Messages

1

General Chat / I think the starter plane was too good

« on: March 03, 2008, 12:49:00 pm »

While I enjoyed the benefits of starting out with a bigger airplane (it was much harder getting things going with that Beech last round), IMO the game has been altered in an un-natural manner by the bigger starter plane.

In particular, whenever accounts are closed, brokers end up with them, which they in turn sell/lease, sometimes on the open market, and sometimes through private transactions.

Airlines that have been lucky enough to pick them up on the cheap have derived considerable benefit at the expense of the rest.

I expect that the advantage associated with this will dissipate as the round progresses, but it has been marked thus far.

My thoughts:

-Beech was too small; something with 30-50 seats would be better
-revise the scrapping system (IMO scrapped planes should simply disappear from the game; if that sounds too drastic, maybe put some measures in place to boost the costs that the brokers have to incur)

2

General Chat / Best 40-60 Seat Aircraft

« on: February 28, 2008, 03:58:01 pm »

F27-600; cost/asm is the second lowest in the game this round.  While the range is a bit on the short side (655), it is good enough to support ~20 planes from 2 bases, which should yield enough DOP to graduate from the 40-60 seat category.

3

General Chat / Route Help

« on: February 19, 2008, 04:31:25 pm »

ok thanks I thought you could only have 2 non whole number routes per airport like if Boston goes to Hartford on a .5 frequency and it goes to fort myers on a 1.5 frequency it COULDNT go to cleveland on a 2.5 frequency

I think you're still not quite getting it.  While what you said (quoted text) is true, most players have multiple aircraft so it is entirely possible --yet against the rules-- to do more than 2 x.5s on BOS-BDL.

edit: fixed a glaring typo for clarity sake.

4

Bugs / Gate Prices

« on: February 16, 2008, 09:49:36 am »

Check out Mashhad (MHD):

250k, but only 3m passengers

5

General Chat / avg profit for a 737

« on: February 13, 2008, 06:16:12 am »

Much depends on: 1) the size of the bases you're departing from; and 2) how saturated your network is.  

Personally, my 2 best bases are maxed out to 737 range, my next 2 have all airports covered within 2000 miles, and my last 2 push out to 1000 miles.  So, my current choices are: 1) 2 routes from a good base at around 100k per route; or 3) 3 routes from a lesser base at ~70k per route.

6

General Chat / Airbus A300B1

« on: February 09, 2008, 04:08:36 pm »

This is the most annoying plane in AM right now.  I deployed my Airbuses between big cities and it was fun seeing competition lower their prices way below optimal price.  However, in routes where I still use a Caravelle, some airliners use an Airbus.  I just realized this plane is so annoying.

This means more Airbus for me!  

One of the nice things about playing in Asia this round has been that the competition, including your airline, has been really kind/light-footed; our numbers are small enough, that we can continue to grow without chewing each other to pieces in the manner that's oft described in this forum.  

I bought 2 A300s, put them on somewhat trivial routes, and subsequently watched those routes turn into dust.  As such, I have no plans on buying any more 300s.  Rather, I'm pushing all 6 of my bases further and further out (in the region) with small planes (in addition to longhual, which is much less time consuming).  

You (and anyone else) can throw 300s at me until the cows come home and I'll adjust without the slightest tinge of anger.  That having been said, I think you'd be better served with smaller/faster planes (because not everyone is as kind as me and there are still lots of green fields out there).

7

General Chat / Largest DOP on a plane

« on: February 06, 2008, 08:07:05 pm »

try buying a tu-144 and flying it out of your best base

8

General Chat / maintenance costs

« on: February 05, 2008, 06:01:49 pm »

55 views so far,... yet no replies,... so I'm going to ask a more targeted follow-up question: Does fleet commonality make a difference?  (If it does, it would explain why the airline that's been chasing me has much lower maintenance costs; nothing about this in the Wiki.)  I would appreciate it if one (or more) of the programmers would comment on this topic.

9

General Chat / maintenance costs

« on: February 04, 2008, 09:39:23 am »

I'd like to know more about how these are caculated and what factors influence them.  I understand that owned gates are subject to maintenance fees (and this a big piece of the pie for me), but I'm interested in slicing away at the rest of that 855 m.   This was not an issue last round (when everyone flew the same plane); this time, it's having a profound effect on the bottom line.

10

Bugs / 747s too slow

« on: January 26, 2008, 08:43:19 pm »

Hi.  I've spent enough time on 747s to know that they cruise much faster than 490-5 mph.  I think the proper figure is closer to 590 iirc.

11

General Chat / For Air moo

« on: January 26, 2008, 01:50:14 am »

Greetings, guys.  An online friend --pseudoswede-- just pointed me to this thread so I'd like to reply.

The reason I first got into 747s was I believed the game would reach a stage (like it did late last round) in which the only way to make money was by flying far.  I also assumed that those big birds would help milk big routes like HND-ORD for all that they are worth.

Both assumptions have turned out to be 100% incorrect.  In fact, my 747s perform so poorly that I'd be better off leasing them and stocking up on Starliners in their place.

All that having been said, I kept ordering 747s (in excess) last week because I was in Hawaii --woo hoo!-- and felt it would be cool to have a bunch to finish out the round (even if I didn't have enough time to edit my routes, much less grow).

Now that I'm back in Beijing, I am excited to get back into the game. I don't plan on ordering any more 747s (there is still a lot of money to be made ex-HND; plus there are much better long range planes out there; the Starliner may well be the very best).

12

Bugs / Re: starliner range is a bit misleading

« on: January 12, 2008, 02:35:29 am »

Hello.  I found out today --through experience-- that the Starliner's true range (within the context of the game) is significantly shorter than the advertised 7194.  Actually, it's a (semi-obvious) feature of the plane's speed, but the farthest it can go in 24 hours is 6776 miles ({24-0.39 turn time}*287).

Hmm... I'll have a word with Balint and see if we can't get an "Effective Range" column in the buy/req pages [which would be the formula as you illustrated].  Maybe someday we can break out of 24 hour caps like real airlines, but unfortunately for now we're kinda stuck with them as we have no real effective manner of otherwise appropriating it by day.

Considering the number of planes affected is most certainly less than 5, I think your idea might fall into the overkill "column".  Perhaps you could simply reset the range on the plane to whatever it actually is in 24 hours (no need to go by my math since you guys know the true numbers).

13

General Chat / someone already have B742

« on: January 11, 2008, 11:50:15 am »

im just going to get a bunch of 732's, then when all the routes are already made i will buy a bunch of 742's.

I bought my first 747 this morning (only a -100; I figure I won't require the extra range immediately) and plan to keep ordering them daily for the forseeable future.  I still have quite a bit of use for 732s, mind you, but, I my DOP is high enough to keep buying those en masse as well.  The way I see it, in a week's time, regional options will be running thin,... and I'll be happy to have the steady pipeline of 747s rolling in.  Sure, planes half the size cost half as much and show up in a mere 3 days, but I have no problem waiting for the real deal.  Only time will tell if the cash outlay kills me in the rankings.

14

Bugs / starliner range is a bit misleading

« on: January 11, 2008, 11:31:59 am »

Hello.  I found out today --through experience-- that the Starliner's true range (within the context of the game) is significantly shorter than the advertised 7194.  Actually, it's a (semi-obvious) feature of the plane's speed, but the farthest it can go in 24 hours is 6776 miles ({24-0.39 turn time}*287).

15

General Chat / Re: DOP

« on: January 08, 2008, 12:10:48 pm »

so, everyone i see has DOP's in the millions, while mine is, (as of now) 140,149, how the crap did you guys do that? i am making routes to major airports like crazy!
http://www.airlinemogul.com/airlinemogul/view_airline.php?id=7566
what am i doing wrong?

I also have a base at FUK and I did last round as well.  While it was crappy early on, I liked it towards the end because it allowed me to fly to Europe without much competition (which was not the case at TPE).  

If I were in your shoes, I'd grab a second base at HND asap (in spite of the fact that this could cause minor headaches for me); from HND, every single minor airport (even those with miniscule pax numbers) in Japan and Korea fetches 400+ on a 100-seat plane... so if you serve most of them, your DOP will shoot up to 10m in no time.  Once you reach 10m, you'll have enough coin to add new bases elsewhere and grow exponentially.  While HND is competitive (how could it not be, as the biggest airport in the region?), people there are pretty civil.