Terminal rules (present format), should be pretty close to fully covering the data:
- You can only build terminals at Focus Cities (or higher, when hubs are added).
- Terminals have no effect on demand.
- Terminals must be built with at least 5 gates, but can be built with as many as you can afford.
- Terminal costs (construction) consist of a variable element (based off of gates built), and a flat element (fixed no matter how many gates are built). Both of these elements will be based in some way off of the airport's cost, as well as will be significantly higher then focus city creation. (present looks are putting it at a minimum of double most focus city creations).
- IF you close a focus city, the terminal can remain (HOWEVER it cannot be expanded).
- Addendum to above: IF you close a focus city and the terminal remains AND the terminal has (presently) more gates then the airport starts with, you cannot rent new gates at that airport.
- Building a terminal does not forfeit fully the rented gates you have (I'm debating whether every X gates you build forces you to return a rented gate, likely 5 or 10). I never liked how exceptionally damaging terminals were put together in AE.
- Terminal build fees (on a per-gate basis) increase incrementally with every 4 gates built, you cannot outsmart the system, it's smart enough to treat 5 passes of build 1 gate and 1 pass of build 5 gates. So, no matter how many gates you build, the 90th gate will cost the same however you get there.
- Terminals will cost 75% of a normal gate rental to maintain, presently only consist of building gates (the foodcourt/lounge/etc upgrades sound interesting for future planning though...). they do cost substantially more then renting a gate to construct however.
- There are no alliance terminals, or subletting of gates in any format at present (not likely to occur in the near future either).
- LIKELY future limitations will in some manner go about reclaiming built gates when a focus city is closed (some payment will be recieved).
- Terminals will be assumed as to be the "first" place flights originate from (So. if you have over 10 slots free, they're assumed to be from rented gates first if from anything.)
- Terminal gates cannot be removed for dis-use, however. in some situations a portion of the built gates may be sold to the airport (and "replace an existing, older terminal"... or however you want to mentally justify the non-increase in total gates available for rent).
Next Age:
- Same basic framework: New constraints: You can only rent up to 25 gates at an airport before a terminal is the only way to expand. again, terminal construction will not necessarily immediately return all of your rented gates. This rule should allow for between 2 and 8 players at an airport as a minimum (yes. 8. we're adding a 350,000/350 gate tier between ages for the 8ish largest airports).
- Basically, all of the above applies, but when a Focus City with a terminal is closed, gates built will be reduced to 25 (with some repayment made to player). IF under 25, gate rental caps will be 25-(gates built).
- and yeah. any further tweaks as need be.
- Possible rule, unsure of when implemented or even if implemented: minimum build quantity of 2 or 4 in any given expansion.
- Possible rule 2. There may be a flat fee applied to expansion of a terminal.
I may be missing something, i'll probably get back to you all if i am. The idea is to free up some reasonable level of competition, reduce the affect of gate hogging in some respects, and do so without being overly suicidal.
This element, combined with significant modifications to the present loadfactor formula will hopefully reduce the power of multiple .5 frequency flights, should cause the temporary suspension (NEXT AGE ONLY) of the present route frequency caps (of all kinds).
Any questions, just ask. i'll see if i can answer them. i won't state exact formulas.
