06-11-2018, 06:09 PM
When it comes to gates I think it might be interesting to see a little bit of manual management of gates. Something along the lines of:
Leasing options:
Dedicated gate
Shared gate
Dedicated Parking
Shared parking
Management:
While at an airport a plame must ALWAYS be assigned to a gate or a parking slot. No more waiting at airports for free. Management of where a plane is at gate wise is moved to the route screen. The screen will show a list of your gates and parking below each leg of the journey and will show the current usage (as a colour coded bar blocking that time slot [by the minute] with the exact time to time in numerical values inside the bar. One colour for alighting, one for boarding, one for cleaning and one for configuration) plus a tick box for each of "alight at shared gate", "board at shared gate", "wait at shared gate", "clean at shared gate", "clean at shared parking," "wait at shared parking" with the cost fo each shown next to them.
Instead of a single turn around value planes get 3 turn around values. Alighting, Boarding, cleaning.
You manually assign your aircraft to your gates. Gates require a configuration time between each boarding and alighting phase (say 5 mins, I'm not sure what's reasonable. This is for representing reconfiguring the bridge, updating the computer systems for the new flight, etc. The plane doesn't have to be at the gate during configuration times. Perhaps just add the 5 mins AFTER the boarding and alighting slots since this is easier to code wise and it makes little pactical difference if it is applied before or after the slot since it represents minimum time required to reconfigure the gate not the actual time spent configuring it). Boarding and Alighting must take place at a gate.
Alighting and boarding must take place at a gate, but cleaning can take place at a parking slot. Cleaning can also overlap during gate configuration periods if the aircraft isn't moved.
Dedicated parking should be considerably cheaper than gate rental. That way if you have high traffic at an airport and a few planes with high cleaning turn arounds, it makes sense to move them to a parking slot. Also if you have aircraft waiting on the ground for long periods between flights due to scheduling ti also makes sense to move them.
Shared gates and parking will charge by the half hour or part there of instead of per use. The gate configuration time counts towards your usage of time for shared gates. Parking fees again should be priced to justify moving long turn arounds or schedule gaps to parking but leaving short ones at the gate.
There should be a small towing fee and time requirement for moving between parking and gate. The fee is charged each way but should be fairly low. The time should be short also, perhaps 5 mins required in each direction. Cleaning can't happen during towing but the plane counts as occupying no space on either the gate or the parking. These small time and monetary penalties should again aim to encourage leaving short turn arounds at the gate but long turn arounds and schedule gaps to be parked.
Not only would this add interesting management elements to the game but also some new startegies. Is it worth buying parking at another airport or is it better to buy the parking at your home airport and place any large schedule gap there? Is a turn around long enough to justify parking or should I leave the plane at the gate? Will the 10 min (5 + 5) towing time increase the turnaround long enough to justify leaving the plane at the gate? Is waiting at a shared gate cheaper than paying the towing and rental fees for share parking?
I think it would also future proof the game if you're plannign to add maintenance. You can require the plane to be at parking for minor maintenance such as A checks and add hangar rental and hangar schedule slots also. It would also lay the ground work for changing from a route system to a aircraft timetable system if that's something you're considering also. Creating a route would create the time blocks to be assigned to aircraft instead of assigning an aircraft to a route, allowing for 7 aircraft 7 days scheduling and also flight hour based maintenance and depending on whether you want to do 7 day aircraft schedules or 28 day schedules you can require a min consecuative hours parked for an A check once every 7/28 days.
Leasing options:
Dedicated gate
Shared gate
Dedicated Parking
Shared parking
Management:
While at an airport a plame must ALWAYS be assigned to a gate or a parking slot. No more waiting at airports for free. Management of where a plane is at gate wise is moved to the route screen. The screen will show a list of your gates and parking below each leg of the journey and will show the current usage (as a colour coded bar blocking that time slot [by the minute] with the exact time to time in numerical values inside the bar. One colour for alighting, one for boarding, one for cleaning and one for configuration) plus a tick box for each of "alight at shared gate", "board at shared gate", "wait at shared gate", "clean at shared gate", "clean at shared parking," "wait at shared parking" with the cost fo each shown next to them.
Instead of a single turn around value planes get 3 turn around values. Alighting, Boarding, cleaning.
You manually assign your aircraft to your gates. Gates require a configuration time between each boarding and alighting phase (say 5 mins, I'm not sure what's reasonable. This is for representing reconfiguring the bridge, updating the computer systems for the new flight, etc. The plane doesn't have to be at the gate during configuration times. Perhaps just add the 5 mins AFTER the boarding and alighting slots since this is easier to code wise and it makes little pactical difference if it is applied before or after the slot since it represents minimum time required to reconfigure the gate not the actual time spent configuring it). Boarding and Alighting must take place at a gate.
Alighting and boarding must take place at a gate, but cleaning can take place at a parking slot. Cleaning can also overlap during gate configuration periods if the aircraft isn't moved.
Dedicated parking should be considerably cheaper than gate rental. That way if you have high traffic at an airport and a few planes with high cleaning turn arounds, it makes sense to move them to a parking slot. Also if you have aircraft waiting on the ground for long periods between flights due to scheduling ti also makes sense to move them.
Shared gates and parking will charge by the half hour or part there of instead of per use. The gate configuration time counts towards your usage of time for shared gates. Parking fees again should be priced to justify moving long turn arounds or schedule gaps to parking but leaving short ones at the gate.
There should be a small towing fee and time requirement for moving between parking and gate. The fee is charged each way but should be fairly low. The time should be short also, perhaps 5 mins required in each direction. Cleaning can't happen during towing but the plane counts as occupying no space on either the gate or the parking. These small time and monetary penalties should again aim to encourage leaving short turn arounds at the gate but long turn arounds and schedule gaps to be parked.
Not only would this add interesting management elements to the game but also some new startegies. Is it worth buying parking at another airport or is it better to buy the parking at your home airport and place any large schedule gap there? Is a turn around long enough to justify parking or should I leave the plane at the gate? Will the 10 min (5 + 5) towing time increase the turnaround long enough to justify leaving the plane at the gate? Is waiting at a shared gate cheaper than paying the towing and rental fees for share parking?
I think it would also future proof the game if you're plannign to add maintenance. You can require the plane to be at parking for minor maintenance such as A checks and add hangar rental and hangar schedule slots also. It would also lay the ground work for changing from a route system to a aircraft timetable system if that's something you're considering also. Creating a route would create the time blocks to be assigned to aircraft instead of assigning an aircraft to a route, allowing for 7 aircraft 7 days scheduling and also flight hour based maintenance and depending on whether you want to do 7 day aircraft schedules or 28 day schedules you can require a min consecuative hours parked for an A check once every 7/28 days.