Airline Club

Hi MikeW

Great questions, but hang in there - the challenges of the game grow exponentially with the size of your airline (ie is harder for large airlines).

I *strongly* recommend reading the FAQ carefully if you haven't already, there's a lot to think about. Meanwhile, my amateur answers to your queries would be -

1. Players are limited to number of routes they can operate, and the way it works, for large airlines these have to be mostly high capacity routes. There are truckloads of highly profitable routes (as a % of revenue) out there that have low competition. Also note, smaller 'market share' of any route means you can raise prices (well it works that way for me).

2. The stated interest is misleading - it's a total of 35% over the entire loan term, and actually works out to around 10-12%pa for the 5 year loan. If you know your way around Excel you could figure out the IRR but i think the 5 year loans are the way to go. (work it out from the $ repayments, not the stated interest rates).

3. Reputation and service funding take a while to get used to... but strangely these are also the reason new airlines can quickly get a foothold in the game (larger airlines simply cannot afford high service levels). Read the forum posts, especially in alliance boards, where there are lots of great tips (as well as FAQ). At most basic level:
+ make every route a 5 star route
+ set your autoreplace on planes to at least 50% (airline maintenance quality greatly impacts service, and thus reputation)

4. Start out with low level bases, and don't grow them until you run out of routes at that airport (at least initially). Check route profitability/ competition before setting up the route - it costs a lot to set up at major airports. I wouldn't even worry about lounges until you get larger airlines, but i'm not 100% sure. Lounges only make money from business/first class PX. Lounges are very new to this game, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were more developments in that area over next few months.

Use your smallest planes to start new routes as you expand, but eventually, gradually, sell the old small planes off as you upsize your fleet. New routes to new cities will have very few slots, so small planes help keep costs down while you grow reputation.

The basic growth process is -
- set up profitable routes, grow rep - make sure NET INCOME is positive (not just cashflow) in general
- build and upgrade bases *strategically* (i have demolished a dozen bases rethinking my strategy at different stages)
- more passengers to countries -> higher rep -> can build more bases -> more planes

It's often said in this game, it starts out being about money, but very quickly becomes all about reputation.  But you do need a 'cash buffer' to cover renewals. If your current game is beyond redemption, don't worry, you keep your reputation if you 'reset' (bankruptcy). Start again with another 50m...

Good luck
Catweazle (AAA Airlines)

Edit: elucidating.

Sorry to be a nay-sayer but i really think the space game is a ... different game.

My suggestions for late game -

1. Random 'events' for example:
- crashes / near misses (higher probability for low serviced planes, but random element eg ATC cause)
- economic boom / bust in different geographical regions
- governmental interference - local taxes, political
- hijackers
Random events are more likely to impact high profile players - but keep it challenging for them

2. advertising / marketing / promotions / frequent flyer points functionality
- the right mix of price, service, reputation, targeted advertising, and a great points program = success
- holiday packaging - invest in resorts/hotels at airport bases
- give away points to temporarily boost passenger numbers

3. Deeper political / economic system -
- government funding system for new "national" airlines (ie where first based)
- Economic cycles especially impacting FUEL prices
- a generally growing economy with rare horrific crashes will mix it up

Probably should have put this in ideas... oh well it's late.

Honestly the only interesting one on the list for me is stockmarket - but i'd much rather there was more work on the "scale-able" championship points, and adding more links between existing functions (eg when viewing airport, show a clickable list of all your routes from your base there).

The stockmarket will be diabolical if executed badly, has potential to inject huge amount of cash. How would takeovers work?

One of the main things i like about the game is it can survive a few days with minimal maintenance. It's actually an excellent and elegant 'airline management tycoon' game. Would it be possible to have a 'beta test environment' before introducing major changes to live system for next major release?

All good and thanks!

Announcing new alliance "AAA Global". Not particularly imaginative, but somewhat memorable.

Aiming for healthy connected airlines, a bit of fun and truly global coverage.

Open to ideas and adjustments, eg experimenting with hub planning and alliance-set service levels.

Thank you all.

Firstly, from a relative newbie here: What a great game - thank you to Patson.

My suggestion is about improving bonus mechanics. The challenge (as i see it) is to build a scalable "champion levels" system for a growing player base. Maybe this has been suggested elsewhere; apologies i haven't read the entire board at this time.

My theory is the gap between champion points needs to be more gradual, and there should be more champions in intense markets, to incentivise new market entrants, with a *relatively* significant number of competitors getting at least some points. This will help new players trying to crack that 50 point reputation level, while slowing down exponential growth for successful airlines. 

The champion tiers have been expanded recently, but the (5) tiers represent a high barrier for new players to win points, particularly in developed markets.

The solution: *Scalable Champion Points* mechanics - for champion points, levels and award.

The detail - (stay with me here)

Start with a pool of X champion points (CP from here on) for the whole world. Potentially X can be scaled up for player numbers later.

Each country could have a share of these CP based on -
- a basic minimum CP (similar to current setup, with 3 points)
- remaining CP pool is divided pro-rata between each country based on airports and passenger miles flown to/from the country

This will give each country a base local CP pool, with extra CP weighted by actual air activity. Also, as competitors focus on different markets it will automatically adjust the weighting of CP allocated to any one local market.

This local CP pool is then the basis determining how many champion levels there should be -
- always a base number of levels eg 3 (as is now, as incentive)
- from there, additional bonus levels equal a percentage (eg 50%) of the number of competitors

Example: if Portugal has 28 competitors, at 50% there will be 14 who get a tier of champion points.
This mechanic allows for adjustment - if everyone is saying it's too easy to get points, change it to 30% etc.

CP can then be allocated according to 'above average' airline service to the country -
1. identify the champion airlines per above
2. calculate 'service bonus' of each - eg [XYZ airline's passengers in this country] less [average airline passengers in this country]
3. Total the service bonuses, and pro rata the CP to each champion accordingly.

This model will cause points to be distributed across more airlines, but still award proportionately more points to superior airlines in highly competitive markets. Conversely, this has nothing to do with the long term profitability of those flights... Airlines will still have to balance the benefit of the CP against the opportunity cost of sub-optimal flight plans. It's a bit harder to do an example but i could mock one up in a pinch.

BENEFITS OF THIS APPROACH
- total points can be modified/scaled with number of players
- countries with more activity will have somewhat proportionately more CP to award
- countries with many airlines will share points with more of those airlines
- countries with lower activity will still get a base minimum points and champions
- every aspect is 'tweakable' allowing for fine-tuning depending on the airline economy
- no maximum is necssary as increasing champion numbers will act slow potential new entrants

That will do for now. I am very interested in your feedback.

Catweazle

All good and thanks again. Growing is a good problem to have.