CAPFlyer wrote:Justin, heres the one item that blows a massive hole in your whole deal -
You're talking WAY TOO BIG.
My C208 (got 5 of them, so realistically I can have up to 10 pilots to ensure that everyone has a plane available most of the time at the hub to start out from), gains me approximately $50,000 a flight on the new system for 2 of the 3 legs. It looses approximately $50,000 on the first leg due to topping off with fuel. This gives me a net revenue per trip of the airplane of $50,000. Now, each new C208 would cost me $1.7M which would mean that I'd need to make 34 round trips, or about 200 hours of flying. That means that if I have 10 pilots, it would take me 2.5 months to earn enough for a new C208 if they all fly 8 hours a month. That's not a long time.
You're wanting to grow an airplane every couple of weeks, that is EXACTLY what Konny is trying to prevent. You are trying to make rapid growth, not responsible growth. You need to earn your new planes, not make 2 or 3 trips and magically get a new bird (which was how it was). When you want to move up, it will take a bit to get that first plane, but every time you get a new plane that is larger, your profits grow to match. The more expensive the plane, the more potential profit you can get, thus it still ends up that you can purchase a similarly sized airplane every couple of months. That's a good growth rate.
To be fair, you're thinking way too small. You neglected dividing by 16 for people who use time compression. Your 1.7 million divided by that is 106 250. For, as you put it 200 hours of flying. You also neglected maintenance fees, which will add up. Let's think about a larger airline, suppose you had only a 767, and you were flying NAT Tracks. We'll even say you didnt use time compression, to be fair. You could have one pilot fly that bird for 6 hours straight, then hand it off to another pilot, assuming they wanted to fly at midnight or at 3 am. But your only going to get 4 flights a day from it. As well, your 50 000 dollars, I don't know where your getting it from, your best flight had a profit of 250 000 dollars under the old system, thats 25 000 under the new system. So your estimate of when you'd get your next new plane must be doubled, to 4 months. And thats with ten active pilots flying consistently. 4 months is a quarter of a year, to buy a cessna. Airlines make big, multi-plane purchases, about every 5 years, and if you broke it down, probably 1 plane a month, possibly 2. And regardless, its not fun, 4 months to get a plane? People will not stick around for that, they really won't. Heaven forbid you crash a plane, itl be 2 months before you can pay off the repairs for it.
As well, looking at the majority of people on FlyNET, your airline is an exception, as it is not full of big jets, or wanting to have big jets. Most people want to say they have a fleet of brand spanking new aircraft at their disposal. Now as the system stands now, after many, many hours of flying, Ionathan has a massive fleet. And it would keep growing with the old multiplier. I want a smaller multiplier, but not 100x, it's too small. A scalable multiplier would be better, the large airlines would slow in growth, while giving younger ones with a fighting chance at keeping up to those already flying jumbos.
Startups:
Westjet
JetBlue
Jazeera
Admittedly, Westjet started on 737-200s, but they now own the newest fleet in North America, with an average age of 1.6 years for their airframes. Jetblue and Jazeera? Both started with brand new planes, and the growth is phenomenal from both of them. The idea that a startup has to fly clunkers is as ridiculous as it is obsolete.
Now, I have offered a legitimate reason for my discomfort with the new system, and based it upon my experience, not only as a member and aviation enthusiast, but also as someone who has run gaming events and built games before. You need to keep people interested, offer rewards. The current system is a punishment to anyone new, and to established members. It has, effectively, stagnated growth, not only in the economy of flyNET, but in interest in General. The number of flights is down, because no one wants to take the hit from using 16x, and they dont have the time to sit for 4 hours to make their flights. If they use 16x, they get so punished, their airline loses moneu.
The profits growing to match also leaves out an important bit of info. Right now it takes about 4 months, as you said, to get a new plane. of EQUAL value. How long will it take the guy who spent 24 mill (so 1 mill left) to afford, oh say a Boeing 737? Or a 767? Probably double, maybe triple the time. A year to move up a step, no one will do this, and they will go to another place. Under the 1000x multiplier, it still took me weeks of concerted flying to get the 767 (fokker 70->Fokker 100 -> 767) And I mean flying 4 times a day. Its not easy, and I was only able to do it over the holidays, when i had massive amounts of time. So growth is still slow at the beggining (and with scalable rate multiplier, it stays at a consistent pace)
And lastly, you have yet to fly under the new system, so I can't understand why you like it so much, seeing as how you've yet to use it. This is not a personal attack, but an observation from someone who prefers to test, and then discuss.
Scalable rate based on airplane size, small airlines benefit, larger airlines dont grow too fast, maybe not realistic, but it's called game balance.
Awards for people who fly real time, to compensate them compared to compression people. Or maybe increase their profit by 20%, but don't decrease the compression peoples earning's peoples money. At 16x, the profit is reduced to only 6.25% of the original value. That is much too harsh.
Again, comments are welcome, or other suggestions towards greater gameplay balance in the financial system.
I hope this also helps to lower the number of one-man-airlines. Don't misunderstand me, I don't have something against them, but if you can create an airline with tens of aircrafts alone within weeks, there's something wrong 
