A Newbie's problems

[AlexBerne]

Hello guys,

I recently discovered this game and i like it. I think I don't understand anything, but it looks nice

But it's really hard to do some resarch  about this game if you're stuck, so i think i'll ask you and maybe someone has some answers for me.

What i did understand:
I'm CEO of an airline, i have to organize (almost) everything.
I can buy or lease planes, I hire pilots ( but are different Pilots different? The game asked me "you need x pilot, do you want to hire them", i pressed yes, and now i see they do have ratings, ages, Nationalities etc. Is this just nice information or do i have to think about my pilots even more?)
I can sign contracts with other airports, and this allows me to land there.
I should establish some routes i want to cover.

But now i'm a bit confused:

I'm playing Finnair in 1946. Helsiki has a high demand towards Kopenhagen, but there arent lots of other options - but Kopenhagen seems to have a high demand towards Stokholm, so i decided that i should make one route Kopenhagen Helsiki and one Helsinki Stockholm. But when i tried to create the route, the program told me that there is no demand for that flight. So passangers won't buy a travel between Kopenhange and Stockholm, just because they habe to change planes at Helsinki? Or is it a wrong piece of data and this connection would be profitable?

I bought a Seaplane - how do you use these planes? Although range and runway length are ok, the game forbids to assing any of my routes to this plane. I guess thats because its a seaplane, and cannot start from asphalt. But i haven't seen any Runways declared as "water" - where do i find them?


How do you calculate the distances? I thought Helsinki should be a good spot, because you can fly very nothern and should have low distances to Canada, Russia, Far East. But I'm not sure if the game is calculating distances on a sphere, or just on a plain map.

I'm sure there will be lots of other questions coming up as soon as i understood more of this great game, but that's it for the moment.

I hope someone can answer some of my questions.
Greetings,
Alex

[pjank42]

Hello and welcome :-)

I hope I am able to answer your questions, so here we go:

* Pilots: When you have hired the pilots you don't need to give them any attention at the moment
* Seaplane: At the moment we only have around 20 airports with a water runway, but more will come in the future. Some of the newer things have been implemented but we still need to update the data part of it. But to use a seaplane requires water runways on all destinations
* Distances: The distances are calculated based on the sphere, so there should be no issues in that. So if you have something which seems incorrect please let me know and I will try to solve it
Demand: If you want to create a route like that you should create a route between Helsinki and Copenhagen but then add a stopover in Stockholm. So not two separat routes but only one.

I hope that answered some of your questions

[AlexBerne]

Demand: If you want to create a route like that you should create a route between Helsinki and Copenhagen but then add a stopover in Stockholm. So not two separat routes but only one.

So there is no way to convince passangers to change planes at some hubs?
Is there another way to manipulate the demand during the game? Or should i mainly cover airports that have lots of planes a day in reallity, and offer peer-to-peer fights?

Another question about Demand: I use them mainly for comparsion atm. But when it comes to "How many weekly flights do i want to establish?", I'm randomly guessing and comparing. Are these numbers weekly passengers? And do all of them take my plane, if there is no alternative, or do some of them say "Under these conditions, I'm not going to travel. It's too expensive / uncomfortable / slow  ... " ?
And why does the game tell me, i should offer x weekly flights? It doesn't know which plane i'm going to use, so how can it tell me, how many fights i should establish? I think 1 fight a week with 100 seats should be as good as 5 fights a week with 20 seats. Or does each route have a internal "Please use a plane with x seats, if you offer more, we will only use x seats?"

Thanks for your rapid answer btw.

Greetings,
Alex

[nnick]

Hi,

The demand depends on a lot of things. If you offer good qualities with a low price more people will fly your routes. Every route has its own rating you can see this by clicking on the pencil icon on the route page. Then, in the top you can select feedback and you will see reactions of your passengers, and the grade your route has. 



Also advertising is an important way to attract more passengers to your route. And off course remember that in 1946 there were a lot less travelers then now. 

Greeting,
Nick