Routes System is Live

[Unknown98]

*Please read in it's entirety to avoid confusion*

The routes system is up and running - with one exception. As of right now, you can only schedule routes that are set to depart during the current day. If you try to schedule a route for tomorrow, you will receive a message telling you the route was not scheduled. So for example, right now as I type this the time is 15:32 at DFW. If I were to schedule a route departing out of DFW, it would have to leave after 15:33 but before 23:59. If I put the departure time as, say, 08:00, it will not work. 

That restriction is only temporary of course, hopefully tomorrow or sometime soon I will have the system working for all routes no matter when they depart. Basically there's 2 different systems I have to go through, 1 for routes departing during the current day, and another for routes departing tomorrow - i.e., not the current day. I love you guys but I need more alcohol before I work on that 2nd system 


So in order to fly a route you first need to create one. That system has been live for a few days now so hopefully you've had a chance to try it out. The system will not let you schedule a flight to depart before the "Ready at" time of the previous flight. It should be fairly straightforward. The only thing to be careful of is if you put custom departure times - i.e. if the "Ready at" time is 09:28 and you put in the box 09:30 - you need to carry those extra 2 minutes throughout the entire rest of the route. The "Ready at" times will not automatically change based on what you put in the drop down boxes. Eventually, one day, maybe they will - but for now they do not.

So once you create a route, go to Manage Airline -> Routes. You will see the route you created there. The button deletes the route. Currently you are not able to edit routes. If you need to change something, just delete it and create a new route. 

When you click "Fly Route", as long as everything checks out, each flight will be inserted into the database and you will be able to view them on your active flights page (Manage Airline -> Routes -> Active Flights). As of right now all flights will show up on the active flights page, even if they have not actually taken off yet. That will probably be changing soon, but for now that's how it is.

On your fleet page, you will see a new icon: 
This indicates that the aircraft is preparing for the route. i.e., it has a route assigned to it, but the first leg of that route has not taken off yet. While the aircraft is in this status, you cannot do anything with the aircraft. So if your route departs at noon, and it's currently 8am and you click the "Fly Route" button, that aircraft will be locked into preparation status for the next 4 hours. Like with some of the other limitations, this is probably just temporary. But for now, it's how it has to be due to technical limitations. I like to do things 1 step at a time, that way if something breaks it I know what broke it and I can resolve the issue more quickly.

Each flight will then operate just as any other flight - taking off and landing automatically just like the quick flights do. When 1 flight finishes, the aircraft will show that it is in turnaround status, and the gate that it landed at will show in use - just as you'd expect.

Now, there is 1 way to mess up the departure times. When you create your route, the system uses the turnaround time that you have selected for your aircraft on the aircraft details page. If you increase the turnaround time of your aircraft, without re-creating the route (or, in the future, editing the route), there will no longer be enough time between flights (unless you intentionally left extra time between each flight). What will happen in that case is, the first leg of the route will be inserted into the database just fine - but the rest will fail. So you will have to use quick flights to re-position the aircraft back to where you want it. Later on what I want to do is implement delays into the system, so the flights will still insert - but each consecutive leg of the route will be affected by the delay of the prior leg, and so on. 


So there you have it. Hopefully I did a better job of tying up loose ends than I did with the used aircraft market implementation. Test it out, let me know if you find any issues or if you have any suggestions to make it better. I know the UI is not necessarily the best when it comes to displaying the legs of each route on the Routes page. I'm still considering ways to make that better.

[Ryan97]

Looks great so far!! I just tried creating a route to depart tonight and it said that it would not depart until tomorrow?

[Unknown98]

What was the route?

[Ryan97]

LGW-MAN scheduled for 23:16 GMT+1

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Obviously now it has gone past the departure time

[Unknown98]

That's strange. The route looks fine from my end, it should have let you schedule it.

[Ryan97]

Oh okay. I'll give it another go

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Okays of it just managed to create and schedule a flight between LGW-MAN due for departure at 01:30 GMT+1. As soon as I scheduled the route it appeared on my flight history page and gave me rating and revenue as if the flight had taken off, landed and been completed, but did not appear in my active flights lage at all.

Hoe you understand. Not sure if that makes sense...

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Also dispute the flight being in my history page the plane has not physically moved from LGW event hough it appears as if the Route had been flown

[Unknown98]

Ok. I'll look into it. Sounds like the dates are messed up, like it's scheduling the flight for April 19 at 01:30 instead of April 20 at 01:30.

edit - yeah that's what it's doing. I have no idea why. If you look at your flight history page, the date will say 4/19.

I'll have to look at it tomorrow. I tested it all day and this never happened... lol.

[ALT2870]

Ok. I'll look into it. Sounds like the dates are messed up, like it's scheduling the flight for April 19 at 01:30 instead of April 20 at 01:30.

edit - yeah that's what it's doing. I have no idea why. If you look at your flight history page, the date will say 4/19.

I'll have to look at it tomorrow. I tested it all day and this never happened... lol.

Took a while to realize it but just fyi same thing on my end. Flight never happens but acts like it did.

[Dokhu]

 Later on what I want to do is implement delays into the system, so the flights will still insert - but each consecutive leg of the route will be affected by the delay of the prior leg, and so on.

Please consider extending the 24 hour range if the delays exceed the 24 hour cap.

[Ryan97]

Ok. I'll look into it. Sounds like the dates are messed up, like it's scheduling the flight for April 19 at 01:30 instead of April 20 at 01:30.

edit - yeah that's what it's doing. I have no idea why. If you look at your flight history page, the date will say 4/19.

I'll have to look at it tomorrow. I tested it all day and this never happened... lol.

Ah yesorry I just done one for 20th at 11:00am and it has done the same for the 19th