I think Charlie made it very clear in the post above yours
No, that is something different. Open choice is impossible in the current path finding because the planes aren’t smart. Each stand follows a fixed track from runway to stand to runway.
The two direction airports already have two sets of tracks made and only need to be told up or down. Up or down can come from a player choice on opening just as easily as it can from querying the current weather.
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I understand your idea. Some airports are intentionally faster or easier to operate when played from a certain direction — for example due to backtracking situations or taxiway layout (like at CNN).
If players could freely choose the direction, they would naturally always select the easier option, which would remove part of the intended challenge of the airport layout.
For that reason, I don’t think it would be a good idea.
I don’t know if that is going to have the desired effect, as I simply avoid CNN when the “wrong” runway is in use.
Therefore it is the only airport in game I haven’t maxed out.
Since other games have easy and hard mode, is the concern players completing levels too quickly? It seems to come up for a lot of ideas. Maybe then it could be a reward of completing all levels in the airport.
Still this would boost SP collection again, there should be a fair balance and also IRL is what is preferred by majority of the community
Do heavies land the other way from the hill or only land over the ocean.
Charlie, I love this explanation and I also agree with you.
However, I do think this would also cause a scenario where people completely avoid certain airports when the runway direction is not ideal.
My suggestion is to have an option to switch the runway direction, but it would need to be somewhat expensive in Silver Planes or Wollars. That way, people who are looking for an easier option can go for it without having to completely avoid playing at specific airports.
Heavies can’t land from the mountain direction, biggest I’ve found on the internet was a Spirit A21N so ops would have to be dual if that was the case or the heavies would be diverted. If there’s too much of a tailwind they don’t allow heavies to land there. 757 should be able to do it but all airlines that operated there using 757s forbid the landing from the mountain direction no matter the type whereas Spirit and others allow it under strict guidelines.
I don’t really agree with that, I think more so when an airport is fully unlocked, you should have the ability to do what you want with the airport, allowing the player freedom of control after having completed it. That way the airports completion is a goal. When I finished LHR it felt like a hollow victory as nothing changed except a gold coin and a small CRJ. Just felt a bit flat. Having a greater command of your airport would be a great reward and not require the spending of money.
While I think you disagree more with the developers than you do with me, I agree that there need to be more rewards when an airport is complete. However, is airport completion defined as reaching the max level, or is it unlocking all of the stands and equipment?
This is why I am a big advocate for challenges or additional components in the game that give us more reason to go back to maxed-out airports.
I’m excited to hear more about those features soon.
Oh I agree with the idea of challenges and additional components, personally I think an airports completed when I have everything. Doesn’t necessarily have to be the pass or the airport construction/stands/equipment.
I just don’t believe giving players the ability to switch runways for silver is a great idea as it then put it behind a ‘paywall’ (I know you can get them for free but it allows players with cash to make the challenge easier, then again that’s what it’s all about anyway lmao). Maybe the idea of being able to pay for it after international would work, then you unlock it for free on the airports pass completion. There needs to be more incentive for players to complete airports, me included.
Plenty of other ideas that could also be put at higher tiers to prevent the challenge of levelling up being made easy, wouldn’t mind voicing them one day with the devs.
I agree with this. It’s why I’m harping on things like challenges and community features. I’m frankly playing a whole lot less lately, and it’s not something that new planes (as good as the A330s look!) are going to fix. INN’s remodel and ZRH will be nice, but I’ll probably log in and grind them until I’m done with the levels and then slow back down again. I think it comes down to 3 things:
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The experiences aren’t dynamic enough to keep me playing as if each airport is its own sandbox. A lot of this is because the economy system isn’t all that interesting. I can optimize most routes in the game with a dozen aircraft. There’s just not a lot of reward in flying various aircraft even though IRL, these aircraft would have their niches.
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The lack of triggers to get me to play when the levels are finished. Sure, there are event contracts but the rewards are terrible AND most of these aren’t even that special.
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Community Features. The communities around this game (not the official discord obv.) is what keeps me still logging in now and again. Not seeing updates about alliances for 2 years isn’t very inspiring for these features and I hope more is communicated soon about them.
I don’t really like this feature idea. SP is so insanely easy to earn, and this allows people to bypass the downsides of airports. I think more airports need to have obvious tradeoffs as opposed to every airport in the game being so ideal for hubs. Its the quirks like backtracking that make SXM interesting to play and taking that away just washes away gameplay to make it easier.
Yeah I did think that fair enough
Once the function is figured out with INN (or BRI, or one in the future as it gets rolled out), will new airports be released with it? I remember in a DevBlog (30 I think) about the generics being able to implement to them all; I was just curious what the plan would be with new airports once the logic and function is figured out
I agree in most (if not all) what you said.
The function is already here. CNN was the first airport that rolled out with it.
Does HKG have it? That’s more what I mean; the “main” airports being released with it
We do, it unlocks another airport at the end.
I completely second everything said here. We need more features, mechanics, and quirks to the game, as nice as new airplanes and airports are, they inherently don’t change the gameplay, and as much as I feel bad saying it, cause I do love this game, as @CJ_RVWilliams said, the gameplay is honestly becoming pretty dry and repetitive.
We really need something to break up the monotony, whether that be other forms of aviation such as general / corporate / military / etc, new challenges, more multiplayer features, whatever, we just need more variation in gameplay tbh.