Demand formula

[Frenchie]

It's slightly tricky though, since short flights aren't always slower and in less demand than rail or bus.

For instance, Paris-London is quickest by plane, and there is a very high demand, yet this distance sanction would unrealistically diminish that.
Furthermore in under-developed parts of the world, the plane is the most reliable way to travel, such as between Yangon and Bangkok, so the distance by air is quite short but by car or bus it would take very long given the bad infrastructure.

I wonder how we could find a synthesis between this general rule of thumb and contextual contradictions or exceptions to it...

[Unknown98]

Currently London-Paris would be unaffected by this. I have it set to only have an effect on distances < 150 miles. LHR-CDG is 216 miles. Same with Yangon-Bangkok, it would also be unaffected.

Basically how it works is a linear decrease, starting at 150 miles downward. If the distance is, for instance 140 miles, the loss of demand will be minor. If distance is 50 miles, loss of demand will be major.

[Dokhu]

Maybe this rule should not apply for little aircraft like the DHC-6-400 Twin Otter

[Frenchie]

Alright that makes more sense now thanks unk!

Not trying to be a pain here haha, but finally what about islands? Various examples in the Caribbean and Pacific have airline services that fly small aircrafts (Dornier, ATR, Bombardier Dash etc) on flights from 20 to 30 miles onward. How could we accommodate demand for those specific cases that usually have very high passenger rates.

(I'm thinking mostly of Hawaii, French Polynesia, the Maldives, the Bahamas and Fiji)

[Unknown98]

Hmm, didn't consider that. It may be okay though. The distance factor won't completely destroy demand. It works in conjunction with all the other factors. For example I just tested HNL-OGG, distance 100 mi. Using base price and 100% reputation, passenger demand was still 183 per flight. Of course with my current reputation of 36% that number goes down to 36 passengers, but reputation grows fairly quickly as you fly more.

We can always adjust sensitivity of the distance factor if it has too much of an effect on demand

edit: just noticed a bug with the price factor, on very short routes with low base ticket prices, a small decrease in ticket price by just a few dollars will have a drastic effect on passengers gained... I'll have to sort that out lol

[Frenchie]

It's up to you unk! Though I think there can be room for improvement with these particular cases, overall your demand formula seems to work well.

[Unknown98]

Yeah we'll have to test it more to see how well it actually works.

[chaitanya]

The game looks beautiful!

[skifans]

For the competition factor, are your own flights included in the measure? Iv done a few tests and don't think it is but im not certain (the effect might be small). Personally I think it should be possible to compete with yourself (for want of a better way of putting). Are there only so many passengers, and some routes it shouldn't be possible to fly a full 737 every hour, but every day or week may be a perfectly reasonable decision. What do people think about this?

[Frenchie]

Well the issue is, how much will this impend on the growth factor? How long would it take for the airline to grow into a reasonable size if we are restricting not only the demand in regards to other airlines, but also the rhythm of your own flights?

For my part I think it might be significant barrier to growth, one that quite a few players would in fact reject. However, on the other hand we don't want to see spam-like 747s flying 30 times a day between New York and London... It deserves I believe a separate topic.