New Aircraft Purchase Queue

[POTKC]

I'd say new players should have to either buy a used plane or can lease a new plane from a leasing company (the game).

That's forcing people into either getting planes they don't want or entering leasing agreements they don't need. Honestly, making people wait long for a plane is the one part of realism which really isn't that appealing. I agree with Dokhu's (excellent) idea about having aircaft order queues separate for each airline. So if someone orders 7 A320s, the first one arrives right away, the second one in one day, the third one in two days, and by the end of the week they have all seven of their planes. A day is used as an example - delivery rates could differ by aircraft. Much better than having to wait a week, two weeks, three weeks etcetera for your first plane, or being forced to find alternatives which impede your airline's profitability.

[Unknown98]

I'd say new players should have to either buy a used plane or can lease a new plane from a leasing company (the game).

That's forcing people into either getting planes they don't want or entering leasing agreements they don't need. Honestly, making people wait long for a plane is the one part of realism which really isn't that appealing. I agree with Dokhu's (excellent) idea about having aircaft order queues separate for each airline. So if someone orders 7 A320s, the first one arrives right away, the second one in one day, the third one in two days, and by the end of the week they have all seven of their planes. A day is used as an example - delivery rates could differ by aircraft. Much better than having to wait a week, two weeks, three weeks etcetera for your first plane, or being forced to find alternatives which impede your airline's profitability.

IMO if we were to do this, we may as well get rid of wait times altogether. I was thinking we could allow your first aircraft to be delivered instantly, that way new players can get straight into the game. Either that or they can purchase used aircraft off the market. My goal for the used market is to have it update often and have a wide variety of auto-generated aircraft for sale at any given time, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something you like.

[asianmattdog]

I'd say new players should have to either buy a used plane or can lease a new plane from a leasing company (the game).

That's forcing people into either getting planes they don't want or entering leasing agreements they don't need. Honestly, making people wait long for a plane is the one part of realism which really isn't that appealing. I agree with Dokhu's (excellent) idea about having aircaft order queues separate for each airline. So if someone orders 7 A320s, the first one arrives right away, the second one in one day, the third one in two days, and by the end of the week they have all seven of their planes. A day is used as an example - delivery rates could differ by aircraft. Much better than having to wait a week, two weeks, three weeks etcetera for your first plane, or being forced to find alternatives which impede your airline's profitability.

IMO if we were to do this, we may as well get rid of wait times altogether. I was thinking we could allow your first aircraft to be delivered instantly, that way new players can get straight into the game. Either that or they can purchase used aircraft off the market. My goal for the used market is to have it update often and have a wide variety of auto-generated aircraft for sale at any given time, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something you like.

Yes, that would be ideal nonetheless. Unfortunately, that'd require an in-game economy to be already established, and if there is none at the very start of the game's release, then there'd need to be a plan B, which in this case you'd start off with the first aircraft already delivered. Thus, a "starter aircraft".

[Carde]

It seems people are missing 2 key points:

1: Used aircraft will also be system generated at random. This means that the game will just make them appear out of nothing and there is no need for players to put them on the market.

2: The system with the delayed deliveries should not delay you all that much, as I said buy when you have 40-50% of the funds and earn the rest while you wait I do think that the exact amount of time it will take will need to be balanced in play testing. You need to run through scenarios where after a year airlines might be placing 100 plane order to refresh their fleet. So yeah it will need tweaking and I do believe a hard cap on the maximum delay (gameplay vs realism). The system does not need to be a yes or no it needs to be tweaked until it feels right and still fun.

[USA]

To the point people are trying to make about how waiting for the first plane would impact a new airline, in reality you cannot just get a fresh off the line airplane. You either buy a used plane, place orders for new planes, lease planes that are immediately available, or some mix of the three.

Beyond that, I agree with Chi that there might need to be some kind of cap on the wait to keep someone from having to wait a year for their planes (we're limited since the game will move in real time, not accerated time).

That said, the additional benefit of the waiting time is to encourage people to buy different airplane so you don't have what you did in CA where everyone flocks to the same planes and as a result about 80% of airlines have identical fleets.

[Dokhu]

I agree with USA and I like the idea of avoiding the same fleet but the reasons were different. All planes have different capacities and we can not be forced to buy aircraft that are not useful in the fleet according to their geographical location and demand of the airport.

[ryanfairellis97]

Personally i think that this could be debated until the cows come home. I think it is a case of Unknown setting it up how he feels best and when the game opens for public beta we will be able to see any issues with the set up of the system. In one sense it should not be a long wait because some players may get bored but if we want a game that is going to simulate the running of a real airline we need to be prepared to have some patience when growing our fleets. .

BTW unknown I like the work you have shown us so far looks very promising.