Tweaking boarding times & Add simulation timed out

[CAVOK]

Hi Olof and Fredrik and fellow Airport CEOs,

Thank you for all investments and efforts you put in this game, and indeed it gets better day by day.
I have watched the gameplay video 3 carefully and I found few issues. I would like to make some suggestions regarding the issues I spotted.

If you take a look at 16:45 of the third gameplay video you will understand what I meant.
# 1: The security progress/boarding is too slow.
Every minute in the game is measured roughly 3 seconds in the reality. However, the object simulation in the game (like passengers, moving vehicles, luggage) is animated in real-time, not the game time.
This makes the game progression extremely slow compared to the time elapsed.

From what I saw in the video it will take longer than a minute (game time) for a person to pass the security or board the plane.
Which means:
If one passenger needs one minute (game time) to board a plane.
For a plane with the small capacity (let’s say 10 passengers), it will take 10 minutes to board the plane, sounds fine right?
Now, based on the calculation we learned from the elementary school, if we have a larger plane with 300 passengers then it will take 300 minutes (which is 5 hours of game time) for boarding. And this is impossible.

If it will take 300 game minutes to process the object simulation, the plane will occupy the gate at the same time. That causes unnecessary delays and make other airlines cancel their flights.

Players may not notice this because they might only take small capacity flights in the beginning. Eventually, they will spot a massive difference.

# 2: Add operation timed out
This can be a “temporary” fix to resolve the unbalanced time ratio related issues in the game. When the time in the game reaches the boarding time limit (15 minutes before take off), the object simulation (passenger boarding animation) will be terminated. For this reason, the flight in the game will leave the gate on time as they do in the real world, then the gate can be reserved to other inbound flights again.

It works the same way in the reality, a gate will be closed 15 minutes prior to departure to prevent further delays. This is mandatory for the airport operation.

The suggestions for the addressed issues.

Speed up the boarding/security progress simulation OR Lengthen the game seconds.
Add simulation timed out

What do you think?

Cheers,
Gordon

[ReV0LT]

I agree that it seems too slow. That being said, we don’t know if this has changed or not since that video was uploaded.

But on that point, having two boarding counters could also be enough. Also, isn’t the largest plane not even reaching 300 passengers yet?

[CAVOK]

Hi ReV0LT,

If I am right, there are widebody planes reaching 300 passengers such as Airbus A340/A380, Boeing 747/767/777 etc.

Cheers,
Gordon.

[daniel]

What @reV0LT is saying is that those aircraft aren’t in the game yet. They will be added further down the track I believe. The largest aircraft is a 737-800 at the moment.

With regards to time, there are quite a few posts on which they talk about trying to get this balance between gameplay progression. If you do a basic search on the forum you should find them.

I think they also mentioned in the video that they we’re going to tweak operations so it was easier to send aircraft away on time. I think for example after the video they increased the capacity of ramp agents to carry more bags etc.

[CAVOK]

Hi daniel,

Thanks for the heads up, I wish this to be improved in the future, and it’s a smart decision that they will not go with larger aircraft at the beginning.

Cheers,
Gordon