I am going to post a draft here about the design of the upcoming airport lounges and expansion projects to gather inputs and ideas,
keep in mind that these are only "drafts" and suggestions are welcome as always!
Airport lounges:
Goals:
1. Provide airlines a strategic option that is unique to existing game mechanics, it should NOT be something that gives similar impact as other existing options such as service investment/service quality etc
2. It should be restrictive in a sense to stimulate "competition" with other rival airlines and collaboration among alliance airlines. Yet it should not be overly restrictive that only benefits established airlines
3. It should NOT adversely impact the existing demand - ie, most airlines should NOT see a big drop of passengers once this is released - it might see "some" impact if rival airlines builds high grade airport lounges though
Design:
1. Airline can only build lounge in an airport when:
1. The airline has a base/HQ in an airport with base size 4 - Lounge Lvl 1, size 6 - Lounge Lvl 2 and size 8 - Lounge Lvl 3
2. The airline has to be the top "N" airline in passenger volume of that airport - which N is the airport scale - 4. Ie if it's a scale 5 airport, only the 1st top airline can build Lounge there. For a scale 9 airport - top 5
airlines. If the airline falls out of the top "N" after building the lounge. The lounge will not be bulldozed, however, it will no longer have any effect (nor incur any costs) until the airline re-acquires the top N spot
3. Lounges have a fixed construction cost based on scale, the maintenance cost is based on the Lounge level and airport country income + volume of business and first class passengers (including alliance members) * a flat rate
4. Alliance members share lounges. However, when using a lounge that is not owned by current airline (ie owned by other alliance member), the airline would need to pay extra money per passenger to the other alliance member that operates the lounge. This rate will be slightly higher than the flat rate in point 3. Which means a really popular lounge can actually create some profit.
5. Existing group of business and first class passengers would have a rather randomized preference of the importance of lounge service (ie it will have varying effect to the "perceived price".
6. New group of business and first class passengers (extra passengers for those classes) will be introduced. This new group will ONLY pick an airline with lounge service for ALL airports along their route
Now onto Airport expansion
Goals:
1. Airport expansion should be one of the "ultimate" project (hence pricey)
2. Airport expansion should require involvement of multiple airlines beyond certain scale threshold
3. Airlines that contribute to the airport expansion will be provided with some permanent slots
4. Airport expansion affects the "population radius" of an airport. Hence it will see more population coverage after the expansion, other close by airport will see a drop in population coverage
Design:
1. Have not decided on pricing yet. But the expansion cost is going to be exponential to the current scale and cap at scale 10. It should be relatively cheaper if the airport is close to fully utilized (so the city will probably be more willing to fund more of it - will probably show a % of how much the city willing to pay for the upgrade)
2. Airport expansion would require N airlines to participate before it can start. For airport scale >= 4 : N = current airport scale - 2 ; otherwise N = 1
3. Any airline might "initiate" the airline expansion proposal if it's not already initiated. Other airlines can participate in the project after it's initiated. Once the amount of participants have reached. The airport expansion will start. If after a LONG time - maybe ingame 20 years - that's around 10 days real time, the project still have not gathered enough support, half of the money will be returned to all the participants. This is to prevent some super rich airline from participating in all airports
4. Airport expansion would require some time to finish - the duration is also likely relate to the scale
5. The construction cost is evenly split among the participating airline and must be fully paid when an airline decide to initiate/participate in the project
6. Airline that participates in the expansion will receive 10 extra permanent slots from that airport once the upgrade is finished
kekeke. Just some really quick ideas that, could definitely use more brains here
Development is still kinda slow lately as I have been quite tired (probably too many activities and traveling in the last few months). Hopefully I can get back on track in Nov/Dec - I do have some paid vacation days that i need to burn before year-end so I might spend some of them coding
Thanks for your support again!