Would be really good to see these; pretty much every airport I’ve been to recently seems to use these. Would sound really professional. However, I’m not sure if they’d be easy/possible/affordable to use in a game.
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I’d love it if the fasten seatbelt sound with a PA announcement announcing a flight arriving and/or departing
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Announcements would be cool, but i think it would be kinda hard to hit that sweet spot where it would
- Not get intrusive
- Be somewhat related to your airport (departure from gate 4 when you only have 1 gate… breaks immersion for me
) - Be at least somewhat amusing
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Great idea however it feels like something that could be added in a later stage.
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There are only a set number of conversations ATC has with an aircraft so it shouldn’t be too hard to implement.
In order from departing a stand to arriving at a stand it’s: Route clearance, pushback (if required) and engine start clearance, taxi clearance, takeoff clearance, hand-off, landing clearance, taxi clearance.
Technologies to reduce controller workload could also be included such as following the greens during LVPs to improve efficiency at the airport, supported by the visual effect of the green lights doing the pathfinding. Follow the Greens - YouTube
However I don’t think it should be a heavily worked on feature given that as an office worker (Which is what the manager essentially is) you may (but probably wouldn’t) hear the airport announcements, you almost certainly wouldn’t hear the ATC chatter, though you may hear jet/prop/vehicle engines and such.
I think it would be much more immersive to have the airport sounds being done really well, proper engine sounds on take-off run and such, rather than the normal woosh with slight whistle you get in most games involving aircraft which sounds really pathetic.
However inside the terminal I definitely think that the announcements should be there as background noise to the game.
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Prison Architect does something similar, where when you zoom into certain areas, you hear different things. I would love to see something similar to that in this game! Almost as if each item has its own sound kind of…
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Shouldn’t there also be ground handling? Use of taxiways, holding short etc.
But you could have the ATC as a sort of backgroun murmer, or only the actual take offs / landings and shine with the PAs (I fondly remember the PAs of theme hospital [Patients are reminded not to throw up in the corridors])
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I like the discussion. What I can say is that some kind of ATC-chatter will be added. Maybe it will play when selecting an aircraft or the ATC tower. The level of complexity is a trickier question. For us complexity = time. More complex features requires more development time. So every suggestion must be weighed against development time and demand/gameplay enhancement. The same applies for PA-announcements. We know that SFX is vital to getting the right feel and “immerseability” so we are really thinking hard here. In this area, not much is decided yet so we are open for suggestions.
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Ground handling isn’t ATC but yes that is also a vital part of the turnaround process. Usually once the loading is done a member of ground staff will bring the loadsheet to the pilot with all the weights and their offset from centre of gravity and stuff. I don’t see what this will add to gameplay but communication with the pushback crew is always a good idea.
In terms of use of taxiways and holding short that would come under ‘taxi clearance’. For example at EGSS Stansted an aircraft pulling off the second high speed from rwy 22 would be told to ‘taxi L, left J and contact ground on 121.725’. After contacting ground they may be given further taxi such as ‘Taxi stand 52R via J and apron C’. Both of these are taxi clearances. Can also do things like ‘RYR24TH taxi holding point S1 via D, H and S’ if you want them to hold at a holding point or just ‘Taxi to and hold short of Z via J’
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I don’t really like the idea of that. It would be cool but really annoying after a while. ATC really isn’t the point of this game.
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ATC is a vital part of the game, you have to upgrade that to be able to have a safe running airport. You also have to have ATC so you have a bigger aircraft capacity, meaning more income
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Yes airports need air traffic control for a safe airport but they don’t need a tower even for commercial aircraft, and at a commercial airport.
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They do need a tower.
At least there needs to be a room where the aerodrome controllers can have visual contact with the entire operational airfield in order to safely control the aircraft on the ground and on approach to and on the runways.
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Smaller airfields might not have a tower. The tower has a number of functions
- It may contain radar operators. But smaller airfields might not have radar
- It may contain approach / departure operators, but smaller airfields might not have this (or only a few hours each day)
- The prime reason for a tower: It may contain ground operators, that handle ground movement (but again, some airfields may only have these a few hours each day). If you have 1 landing strip with a single taxiway, with only small aircraft (cessna and whatever) there is no reason for a tower, since you have enough visibility
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Depends if you have a controlled or uncontrolled airfield, I’m presuming we’re gonna be constructing controlled airfields.
Uncontrolled airfields the pilots just announce where they are and make informed decisions about what to do.
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Well actually there are commercial airports that don’t have a control tower. Like the Yampa Valley airport, in Steamboat, Colorado. It’s a Non-towered commercial airport with four major U.S. Carriers that serve the airport along with their regional affiliates that serve the airport. So commercial airports don’t technically need a tower.
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And the airport can handle as large as a Boeing 757.
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I’m not quite sure I get your point… There are small non commercial airfields with towers too…
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What I’m saying is that commercial airfields that can have large aircraft land at the airfield like an Boeing 757 can have no tower at the airport.
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I never said they couldn’t…? Though it is quite uncommon, if that’s your point?
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