[Reverted] Multiple Routes with 1 Aircraft

[Unknown98]

Alright so we're still having issues with this multi routes thing. (For once even I am also seeing the issues with my own airline, lol)

For now I will have to revert back to the old system while I try to re-write the code to enable muti-route support.

Keep in mind you can still use a form of multi-routes even with the old system, as long as each route starts from a different airport. For example you cannot do:

LAX-HND-LAX
LAX-KIX-LAX

But you CAN do:

HND-LAX-KIX
KIX-LAX-HND

Same routes but in a different order. Get creative with it and you can probably make some things work.

---

Support for multiple routes being assigned to the same aircraft has now been implemented. It was actually possible before but was not "officially" supported, meaning in some cases routes would not fly in the intended order or would be skipped entirely.

The easiest way for me to explain this is to show an example. I have 1 aircraft, a 787-8 that I use on a LAX-SYD-DXB route, and back. Because routes with more than 2 stops cannot exceed 24 hours in length, I cannot create one route like follows: LAX-SYD-DXB-SYD-LAX. 

But I CAN do the following:

LAX-SYD-DXB
DXB-SYD-LAX

As long as you pay careful attention to the arrival and departure times, you can set up routes like this. In my case, I depart LAX at 23:20 and arrive in DXB at 13:15. Then, the second route departs from DXB at 14:20 and arrives at LAX at 10:16. Of course all of this is over the course of several days. These are very long-haul routes. 

Then, because I had even more time to kill (arriving back at LAX at 10:16 and not departing again until 23:20) I created ANOTHER route:

LAX-DFW-LAX

This route departs at 12:45 and arrives back in LAX at 19:22.

So I now have a nicely organized route system all assigned to a single aircraft.

There is one caveat - This will NOT work with routes that have already been created. Only routes that are created from this point onwards. This is because the system needs to know the initial departure time of the first leg of each route, and prior to today that information was not stored in the database.

[Sora]

Oh my god, Unk, what are you doing with the game? There's been a lack of updates in the past (for good reasons), but lately the game feels like a Ferrari Mercedes with activated DRS all the time. 

Seriously, never thought to play such a game with all these awesome features and let me guess - there's even more to come?

[ALT2870]

I was about ask if this was possible.

[Unknown98]

Oh my god, Unk, what are you doing with the game? There's been a lack of updates in the past (for good reasons), but lately the game feels like a Ferrari Mercedes with activated DRS all the time. 

Seriously, never thought to play such a game with all these awesome features and let me guess - there's even more to come?

Ha, I guess I am on a streak aren’t I?

[Sora]

Seems like it. If there was a championship, you'd be able to clinch the title at the next race already.

Anyway, it would certainly be very helpful, if the arrival/ready times of a specific route would be displayed somewhere in the route management section. Otherwise, scheduling a plane for several routes is a bit difficult, if I only have a vague idea, when the plane's available again.

Also, how does it actually work? Do I just have to activate several routes for the same aircraft? And what happens, if the plane's not at the designated departure airport, because it's scheduled for long-distance services and only returns to, let's say its home airport every second day?

[Unknown98]

Good idea, I'll see if I can't add the ready times for the last leg of each route on the route management page next to the flight time column.

Just activate several routes for the same aircraft and the system does the rest. If the aircraft is not at the departure airport, then the route simply won't be scheduled until it is. The system checks routes every 10 minutes now, so as soon as the first route ends and the aircraft is at the correct departure airport for the second route, and as soon as turnaround ends, the system will recognize that and schedule the second route.

[Ryan97]

This is great. Thank you!!

[Unknown98]

Okay, so that took a LOT more work than I thought it would... but the ready at times for each route are now displayed on the route management page. Again, this is only for routes created after this point. Routes that already exist will display 00:00.

The times may or may not be off by 1 minute from what you see in the route creation page for the ready at time of the last stop. Don't know why that is (might be rounding due to seconds being trimmed off the times) and I'm not sure it matters anyway. You're going to need to add a bit of extra time before the second route departs anyway to allow the game the 10 minutes it needs to schedule your route. So if the ready at time of the first route says 14:04 for instance, the second route should not depart until after 14:10. Otherwise it will not get scheduled and your aircraft will get stuck at the airport.

---

Think I may have found a little issue... lets say you have two routes like this:

LAX-SYD-LAX departs @ 23:00
LAX-DXB-LAX departs @ 07:00

Because both routes originate out of LAX, and the system checks routes in order of departure time, the 07:00 route to DXB will always get scheduled because it comes up first in the route queue. Even if the time is currently 22:00 the game will not schedule the SYD route because by the time it gets to that route, it has already seen and scheduled the DXB route.

I'll see what I can do about that. Maybe selecting what days of the week you want a particular route to run on? Could be interesting.

[Sora]

Seems like you have to leave a bit of time between the end of a scheduled flight (including turn-around) and the start of the next one. I did schedule KIX-HND-KIX as early as 6:15 in the morning and the game said, it would be ready at 10:55. So, of course, I did schedule the next flight (KIX-LHR-KIX) to depart at 11:00, but it obviously didn't work and the plane's still on the ground at KIX. Granted, 5 minutes aren't that much, but.. oh, well. 

Let's see how this'll work with one of my other aircraft. One is scheduled for KIX-CDG-KIX (ready at 13:01+1 (Thursday)), followed by KIX-LAX-KIX (departure at 15:30; back in KIX and ready at 18:34 (should be the next day, I believe, so Friday)) and the final leg being KIX-HND-KIX, scheduled at 19:00. So there are 26 minutes to be wasted. Certainly more than those 5 minutes for the other aircraft, but you never know.

[Unknown98]

The script takes a few seconds to run. So it was probably 11:00:06 or something when the script got to your route. Because technically it was already past 11 it was not scheduled. Best to leave at least 10 minutes between routes for that purpose.

Let me know how it works. I have a feeling it won’t work (see my above post) but we’ll see.