What is your suggestion?
Currently, in-game time (flight time, sunrise/sunset, handling time/handling limit, ect) is sped up. This has the advantage of allowing players to progress quickly so that aircraft handling isn’t lethargic, but it removes the realism of WOA.
Being able to personalise this time multiplier would improve realism. Players could select a different multiplier for each aspect of in-game time (previously mentioned).
How would it work in the game?
In settings, a sub-menu should be added where players can customize the multiplier that is attached to each aspect of in-game time. For example, a player could keep the current flight time multiplier but make it so that the sunrise/sunset cycle is realistic and aircraft are handled at a realistic pace. I’m not sure by how much the current game is sped up, but if it is sped up 3 times, then players should be able to select if they want each aspect to be realistic, sped up 1.5 times, 2 times, 2.5 times, or 3 times.
Why is this a good idea?
WOA has been able to maintain a very good gameplay-realism balance, but adding this would support players who want to play with realistic time as well as players who prioritise progression. Players would gain no advantage because, in reality, they are only slowing their progression or maintaining current speeds. The reason why I want this to be added is because at large airports with a few runways like LHR, stands are mostly empty because aircraft are handled too fast for aircraft landing to keep up. Also, I often find myself constantly adjusting time back to midday because the sunrise/sunset cycle is too quick.
Another advantage is on the developer side of things. I’m not a developer, but this seems much easier to add than new liveries or new airports, but it can still make a massive difference for realism players.
was playing HKG for about 2 hours and it took an aircraft I cleared to a gate, that landed after an hour of gameplay, but the time went by so fast it felt so unrealistic… I agree to have the game have an option to play in real time, and speed up to intervals of 1 or two options up to the current speed of the game
Why don’t you just assign fewer handlers at the start then? For example, the A380 takes 13 handlers, so just assign 10-11. As for the time, we should have the ability to slow it down so I agree with you on that.
I always assign the minimum amount of handlers without delaying the aircraft. At LHR, if I want to fill out the airport with planes, I would have to avoid handling the aircraft in the first place. To avoid this, why not allow players who want realism to handle aircraft at realistic times? You may call me crazy, but I wouldn’t mind a 2 hour A380 handling time, which should be the longest IRL handling time. Even if I’m playing for a short amount of time, I still won’t mind it because the airport seems fuller. Obviously, if you don’t have all the stands unlocked, nobody in their right mind would like for that to happen, but players should be able to customize things that seem forced onto us, like incredibly fast handling times.
What I’ve been doing lately at LHR and a few other airports is just assigning 1-2 handlers per aircraft to kinda simulate realistic handling times
It’d definitely be nice if it was a feature by default though because while it fills up the airport completely and is nice to pair with realistic stand assignments it can cost upwards of 25k SP per session due to deal manager costs
I would even do the realistic handling time for a 777 maybe 1h 30min (honestly idk how long it takes for a 777) but it would give the game more fulliness and more realism
Another game – Airline Manager – has two servers where one is a tycoon mode with realistic times and the other is an arcade mode that is massively sped up. I doo wonder if that would be a possibility where we could switch between two servers between realistic times and more arcadified times.
The additional server load would increase their costs so perhaps this could be a paid monthly subscription, etc.
It isn’t sarcasm. Increasing handling time wouldn’t be as popular as things like the day cycle and flight time, but lots of players, including me, would rather have realistic handling time if it meant that airports didn’t have as many empty stands. LHR is probably the best example. There is only one arrival runway, but the second highest count of stands in the game. When you have all the stands unlocked, only 20 to 30 aircraft are at the airport at any time becuase they are handled too fast for the single landing runway to catch up. The only current alternative is not handling aircraft, which isn’t very realistic.
From my experience in the game especially at big airports like HKG the current time speed feels too fast. When a batch of aircraft lands, all the handlers get busy, but because turnaround is quick, everything is finished before the next wave even arrives. Then you’re stuck waiting while most of the staff are idle again.
Handling 100+ contracts in real-time terms should take hours, not something that can be cleared so quickly. I’m still running HKG with only T1 open, and I can already see how departures clog things up while landings slow down, which makes the fast handling even more noticeable.
Being able to customize time multipliers for things like handling speed and the day/night cycle would really help. Players who want realism could slow it down, while others could keep the faster pace. That kind of option would make large hubs feel much more alive without affecting balance.
On one hand I do agree that the balance between quasi realistic runway speed and the fast handlings of plane makes things a bit weird. But 2 hours for handling a plane on a MOBILE game is absurd. Can’t get behind this idea at all.
I do agree to you, I can’t imagine 2h for a mobile game and for new players, it would be very complicated to have a fast level up and cannot really enjoy the game
It shouldn’t be be that dramatic either
TBH I think the handling time for the A380 is pretty good as is. I’d just increase everything else by a few minutes
I.e. the 747 is at 21mins on average IIRC but personally I think it can go a bit longer and especially the smaller A-B Planes could easily go from 2 to 3 or even 4 minutes
They handle so quickly I get whiplash sometimes when I check the stand and they’re gone
But we’ll see with the split handling if that could help the scenario but from what I understood from the devblog it’s only on selected contracts. I could be wrong
What is your suggestion?
How would it work in the game?
Why is this a good idea?
