Community question - Mail to Devs

General discussion
1

Hi guys,

I have written a mail to the devs and would like to hear your opinion, am I the only one who thinks so or do you share my opinion?

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great Christmas.

Since the release, I’ve been playing LHR daily, reached level 56, completed 245 contracts, thoroughly tested the game. The airport is perfect, looks incredibly beautiful, and you can see the effort put into it. The remaining bugs have been mentioned and will likely be fixed soon, but they don’t affect my enjoyment.

However, there’s a non-bug issue I’d like to address, not unique to LHR. Despite completing around 250 contracts, buying every gate, and playing with the Tower Manager at the highest level, I never have more than 20 planes at the gate simultaneously. M planes taking different runway exits result in a 12-second difference (min 38 sec; max 60 sec), while L and X planes always take 60 seconds.

I propose changes to have at least 60-70 planes at the gate simultaneously:

  1. Reduce landing time using realistic fast-exit.

  2. Same runway exit for M planes.

  3. Optional extension of processing time without causing delays.

Explanation to 3: when you start an airport from scratch, short processing times are essential, otherwise it will take even longer to level up.

But later, when you have bought everything, or if you want it to be generally realistic, it should be possible for the aircraft to be processed much longer.

For example: L: 45-60 minutes instead of 20, X: up to 90 minutes instead of 30 minutes.

I need some more money to complete the remaining 18 contracts, then I won’t have urgent goals. I prefer a realistic game over buying an expensive fleet, but opinions may vary.

I’d like to post this in the forum to hear the community’s opinion. I hope you don’t mind.

Best regards,

Krankenwart (In-game: Marcelxvi.)

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I agree with you that the existing timing system is a coin with two sides.

In most airports, I have to cancel all S/M contracts and only have largest planes available in L/X category, that is, only A388s (no B748) and B77Ws, with A346s (A346 comes with a little more reward than A35K now, and I don’t do B744 because it requires more ground staff but the reward does not increase respectively).

And don’t forget A225, B748F and B77LF, they also come with higher rewards than passenger planes.

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I completely agree but I’m getting the impression they’re not really interested in the realism aspect (maybe at least for now)
But you could use a tactic of parking certain planes I.e. British M planes at the gate and letting them stand there for a bit longer without handling to fill up the airports

The only down side to that is it will make leveling up take a bit longer. That’s why I try to get to as close to the highest level I can and just play like that and once I get to the highest level I’ll stop

Because once you reach MAX, the XPs you gain go to waste

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You’re not the only player who has an issue with the current handling times. However as you mentioned the shorter handling times make it easier to progress. Someone suggested adding a realistic mode which focuses more on realism and a tycoon mode for players who prefer the current mechanics.

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You are so on point, couldn’t agree more!!!

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The landing speed is already quite realistic. The issue is the timers are really screwy.

As one example, the E175 and CRJ7 have about the same pax capacity yet somehow the E175 turns around twice as fast.

I strongly hope the devs at least give us an option to have longer, more realistic timers, or to set remain on ground times. It’s somewhat of a letdown having a huge airport like LHR and having it feel like a ghost town most of the time.

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Devs said in the live stream that timers are set to 3X normal.
If you use the ground tower agent, the exit does speed up a little. I can see it clearly when I do and I don’t use it, especially at LHR.

I’ve heard nothing from the devs that they are planning to change it. The flight times used to be real, but got canned in V2 because of so many complaints of how slow it was and to allow for the adjustments needed to the connections system
My understanding is that due to the way the data is held between server and local that I am not sure a dual system will work. That’s not confirmed just reading between the lines of what has been said in related conversations

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Thank you for your answer @carlsberg72

But may I ask, what are your thoughts or feelings when you see that so much work has been put into such a huge airport, over 170 gates (I haven’t counted) have been built and they are all empty, as on average only 20 planes are parked at the gate at the same time?

I just wonder whether this is also a problem for the developers, for which no solution has yet been found, or whether this is tolerated and the focus is on other things.

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The game was designed on throughput, get things in and out as fast as you can. That’s why #of items is not 1 per gate for example.

I have 162 contracts at LHR and have made a pact with myself to slow down and have 30 odd aircraft on stand on average. It does make things a lot busier looking.
It’s been this way since day 1, and the devs even with a complete revamp for V2 have not changed the mechanics, so I’m going to go out on a ledge and say they aren’t planning to update it.
The other thing to think about is the ability to handle 50-60’planes at once. I tried to use auto handler so I could work on getting more planes in. Frankly it’s almost impossible to keep up with that number of aircraft. Even with the rest of the tower functions on at LHR.

I get the frustration and what it means to a lot of people to have the gates full. But even UATC never had the stands full once you got going for long enough in the game.

For me. I landed 11 got them to the gates and then as the next lot landed. I started to run them. That cycle kind of keeps me between 22 and 34 generally. Which is a happy medium, but that’s just me. Of course you could land 20 and say start 5, then you have a nice sequence.

What I am going to come back to is the insatiable need to fly up the levels. A lot of the requests I see are really for that purpose and that’s the frustrating thing, because you do all of that and the question then becomes “when’s the next update and what’s next?” Which I spend 1/2 my life fielding.
While I respect the feeling you want fuller airports and speed up the game play to a degree. And that everyone is entitled to play the way they want. A lot of these issues could be addressed by slowing down and playing differently.

And I can guarantee when the next smaller airport comes along the first question will be “where are all the X and L gates, there aren’t enough”. That one wants me to throw my size 11 shoe through the screen.

Long story short. I doubt devs are going to change too much. The tower agent was an attempt to help. But players need to think a little differently in the way they play if they want to get that they want out of the game.

Ps. This is not a response on behalf of the devs as I am not one of them. This is my personal opinion based on my experience and knowledge of the game and the devs thought processes that I am aware of.

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I have about 40 on stand right now. My BA terminal doesn’t look so empty

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With all due respect, that’s not the point. There are 3 more PAX terminals.

Fully utilizing one terminal is absolutely not the problem. Terminal 5 + 3 in combination would also looks very good, but after that at the latest it looks very thin.

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I have gradually increased my aircraft on stand to over 50 across all the terminals. And I plan on increasing it further. It can be done, you just have to have the patience to put the plan into practice.