@Olof I totally understand that from your business / personal perspective a new game is the way to go. Before you only go into bugfix only mode for ACEO, could you add more modding functions that the community would be able to add new aspects to the game?
In ModLoader Development Halted - #6 by Fishbait32 you already had some discussions about modding and said that you first wanted to finish the game before making the code more mod friendly.
I think some of the most used features in mods would be:
- Add new airplane models to ACEO (from historic, to future,…)
- Add new vehicles to ACEO (maybe with new /modded services)
- Alter game variables, like fees, contract prices, shop payments, staff payments, passenger needs (alter current needs like toilet-need and probably be able to add new ones). To be able to change the values when passengers will arrive, when the check-in opens and when service vehicles will be send to an airplane stand.
- Add more configuration options for airlines, like
- home country field, so if you have an Airport in Germany, you will not see an American Airlines flight from your airport to Norway, but only to an US airport;
- fixed / configurable number of flights per week (for just have an airport running with a diverse (and realistic) set of planes per airline)
- add an alliance field, so that you can designate a stand / lounge to an alliance like Star Alliance or Oneworld and the flight planner will add all flights from alliance partners to the designated stands.
With that I think the modding community will add really great mods to ACEO. Just look at Prison Architect or Rimworld. They are out for years and I don’t think anyone plays them vanilla.