Change “Medium” and “Large” terms in game to “Narrow Body” and “Wide Body”.
Description:
In real life no one uses “medium aircraft, medium stand, medium de-ice pad, medium pushback truck” etc… So I think the proper way to describe terms are “narrow body” and “wide body”. So it will be “narrow body aircraft, narrow body stand, narrow body de-ice pad, narrow body pushback truck” etc… This feature will also be a solid division in between “which airplanes are medium and which are large” in future.
Of course all in game terms, all translations and all bug reports suppose to be changed. It is a massive change under the hood.
Why it should be implemented:
Realism and make the game more understandable and make the game language more professional. In translations “medium” and “large” terms are just don’t fit to airplanes and other structures that have relation with them.
To add, there should be a more clearer definition to properly interchange “medium” with “narrow body”, since the DHC-6 are technically narrow body yet they are using small stands.
I have a suggestion in works for this one (as it might be for a larger and different “feature”), but I’ll throw it under a different thread.
Considering these statements from devs, I’m fine with actual wording, even if it is a big simplification.
Imho this game has to attract ‘the masses’ and not only ‘aviation nerds’, like we mostly are.
On the long run, devs need to gain reasonable profits, to be able to create a sequel or another great game.
That’s not possible with a ‘nerdy niche product’… (I know, I’m painting black’n’white…)
Imho “small/medium/large” is perfect for anyone, who doesn’t know much about aviation - not yet talking about translating these more complex terms into other languages…
Also worth pointing out that the term ‘medium’ is used in the ICAO Wake turbulence categories (light, medium and heavy) so medium should definitely be acceptable to aviation nerds as a technical term (even though small and large aren’t used for wake turbulence categories)
As someone working in real world ground operations for an airline head office, I agree with the sentiment of this idea, I can imagine the reaction from colleagues if we talked about big planes little planes … but I still agree that Small Medium Large is the most appropriate for a game.
Maybe, nearer a final release, an official guide or tutorial will likely briefly explain the sizes as linking to certain aircraft types
As a non-aviation person, who picked this game up for something different to Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars to do while in lockdown and quickly got addicted, I am happy with the small/medium/large categorisation.
If I had been confronted with terms like ‘narrow body’, ‘large body’, etc from the get-go I would probably have baulked at some of the build concepts and not got into the game as easily as I did. Just my 5p.
… but I still agree that Small Medium Large is the most appropriate for a game.