Archive for August, 2010

Update 1.5.2 and news round-up

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Today, both Nicosia and Croydon received updates to 1.5.2. This is the same patch-level Tempelhof had at launch. As such, please find all changes and updates in the respective announcement.

Besides this, we’d like to use this opportunity to point your attention towards some topics that might have been neglected due to the release of 1.5 and the launch of Tempelhof.

Upcoming development

After the development of 1.5, which lasted about one year, we are now shifting to a lower gear for a few weeks to gain some fresh energy for AirlineSim and other projects. But don’t worry: After this vacation we will work towards reaching our old update schedule. This is: One maintenance release each month containing bugfixes and minor features and improvements.

Concerning the longer term goals for AirlineSim we are still evaluating the various possible and wished-for features we got on our list. For now, what AS 1.6 might look like and when it will be released is completely up in the air though.

AirlineSim Holiday Event 2010

It’s almost become a tradition already: After our previous christmas events in Vienna and Dresden, this year we will meet in Nuremberg. The event is a non-aviation, family-friendly meet-up that takes place in a beautiful city with a traditional christmas market. This year’s date is Saturday, the 18th of December.

Please sign up on Facebook and or on our forums.

AirlineSim on Twitter and Facebook

For those who missed it so far: AirlineSim and simulogics are present on both Facebook and Twitter. We use these channels to release tiny updates and bits of information that do not warrant an own entry on the portal or in the forums. You can follow the Twitter streams without having an account yourself by using the Twitter website or and RSS reader. These are our profiles:

Don’t forget: Every now and then we publish voucher codes for free credits on these profiles!

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Posted in News, Technical Updates | No Comments »

Tempelhof takes off for AirlineSim!

Monday, August 16th, 2010

This is an official press release intended for immediate release. If you are a press outlet and require additional information, please contact media@simulogics.net.

Online aviation simulation AirlineSim (www.airlinesim.aero) is pleased to be able to present, from the 16th of August 2010, its third international game world. Known as “Tempelhof”, it will provide up to 1200 users with the opportunity to manage their own virtual airlines in a detailed and realistic global economic environment. The new game world will run the latest version of AirlineSim’s server software, currently at version 1.5, which provides a greatly improved player-oriented interface, an expanded range of statistical data and improvements to the economic, flight planning and management systems. “Our simulated passenger and freight distribution system has been made significantly more detailed and transparent”, says Martin Simons, lead developer of AirlineSim; “These improvements, combined with real traffic data from airports all over the world, give players a realistic backdrop to airline management that you won’t find in any other browser-based multiplayer online game.”

While the hardware and software are state of the art, the game world’s name looks back to the history of aviation. Tempelhof is the name of the famous inner-city airport in Berlin, one of the icons of 20th century aviation even after its 2008 closure. “There was never any doubt that we would name a game world after Tempelhof”, says Sascha Kunert; “Since we name all our game worlds after former airports, it was only a matter of time. We had perhaps expected to use the name for a German-speaking game world, however.”

Instead, Tempelhof is expected to become the first AirlineSim game world to operate in a truly multilingual environment, with players given the ability to change the game’s display language. “Up to now, because of the way the servers are set up, we’ve been restricted to one language per game world”, says Martin Simons; “With the lifting of that restriction, we have plans to add support for a variety of languages. While we’re not in a position to make any official announcements as to which languages are expected yet, our very international community, now over 2000 strong, is helping us with the translations.”

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Posted in News, Press Release | 1 Comment »

Third international game world starts today

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Rumors have been floating around the forums and elsewhere for quite a while, but now it’s official: A new game world will launch later today! We will start the game whenever the technical setup is ready and last minute issues have been addressed. Therefore expect the doors to open in the late afternoon, European time.

The new game world – the name will be officially announced as soon as it’s opened – will run the latest patch level 1.5.2 and bleeding-edge master data (airports, aircraft etc.). These facts are worth knowing if you are interested in playing on the new server:

  • The game will run on a standard configuration (all aircraft, all airports, ground networks enabled).
  • The initial passenger demand has been slightly reduced for the start-up phase and will be adjusted as the amount of players/airlines grows.
  • Some airport and aircraft characteristics differ from the existing game worlds.

At this point I’d like to point your attention towards a policy that has been common practice for quite some time, but has never been officially announced: From 1.5.2 we will do data patches in a way that will not worsen the situation of any single player in a harmful way. Prime examples for this are changes in airport size or the addition of new nighttime bans, both of which cause major disturbance to the schedules of any airline operating out of the affected airports. Updates like these will only be applied to new game worlds, while existing ones only receive positive or neutral changes (extended runway length, more slots, updated demand etc.).

For a complete list of changes, new features and bugfixes contained in 1.5.2, please read on.

(more…)

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One less bug, one more feature

Friday, August 13th, 2010

After the launch of AirlineSim 1.5, we were made aware of some problems with Traffic Rights as applied to the improved via-flight feature. In short, the second segments of any such flights that didn’t have traffic pickup rights were running empty, regardless of any passenger demand between the origin and the final destination. Happily, the cause of the problem was easy to find – an important part of the new AS1.5 flight system had not been made to take via flights into account.

Fixing the bug was simple, but fixing it also presented an opportunity to add a new feature, which AirlineSim has so far been missing. In real life, some airlines operate ‘mini hubs’ at airports abroad; examples include operations by South American airlines in Spain, European airlines in Florida or American airlines in Asia. The airlines have the ability – assuming no additional agreements exist between the second and third countries – to carry passengers from Country A to Country C with a change of flight in Country B without picking up additional passengers in B, effectively enabling them to create connection-based networks at airports outside their own countries. This ability will now be available in AirlineSim, too – hence the ‘feature’ part of today’s title.

Operating a ‘mini hub’ is not for the faint-hearted; airlines still won’t have the ability to carry local traffic on the second leg of the flight, so the advantages – and costs – of operating these extra flights will have to be considered very carefully, and in many cases it will be more efficient to make use of a local partner to carry any connecting traffic, but the option will be available for those situations where such partners are unavailable or unattractive.

It’s worth noting, in addition, that the via flight function only needs to be used in situations where 5th Freedom rights are available for onward flights; for example, between countries which are parties to the Yamoussoukro Decision. If 5th Freedom traffic isn’t a concern, regular flights that aren’t explicitly via the intermediate point will also work fine. Of course, you may want to use the feature anyway – using it saves a flight number, and will probably offer the possibility of a dedicated technical stop in the future.

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Posted in From the Hangar | 1 Comment »

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