passender Transfer…
  

There are three scheduling systems depending on what the player wants to use. We have the traditional flight scheduling system found in AirwaySim and other games where you schedule everything in 5-minute intervals via a time chart. There is also a very simplistic system similar to AeroBiz, where the player assigns an airplane to a single route. In between these two is the aforementioned allotted time system.

You are free to select which type of scheduling system you want to use at the start of the game.

Both AeroBiz and the Allotted Time system are unrealistic. I am designing them to cater to more casual gameplay and not hardcore/realism. The Allotted Time system would fix issues with the AeroBiz system where you can't use short-haul aircraft in multiple routes. It's designed to be a gateway between a very simplistic system and Time Charts.

So for all of your concerns, forget the Allotted Time and the AeroBiz style systems. Those are not for you. You're likely to be using the Time Chart system.

Quote:This Part is for me one of the Most Important Parts of the Game and the Solution Must allow to run lowcost,Touristik,Network and regional Airlines in a Balanced and understandable way.

This is a major goal of the game, and I believe I solved it with how I designed the passenger systems. Testing will tell, however.

Quote:As Addition it world be Good to simulate different passender Types (Tourist, Business) and find a way to handle flight cancellations because Problems with the Plane and wether. As Addition Short-/longterm Leasing will be cool.. For broken Planes or busy summertimes…

Already planned and partly implemented.


Also, note this thread is 9 years old. So I would take everything written here with a grain of salt. A lot has changed since this thread was made. For instance, I have a 40-page design doc now and a good chunk of code written. I didn't have anything back then.

Thank you for your Details reply. What I forgot - we Need a Type of Publicity Transport or area-based demand. For Example - Stockholm is having 3 Airports or for example Malmö and Copenhagen… People from all three Airports should be able to select the best suitable Connection for Start/ending their journey. And normaly it makes More Sense to select arlanda to Travel to us insteed take a connecting flight from bromma.

btw. People from southern sweden are often faster at copenhagen Airport as Malmö Airport due better public transport…

(05-28-2023, 03:33 PM)wasgehtdichdasan Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you for your Details reply. What I forgot - we Need a Type of Publicity Transport or area-based demand. For Example - Stockholm is having 3 Airports or for example Malmö and Copenhagen… People from all three Airports should be able to select the best suitable Connection for Start/ending their journey. And normaly it makes More Sense to select arlanda to Travel to us insteed take a connecting flight from bromma.

btw. People from southern sweden are often faster at copenhagen Airport as Malmö Airport due better public transport…

Please refer to the first paragraph in latest AeroMogul update thread instead of this general public thread. https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4424

I am not at liberty to talk about the game design specifics in a public thread, but since you are an FBS contributor, you have access to post in the private threads.

Suffice to say, the core of the game is already designed and most of it already implemented. The design document for the implemented features are pretty sufficient. There isn't going to be much deviation from it.

Hi Eric, this thread is called suggestions and i believe its More suitable. Maybe you can check the structures die i didn‘t figured out what you will Tell me in the First paragraph
Have a nice day!

(05-29-2023, 04:55 AM)wasgehtdichdasan Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Eric, this thread is called suggestions and i believe its More suitable. Maybe you can check the structures die i didn‘t figured out what you will Tell me in the First paragraph
Have a nice day!

To be more exact, paragraph 2 and paragraph 4. Read it carefully because it says more than what appears on the surface.

It's fine to make suggestions here. But note, I am not disclosing many details about the game's design in public since there are MANY competitors to this game. Two of which I know lurk here but haven't paid for FBS. If you want detailed answers, ask questions in more private channels. And with this particular topic, the linked update is probably the best place.


But of course, if you're only making suggestions, not asking questions. I can only say I have already considered, implemented, or have something similar in the design docs for most suggestions. I can only disclose the latter two more privately.