The Airline Project Survey

[Tjoeker]

Hey fellow TAP'ers,


I've made a survey about this game to get more information about this community's needs.

This will give me some insight on what I should focus in my projects for this game.
I also gave pjank full access to the survey, so he has direct access to the results.

Link to the survey

Completing the survey will only take 1 - 2 minutes.
The answers are stored anonymously.

Thanks for taking your time completing the survey!

Regards, Tjoeker

[pjank42]

I hope that people will use a couple of minutes on this so we can improve the game

[nnick]

I filled in the survey. I hope it can help you with giving the game overall direction, as well as knowing where to put priorities.
I really can't wait till the game reaches the same functionality level as TAPv1, but without all the bugs and crashes. 

Greetings,
Nick

[Tjoeker]

Thanks nnick, pjank and everybody who filled in the survey!
Now I have an idea what would be the best order to release my updates.


Against my expectations, we don't have any players in France or the UK, nor do we have a lot of players from the USA or Canada.. (or at least, they didn't fill in the survey).

Most players start their game somewhere between the 90's and now. Yet more than 50% wants to be able to start their game in 1910. I'm confused. :p
Oh well, once the secret project comes to a playable state, I bet more people will start their game earlier then the 90's.

I'll leave the survey open, if anyone wants to submit his home country.

[nnick]

I personally love to start in the early ages of aviation. But. There is a but for me. Although all the airliners are historical accurate, the airports are not (and a few game aspects are not 100% perfect for it but that could be fixed). A while ago I started on creating historical accurate data for the airports. The only problem is, there is not a lot of info online! Or at least not specific enough. 

They do mention a runway and terminal expansion sometimes but only sometimes the new length, and the amount of gates. Fortunately I did manage to do a few airports and off course send this data to pjank. Basically contains this data every expansion of an airport, name changes, and the runway names being changed as well
The airports that I did:

1. Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
   AMS / EHAM
   The Netherlands
   1916
2. Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport
   CDG / LFPGFrance1974
3. Rotterdam The Hague Airport
   RTM / EHRDThe Netherlands1956
4. London Heathrow Airport
   LHR / EGLLUnited Kingdom1946
5. Gatwick Airport
   LGW / EGKKUnited Kingdom1928
6. Frankfurt Airport
   FRA / EDDFGermany1936
7. Dublin Airport
   DUB / EIDWIreland1940
8. London City Airport
   LCY / EGLCUnited Kingdom1987
9. Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport
   MAD / LEMDSpain1931
10. Vienna International Airport
    VIE / LOWWAustria1938
11. Copenhagen Airport
    CPH / EKCHDenmark1925
12. Paris-Orly Airport
    ORY / LFPOFrance1932
13. Barcelona Airport
    BCN / LEBLSpain1918
14. Munich-Riem Airport
    MUC / EDDMGermany1939 / 1992
15. Munich Airport 'Franz Josef Strauß'
    MUC / EDDMGermany1992
16. Berlin Tempelhof Airport (though i'm not sure if pjank has the data from this one)
    THF / EDDIGermany1923 / 2008

Altough it's extremely satisfying to complete the airports, as you mentioned, not a lot of players start in the early ages

But I would happily volunteer to help complete all (or a lot, since all would be impossible) airports with historical data! Until then, I don't really think it's worth it to go back to the 1910's, plus there are not a lot of airports back then.

Another major issue is the WW1 and WW2. Even now when we can start in the 1930's, I don't think the war is in the game enough. Since it was off course a major thing for aviation. 

Conclusion, don't get me wrong. I would love to stand at the beginning of aviation, and discuss with the wright brothers what to do next, but i do want the challenges of those days in the game as well. So short grass runways, no real terminals, no night flights, planes just randomly tearing apart in the skies. (well random, just bad engineering i guess) etc etc etc. 

greetings,
Nick 

[Tjoeker]

I think you hit the jackpot here.  

I'm currently working on historical airport data, in a close cooperation with Pjank.

Indeed, you can't find data for every airport ingame, but I've found enough data to do realistic estimations on other airports.
Also, I'm constantly revising demand for airports I can't find any data for, to balance out the game.

I'm currently kind of ignoring the war.
As in:
-airports don't close during the war (unless they don't get repaired after the war)
-demand doesn't rise during the war, in some cases it drops a little.
implementing the war would be a disaster to gameplay I think. Almost every airport I came across so far shuts down for civil aviation.


I expect to release the first update at the end of August/beginning of September, including 90-ish airports. (if the version at that moment supports al the new features that are necessary )
A more official announcement will follow soon.

Just a quick question:
Is all your gathered data already ingame?
If you'd like to help me out with this enormous task, let me know. I'll think of a way how we can cooperate while keeping the game in balance.

[nnick]

I just can't tell you how exited I am! This is definitely a dream coming true. 

I'm wondering what sources you're using, and where you get all the data from. I remember that wikipedia has a lot, but definitely not all the details. Also not all dates are correct if you compare wikipedia and other sources. (though most of the time all sources say a slightly different date) 

About the war, I think it could be done at a later stage. To be honest, I think that the war(s) are a totally different project. There are so many ideas popping up now I think about it.

• By implementing a lot of restrictions
  
• after WW2 there is a huge load of c-54's available
  
• passenger demands are low
  
• cargo demand to west Berlin is sky rocketing (this would make a awesome scenario)
  
• Trying to set up temporary routes from different countries if your country is occupied (klm for example started to fly routes from england)
  
• etc. There are so much ideas to think about
  

But this would be a project on it's own.

I'm wondering which airports are included. Because I thought that to keep it realistic, it could be an idea to release it per region. So first all the major airports in europe, and then gradually expanding it. The reason for this is that the airplanes couldn't fly that far, so having historic airports all over the place wouldn't be so much fun i guess. 

Let's go nuts here for a moment. Why don't we implement a historic mode to the game? That way you can only play with airports that are historically correct, and all other airports are kept out. And since it's much harder to make a decent profit back then, and the game in general will be harder to play. Because of this, I think that releasing a mode with only 90 airports should be fun/challanging enough for the time being, and then it could be gradually extended. (so there would be a normal mode, with all airports; and a historic mode with only historically accurate data)

That brings me to another idea. Stopover flights. This is definitely something that should be implemented when we are working in the early ages. This chart shows all the stops for KLM's Amsterdam - Batavia flight back then. This takes a huge amount of planning and I'm not sure if the route scheduler can handle this kind of complexity, but it's definitely something to consider.

I believe all the data i mentioned previously is in the game. Only berlin tempelhof i'm not sure off. But I have all the data on my pc so that should not be a problem.

I guess that it's clear that I would love to help you with the task! Just contact me so we can get started

Cheers,
Nick

[Tjoeker]

Hehe, I knew you'd be happy about this

I'm wondering what sources you're using, and where you get all the data from. I remember that wikipedia has a lot, but definitely not all the details. Also not all dates are correct if you compare wikipedia and other sources. (though most of the time all sources say a slightly different date)

Mostly wikipedia. I'm lucky to be born in Belgium, we had to study 4 languages (Dutch, French, English and German). (this also helps with understanding Italian and Spanish). This gives me the ability to check the wikis in 4 different languages. If the wikipedia doesn't tell me enough, I look for a website in the local language made by a fan or so.

Personally, I don't care if a runway got extended on March 5th 1930, but ingame it is May the 20th. as long as the year (or even decade) is correct. (unless an exact date is mentioned of course)

for example: If it is stated that Schiphol was the second airport in Europe to receive a concrete runway in 1935, then I know I shouldn't be creating concrete runways before 1935.

About the war, ...

Oh that way, yeah I could see that becoming a thing
once.. first this project ^^
We'll need pjanks opinion on it though.

I'm wondering which airports are included. Because I thought that to keep it realistic, it could be an idea to release it per region. So first all the major airports in europe, and then gradually expanding it. The reason for this is that the airplanes couldn't fly that far, so having historic airports all over the place wouldn't be so much fun i guess.

I'm not sure if I understand it correctly.

But here's how I'm doing it:
I'm going region by region (which is why I needed to know where we have the most players), including airports that are currently rated Small - Largest.
If the distance between 2 airports is too big for the early years, I add a Smallest - Very small airport.
Once I've covered the world this way, I'll go for a second round including the smaller airports.

I'll release the files separately from the official release. Players can than choose to replace their airport files with mine.
Once I've covered every Small - Largest airport, I think we can move the files to the official release. (thus temporarily loosing the smallest airports)
But that's something for later
I have currently included 1% of the original airports in my version.

Let's go nuts here for a moment. Why don't we implement a historic mode to the game? That way you can only play with airports that are historically correct, and all other airports are kept out. And since it's much harder to make a decent profit back then, and the game in general will be harder to play. Because of this, I think that releasing a mode with only 90 airports should be fun/challanging enough for the time being, and then it could be gradually extended. (so there would be a normal mode, with all airports; and a historic mode with only historically accurate data)

That's something that I've discussed with pjank as well.
minus the fact that if you'd want every airport, you'll have to switch the files.
I think writing code to switch between every airport or historic airports would be wasted time..? we'd also have to write this in every airport we have covered..

But here's how it goes:
You are given the option to play with the historic accurate demand, or... with a fixed scale:
If an airport is 'largest' today, they remain largest throughout the entire game.
They start out in 1910 with a daily pax of 2*, and they end with their current amount of pax in 2016 (with a steady growth in the future).
This is an interesting curve about passenger growth. It only starts in the 70's, but when my/our work is completed, we'll be able to compare our demand to this curve and make an assumption for 1910-1970.
Then the game started with fixed airports uses this data for growth.

I don't know if I explained this clear enough :p

That brings me to another idea. Stopover flights. This is definitely something that should be implemented when we are working in the early ages. This chart shows all the stops for KLM's Amsterdam - Batavia flight back then. This takes a huge amount of planning and I'm not sure if the route scheduler can handle this kind of complexity, but it's definitely something to consider.

Yup, that's what brought me to this Idea. I like how we're thinking exactly the same
I was implementing British Imperial Airways, but many airports were missing (because they aren't there anymore or they are simply to small).

This is an interesting site, containing schedules from many, many historic airlines. (I don't think we should implement them all )

I guess that it's clear that I would love to help you with the task! Just contact me so we can get started Smile

Great! I think I'll release the first part myself, so we have something to refer to for balancing further releases. Afterwards I'll contact you

[nnick]

First of all, I won't quote your post, because then things become extremely long. 
I think we agree on almost everything, except I'm not really sure if I understand what you mean with regions and historic mode.

Regions:
Just to be clear, and I think you mean the same, I think that the historic data should be enrolled per region. So first europe is historically accurate (as you said the major airports first), then asia for example, north america, etc etc. Once all the continents are covered, we could move on and do smaller airports, again per region.
I'm just not really sure what you mean with "If the distance between 2 airports is too big for the early years, I add a Smallest - Very small airport.".

Historic Mode:
I think this could be easily fixed since we are working with xml files. It could be done by just adding a attribute isHistoric="true". Then in the code pjank could just only load the airports with the flag isHistoric. I've been looking through the old version of tap on github, and it seems like the game is being build quite modular. So based on that I think it should not be to hard to implement. The advantages ofcourse would be that you don't have to switch between files.

As you already said, I think it would be good not to include these files in the base right now. I think it should stay as an add-on for the time being. Then users have the ability to install it or not. 

Cheers