Auto-planer still not solved :0)))

[Alain]

Nace to have an update, thanks.

However, the auto-planer remains… Let’s say that, in my view, if you would plan another update… it should solve the planer total lack of intelligence :0)

In any case, should an apron be available, it should assign the plane to this available apron, instead of creating a chaos as today…

Just my 5 cents, mates :0))))

[Olof]

@Alain

In any case, should an apron be available, it should assign the plane to this available apron, instead of creating a chaos as today…

Could you explain this scenario in greater detail? What exactly is happening when it is creating chaos?

[Alain]

Sure Olof

Presently:

The auto-planner assigns flights one after the other, but not taking into account free aprons.

Therefore, if a plane is late on being serviced (for whatever reason), the next plane to use this specific apron cannot land until the plane being late to be serviced frees this apron.

So what happens is that you get bunches of delayed flights, at times 3 or 4 waiting, ALTHOUGH you have tons of free aprons.

Wished on my opinion:

If the allocated apron is still occupied by the present late flight, AND another apron for this airplane category is free for the duration of the rotation, the auto-planner should assign the waiting to land aircraft to this other free apron. And yes, this would imply that waiting passengers change door, therefore should check “the nearest one” :0)))

As we are talking auto-planner:

1 - Time between flights:
Presently, you can only allocate one space between each flight (say as an example: 90 minutes), but this is regardless of aircraft’s category.
Would be nice to be able to adapt this interval time depending on aircraft’s category, as an example: Small = 20 mins, Medium = 60 mins, Heavy = 90 mins on a specific apron.

2 - Allocation of flights:
Presently, it looks to me that the auto-planner will intend to fill first apron #1 (example), then only go to #2, etc.
Woud be again nice that it tries to allocate flights on each available apron, starting flight #1 to apron # 1, flight #2 to apron #2, etc…

… AND adding the ability to define a time interval parameter setting - say for example 15 mins for Small, 25 mins for Medium, 35 mins for Heavy - between this.
This way, flights would be automatically correctly staggered.

Of course, you can do it manually… but well, when you have tons of flights… better let it done by a more “intelligent” auto-planner LOL

Well, you asked, didn’t you LOL

[andyc]

So technically you won’t have stands as today, you will have stands grouped together and the entire planning uses any available stand out of this group.

But at the end you still have to keep stands free as when all of them are booked out at a specific time, you get again the same issue as you have now.

Another game similar to this uses stands specially for backup in case another one is still blocked. But I remember a discussion where the devs sayed that they don’t want that and the player has to do some work manually and not everything is managed by the computer.

[Alain]

Not sure to understand you, Andy:
There is no change in the aprons, and they are already grouped by category of plane.

I’m trying to minimize the changes, only touching the auto-planner.

And yes, you’ll still have the problem as today, if your aprons are all booked for this specific time.

Only that, the added facility of selecting a specific timeframe between flights allows you to manage all aircrafts the way you actually would do it manually.

In manual mode, this problem never happens to me. Just a pain to do it by hand when you have hundreds of flights. This is just the auto-planner that needs to become smarter.

And yes, actually, if you play the game with emergencies ON, then you indeed need to have at least 1 apron reserved to handle these cases for each aircraft’s category, and need to handle it manually, switching on only this apron when the emergency (e.g. ambulance flight) is announced, and switching ot off again once resolved.
A bit of a pain, but it works well.

[andyc]

@Alain

And yes, actually, if you play the game with emergencies ON, then you indeed need to have at least 1 apron reserved to handle these cases for each aircraft’s category, and need to handle it manually, switching on only this apron when the emergency (e.g. ambulance flight) is announced, and switching ot off again once resolved.
A bit of a pain, but it works well

You know that when you active the auto planner, you can manage the auto planner individually for each stand. That means your emergency stands can be always turned on.