News from the hangar

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Since the new year started it’s been rather quiet around AirlineSim. Therefore we’d like to give you a brief insight into what we are working on right now.

Planning for 1.6

In our last status report we already mentioned that the aircraft and performance system will probably be at the center of the next major update. But while we are at it we’d like to take the opportunity of using this considerable change to the system to improve and polish AirlineSim in as many aspects as possible. To do so we have started a thorough definition process to find – as the first step – all the things positive, negative and otherwise noteworthy about AirlineSim which make it the game it is today. Given this catalogue we will take a close look at all these features and rate them according to an overall concept we are working out for 1.6. The goal of this procedure is to identify and eliminate the many conceptual shortcomings the game is suffering from due to its long and rich history.

The overall process is in its starting phase right now. We aim to finish it within 2 to 3 months and we will most definitely involve the community at some point in time as well. We will keep you posted!

New payment methods

We’ve spent a  lot of our development time last month to extend our payment system. The primary goal of this effort was to allow for more international payment methods and local currencies. As a first result, players from Argentina as well as Mexico have been able to use paysafecard in their local currencies for a few weeks now and we are happy to announce that we will introduce a new payment method within the coming weeks: Mobile payments! Users from an initial set of about 20 countries will be able to use their cell phone to pay for credits. As soon as this feature is implemented, additional information will follow.

The “stuck aircraft bug”

Some of you have been affected by this issue, while some of you might just have have read about it on the forums. Either way: Due to a bug, aircraft get stuck sproradically. Subsequent flights are consequently cancelled, and can generate considerable costs for the affected operator. Unfortunately we have not been able to identify the exact cause of this issue. Maybe this can illustrate why it is so hard to find: In an average game world about 1 million flights are operated every week. Since we estimate that the bug occurs about a dozen times a day – spanning all game worlds – the result is an error ratio of 0.008%. Judging from the error reports we got so far no particular connection to any in-game action (like scheduling flights, doing transfers or similar) exists, which leaves us with no clue at all about the origin of the bug. And as long as we are unable to reproduce the bug there is almost no way of fixing it.

To get rid of the problem we are working on a workaround – namely, bypassing the affected part of the program altogether, which should effectively fix the issue for the players. Until this is implemented we ask all affected players to send in an email to our support containing the registration of any stuck aircraft along with the game world you are playing in; given that, we can get it moving again. Please excuse the fact that we are not able to refund the costs incured in-game.

Upcoming updates

As soon as the problem described above has been taken care of we will apply a maintenance patch. As usual this patch will include various smaller fixes and changes. We are also working on a new costing feature which is still in an experimental stage and will be covered in detail in a dedicated blog post.

Beyond that we have another data patch in the pipeline which has not been tagged with a specific date yet. If you come across data bugs or missing airports please let us know by dropping an email to our support and we will include the respective fixes in the patch.

Other projects

Of course we do not want to withold another major reason for the relative silence around AirlineSim: In parallel to AirlineSim we are also working on prototypes for potential new game projects to launch later this year. After asking for your opinions concerning this last year we are now in the phase of working out various concepts in detail. Basically the top candidates right now are another browser-game and a single-player desktop game – both business simulations of course – while other concepts have not been ruled out completely. This thorough preparatory work requires a lot of time and effort but we are confident that it will pay off later in terms of quality.

We will keep you informed about the development in this area as well, so stay tuned!

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A short status report

Sunday, December 12th, 2010

Hi everyone – I’d just like to briefly outline what we’re currently working on, and what updates are planned for the next few weeks. First of all, I’d again like to draw your attention to our Christmas fundraiser, which will remain open until the 24th of December. Anyone who hasn’t yet made any donations still has two weeks to do so – remember, you’ll walk away with some free credits!

Data Patch D3 and Aircraft Data

There’s some good news and bad news to report on these fronts. First the good news: the D3 data patch will be released in December, and will bring with it a large number of new airports, including more than 30 in China alone. The patch also contains a lot of updated airport traffic information, a number of revisions to airport ground connection links and similar changes.

The bad news is that the aircraft data, which we were hoping to release alongside D3, has been a major headache. The patch will see the introduction of two new aircraft models – namely, the Airbus A330-200F and the Bombardier CRJ-1000NG – but our work in preparing for the introduction of these two aircraft has highlighted some significant ‘legacy’ issues with the way AirlineSim handles performance data. As a result of this, the performance of these new aircraft may in some ways be a little odd – their fuel consumption, for example, may not match their less-advanced predecessors, as a consequence of the (unfortunately well-known) shortcomings in the way fuel consumption is handled internally.

As a consequence of this, we’re intending to spend some time conducting a general overhaul of aircraft performance data and the way it’s handled, rather than focusing on new or otherwise neglected models. How this may end up looking is not currently clear, but there’s a chance the work may lead up to – and develop into – the next major update (i.e AirlineSim 1.6), in which case it’d bring with it a number of new features and major changes. Final decisions on this process aren’t being taken until 2011, however, so we’ll keep you posted!

Updates to the Payment System

We spent most of the past week working on our payment system. Our aim was to prepare the system for the introduction of new, more internationally-compatible payment methods, including support for foreign currencies. This should make AirlineSim available in a number of countries which have so far been mostly locked out of the game, for want of a suitable payment method for the majority of the prospective playerbase. This has taken – and is still taking – longer than we’d like, but the update will be going live over the next week, and the revised payment system should be entirely online by the end of the year. The German servers will continue to have their payments handled through 4players, so no change there.

The Next Patch: 1.5.5

Last but not least, some informaton on the next game system update. Our original intention was to make 1.5.5 a ‘hotfix’ for any problems introduced by 1.5.4 and the associated changes to the stock exchange system. However, this hasn’t really proved necessary; most of the changes are not very high on our priority list, while preventing stock price surges after IPOs is not really practical right now given the amount of work that would be involved. Therefore, those changes already implemented will make their way into the revised v1.5.5, which we’re planning to release in the last week before Christmas. Besides the usual bug fixes, 1.5.5 will probably contain some new and very useful analysis tools, which should help you optimise your existing routes. There’s a small preview of them here: Click!

That about wraps things up for the time being! We’re also organising our usual Christmas meetup this weekend in Nuremberg – you can find information on the forums, as always.

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Coming up: New stock market rules

Friday, November 19th, 2010

The launch of our latest international server (Tempelhof) has shown that, starting with the first IPOs, there has been an excessive level of abuse of the stock markets. For that reason, the run-up period to an IPO on the latest German server (Fornebu) was extended to give us time to work out some important changes to the stock market rules. Discussions regarding this problem took place on the German forums and were based on the following premises:

  • Both the problems affecting IPOs and later share trading need to be addressed.
  • The stock market is not in itself a key game feature. As such, the strategic element takes precedence over the speculative one.

The discussion resulted in the following measures being decided upon, to be implemented in the upcoming version 1.5.4:

  1. IPOs can only be subscribed to a maximum of 200% of the shares offered.
  2. The stock rate follows a given base rate, tied closely to the company value, and gives a rough prognosis on the company’s development.
  3. Stock rate changes through trade will only be possible within +/- 10% of the base rate.

As a result, players who are active on the stock market should be aware that, when the patch is implemented, stock listings may change significantly. The magnitude of this can be approximated based on the company value of any publicly traded company.

Important: The formula for the calculations of the base rate is not yet final and will most likely need optimizing after the patch is implemented. If you’re seeing significant losses on the stock market, it is recommended that you sit out and wait for future changes to the calculation methods.

We expect to apply this patch towards the end of next week, depending on the results of further internal testing.

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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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Video time! The new AS 1.5 interface

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

It’s been a while since we released a video about the upcoming AirlineSim 1.5. So here it is, the third video in a series about the features and improvements the new version will introduce. This time we focused on an in-depth introduction to the completely revised interface of the game. But see for yourself!

As usual, we recommend to watch the video directly over at Vimeo for better quality and larger screen size.

Some words on the content for the impatient: The new interface was redesigned with three key goals in mind. Firstly we wanted to slim down the header and the navigation to require less space. AS is a highly complex airline simulation and as such we need as much space for actual content like large tables or charts as possible. Secondly we wanted to improve usability and generall accessibility of the main features and places within the game. The icon-based navigation now looks a lot less cluttered and the sorting by topic makes it easier to find the feature you are looking for quickly. Last but not least we wanted to bring the visual design up to current standards worthy of a modern, web-based management game.

We sincerely hope you enjoy the changes and we look forward to your feedback! In the meantime we are hard at work to open AirlineSim 1.5 for a public Beta some time around next week. So stay tuned!

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Bye bye, holdings!

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

This week I implemented, more or less spontaneously, one of the most radical changes in the history of AirlineSim. This change was – just as spontaneously and also as an answer to some elementary questions on AirlineSim’s future – decided on the weekend before, at the weekly AirlineSim team meeting. Accordingly, I want to inform all players who aren’t participating in the current alpha test about this change and its impact on the game.

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Have a look at 1.5’s new Flight Planning System

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Except for the launch of Croydon it has been rather quiet around here over the last couple of weeks. So lets break the silence! We’ve been working hard on one of AirlineSim 1.5’s biggest new features: The flight planning system! It will completely change the way you do your scheduling in AirlineSim. We have also integrated the first parts of our new design which will be introduced alongside the new milestone. Since a picture says more than a thousand words, find a video of the new feature after the break. Oh, and the guy talking with the funny German accent would be Martin…

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Upcoming: New staff features

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Since AirlineSim first appeared based on our currently employed technology, the human resources features have been nothing but a shadow of their former self. When doing the switch from the old framework to the new one, some parts of AS simply went overboard due to time constraints or because they were simply “overlooked”. So as promised on the forums and elsewhere, this topic will be one of the last big ones we will definately tackle to some extend in the 1.3 branch.

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Bringing AirlineSim to the market

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

It has been a while since I last reported from the hangar. That’s because the “hangar” now is an actual office. Well, in some way at least: I moved to a different city which kept me away from doing AirlineSim-related work for a few days but on the other hand resulted in a new appartment with my first ever dedicated room just for work. Within this environment my favourite daily schedule would look something like this: get up late, grab some coffee and unhealthy food, lock myself into the office, do programming all day long, chat with the team and fans every now and then, leave the office at some late hour of the day. Unfortunately, besides the fact that my girlfriend would probably be gone after a few days of practicing this schedule, there are many more aspects to “making AirlineSim” than just writing the code.

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Next Patch: Targets & Testing

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Now that most of the kinks have been worked out of the international side of things, it’s time to start thinking about the next patch. This one is likely to be quite a lot of work, and as a consequence of that we’re looking at doing some open testing before we set it loose. The preliminary release date for the next patch is the 29th of September 2009. This is not a definite date; depending on how the testing goes it could slip a bit, but the 29th is the current target date.

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