Miles On The Stats Page

[joefremont]

In the database statistics page there are several categories based on the number of miles flown. Passenger Miles, Cargo Miles, Payload Miles and Miles. Based on some other threads it seams that some feel its unfair that pilots who fly with a simulation rate of x16 can rack up the miles so quickly that a pilot who fly's at x1 could never compete, so the question is, when the statistics page shows data based on number of miles, should the effective number of miles be reduced by the simulation rate.

Example:
Pilot A fly's four 4000nm round trips at x16 and gets credit for 32000nm of flying.
Pilot B fly's a single 4000nm round trip at 1x and gets credit for 8000nm of flying.

With this proposal the statistics page would show only 2000nm of flying for pilot A.

Do you think this is a good or a bad idea.

And for the record even though I fly all of my long flights at x16 this change would not bother me.

[alasizon]

Joe, simple fact is, Pilot A still flew those miles, regardless of how quickly he did.

[CAPFlyer]

Which is why Konny ended up just suspending the monthly awards. You still fly the miles, the problem is that people are going to complain no matter what you do and the only fair thing to do is just not give awards for most miles and passengers unless you make them a "1x only" category where only miles, passengers, and cargo flown at 1x are counted towards the award (i.e. only flights flown at 1x are counted, any time acceleration results in those not counting towards the award stats).

[Stan]

Same goes for the highest rating,all you have to do is cancel the client if you forget your lights and start again,so its meaningless.

[flightsimer]

Joe, simple fact is, Pilot A still flew those miles, regardless of how quickly he did.

like he said, they did fly them... and if i cant fly on 16x and have my miles counted then i will start complaining about the airlines that have over 10 people flying since they will be able to do more flights then i will??? no matter what you are always gonna have someone complaining about something...

[Stan]

Joe, simple fact is, Pilot A still flew those miles, regardless of how quickly he did.

like he said, they did fly them... and if i cant fly on 16x and have my miles counted then i will start complaining about the airlines that have over 10 people flying since they will be able to do more flights then i will??? no matter what you are always gonna have someone complaining about something...

The simplest solution would be to get rid of all the stats,after all this is not a competition.

[vaccaro]

The simplest solution would be to get rid of all the stats,after all this is not a competition.

I was about to suggest the very same thing

[flightsimer]

and i had said the same thing back in the first thread...

[Brian Peace]

The stats, and awards, are great.

But you can't compare 16x'ers to 1x'ers. That's were the stats get skewed. there should be a button to select to see stats from 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x.... and each pilot would be ranked in accordance with the highest sim rate he/she has used in the current month.

Then you actually could hand out awards, in each category (each sim rate), and it would be fair and the awards would be something to be proud of.

[flightsimer]

but as i said before, then the one man shows, wouldnt be able to be compared to the 10+ pilot airlines... so why should they be pentalized because pilots dont join with them... that mulitplyer allows them to be on an equal level with the big airlines...

[alasizon]

Either way,

Look at the real airline industry, in the US, Southwest controls 56% of domestic traffic while domestic miles are dominated by both Delta and American. None of these companies bother to compete with eachother because they are on a level playing field with each their own advantages. The multiplier makes it realistic for international traffic, the pilot who flies those routes still flies those miles and tends to need to fly it faster than domestic routes because they simply don't have the time to sit there for 8hrs+. Compressing the miles by the time acceleration would simply make it better for thirty people airlines than one man sams to take control of the mile board which is unfair because if the one man sam wants to compete with the bigger airlines by doing long international flights, having his miles compressed because he uses TC in order to compete is unfair. Now if they were reduced by the number of pilots that have flown that month, it would be fair. Or better yet as already suggested, remove the statistics, in the real aviation industry, it reflects nothing and the only thing it accomplishes on here is to show who is in the forefront for awards and with the awards turned off there is no point of reducing the miles by TC because there is no effect on the awards and when they are turned back on, the simple view is, everyone has the option to fly with TC and long-haul flights, whether or not they choose to is their decision.

[Brian Peace]

But the stats are interesting.... to a degree. I'd like to see them stay, but have categories. Or have a stats page that you can only see stats for the airline you belong to..... that would be great..

[hezza]

This is an interesting topic and people clearly have differing viewpoints.
Purely for the stimulation of discussion, and not as the basis of any accusation or criticism, I offer my own.

* We are all using a flight simulator.
* There is no such thing as a completely fair system.
* We all have a real life where demands on our time and energy are more important than our hobby.

We are all using a flight simulator.
Simulator implies trying to do things more realistically and less "gamey".
In particular it is not meant to be a passenger simulator, that would be pointless and boring.
The only object of running the program, instead of say looking at TV, is to have entertainment in an interactive way.
The program is focused on trying to reproduce the experience of being a pilot for those that cannot do that in real life.
If you simulate a long haul flight with 16x compression you have not "flown the miles", you have sat by and done nothing while the automation works.
If you do a flight at 1x it is likely that you are interacting at least with ATC, either the poor default MS, or an external program like Radar Contact, or best of all with real on-line ATC via a network. That after all is an important aspect of flying.
On top of that, some pilots are using 16x simulation on short hauls, sometimes as short as 10 minutes. Surely the only "reason" for doing that is the desire to boost the statistics.
In my opinion, if a pilot does not have enough time to complete such a short flight in real time, then it would be better to not start.

There is no such thing as a completely fair system.
However, the argument that it is unfair that some people have more time to fly than others is nonsense, that is reality.
What is unfair is a situation where someone can earn say 5x more than another per hour merely because they can only work one day per week.
Similarly, The argument that it is unfair that some airlines have more pilots than others is nonsense, that is reality.
That is why real airlines group together into multi-national alliances so that they can be more competitive and profitable.
It is entirely natural that a small company cannot compete with a large one.
Finally, the argument that it is not unfair to use high time-compression because everyone can do the same is also flawed.
That only applies because the current rules permit it, and those rules are not set in stone.

We all have a real life where demands on our time and energy are more important than our hobby.
So if someone has limited time available it becomes even more important to try to get the most out of it.
The purpose of a statistic is to make comparisons and analysis of the distribution of quantities within a class, it is meaningless to make comparisons between data which is not similar.
If the unbalanced stats are removed then pilots would stop worrying about what others where doing and would just fly as they wished with no pressure to
complete so many flights.
We have a great hobby, with opportunities to learn and develop skills in a field in which we all have much interest.
Who knows, if high compression pilots went back to actually interacting - flying - then they may well get a lot more enjoyment out of it too.


Although I have voted for the implementation of time-compression into the stats, which we have previously been told was already in place, but I would be more than happy to see all the stats removed and so have the emphasis put firmly back on individual enjoyment.

Regards

Graham

[Miikoyan]

I have no objection to any changes that might be made...my theory is the amount of money earned, not amount of time logged in.

[tjbaughn]

I have no objection to any changes that might be made...my theory is the amount of money earned, not amount of time logged in.

How about that it’s all about the money! I like that, how about one that listed the Airlines in order by size of the company (including all cash, aircraft, etc). Now if your looking for a goal maybe the goal to become one of the largest would be cool, and an award for becoming one of the top 10. Now I know I would never make the top 10 but it would be nice to see what order I fell into.