Public Beta - Phase II

[Unknown98]

Okay, we have officially entered phase II of public beta.

What this means is that most of the game is functional to the point where I believe we can begin to simulate what gameplay will be like once beta ends and the game officially goes live. There are still a few features missing (such as aircraft leasing) but those will be added in due time.

So, specifically what has changed?

• Startup funds - you now choose between 3 loan options when starting your airline. Each loan must be repaid in full, although there is no time limit imposed in which you must repay the loan. If you take longer to repay the loan, interest will pile up and your credit rating will struggle to improve.
  
• Aircraft maintenance - Aircraft now have weekly maintenance costs associated with them. This cost depends on cycles, not necessarily age, although the two typically go hand-in-hand. Periodic A/B/C/D checks will come at a later date.
  
• Aircraft insurance - Aircraft now have a weekly insurance cost. Large aircraft are more expensive to insure.
  
• Headquarters building - You must manage your HQ and ensure it has enough space for your office employees. Office employees are your executives, corporate operations, and 25% of your CSA's (some CSA's work at the airports as check-in & gate agents, and some work at your office as call center reps). Your HQ has a weekly lease cost as well as weekly overhead costs (overhead is the cost of running the office. Utilities, supplies, fees, taxes, etc.)
  
• Employees - Manage your employee salaries and reserves (reserves are extra employees to fill-in when others are absent) to maintain happiness levels and reduce attrition. High attrition rates lead to training costs for new hires.
  
• New aircraft purchase queue - You can no longer get instant delivery of new aircraft. I've modified the delivery wait time so it shouldn't be as long as it was before.
  
• Less detailed information is shown during route research now
  
• Route debug has been disabled for now. If we need it again I can enable it.
  

I believe I've touched on everything there. For all the weekly costs such as payroll, insurance, maintenance and so forth, it is all calculated on Friday at Noon GMT. The only expense you will pay for immediately is payroll. The other costs such as insurance and maintenance will be calculated on Friday for the following week. So for example this Friday you will not pay any maintenance or insurance, but it will calculate it and insert it into your Upcoming Payments for next Friday. That's just easier than trying to pro-rate it back depending on when your airline was created.

There are still a lot of things I want to do before ending beta. Take a look at the to-do list if you haven't already to see what's in the works.