Universal AirTycoon Online (By TRADEGAME Lab)

Hi, admin/dev, I enjoy the game very much! I can see your effort to build a seriuos game and care for serious and loyal players. That makes ATO a game difficult to find in any platform. Appreciate if you consider my several suggestions:

Operationally I still have to press a lot of buttons to manage routes. Can you make it like AT2 that, when I select 2 cities and the route is already in operation, enter the route management screen but not just showing 'route operational'?

The compitition seems to rely on satisfaction too much. And route satisfaction heavily relies on jet satisfaction. And jet satisfaction too easily decreases over time. That isn't quite real and in real world airlines have many ways to win compitition. (A plane 3 yrs old doesn't win over a plane 10 yrs so much in real world right?) My thought is to add into this factor the number of routes the airliner already operate at the 2 cities. At least the scales at each end do impact demand, although they are not literally related to satisfaction...

Last suggestion, sorry, is to ask for less constraints on jet and slot purchase. As time goes by, many airlines are big. We need to replace old planes and open new routes in a faster pace (because we earn more now...). But it is too suffering to wait. I've spent some money on that but I'd rather spend them on plane upgrades and fuel tanks. Can you please ease the contraints to allow 10 planes at one time? (and maybe 5 cities on slots?) Yesterday after work I realized I need to replace 50 planes and that means over 3 hrs waiting, just repeatedly buying planes...

 

I guess the time limitation and constraints in purchasing new aircraft is to make the game playable for more players. If not for the time constraint big companies would then easily overrun and kill start up players who just joined.

Also note to the admin: under "USED PLANE" list, it's spelled "PASSENGER" not "PASSANGER" sorry for being a spelling nazi but I thought I'd point out some misspellings to make the game better

 

I still don't understand why the 737 passenger version has been taken out of the game. It's the most popular jet ever built. Boeing manufactured the -100 and -200 variants until 1988, not to mention the current variants still in production.

I'm in game year 1978 and there are no 737's to buy.


Pretty please let me have my 737s!

 

Regarding B737, I just saw 737-300 in my channel last night. But is it too big? It actually cannot hold 189 at max. After 727-100 retired no models in similar size are available on the market. Wiki and boeng say 737-300 seats 149 at 1 class 30 inch pitch.

 

Also, for the next update, please consider changing the way satisfaction is determined. I have a 10 year old plane that dropped from 80% satisfaction to 27% in those 10 years, which is ridiculous. I bought a new plane of the same model, and the satisfaction went back up to 80% at the next turn.
Having to buy new planes every 10 years is unrealistic.

 

I'm just curious but does the channel open up again once the users drop to less than 350? Like for example does channel 1 opens everytime the number of users drop below 350?

 

question

question about money. I see my flights stay profitable, even after i add schedules flights or even when my flights made less profit, every turn/2 hours i only get 10k. is that how much i get every turn, same for everyone or what?

Help, THanks!

 

Loved AT1. Was thrilled with AT2. I took the plunge on AV2HD hoping for something more and it delivered by incorporating the speed factor I was hoping for. ATO actually addresses most of the best features that we loyal AT players have suggested over the years. ATO is by far the best edition of AT yet, but it leaves way to much to be desired... I doubt you collect statistics on how many hours of gameplay people have put into the AT series, but my stats hours would be ridiculous!

Please, please, please give this AI in an offline mode with a next month button and call it AT3!!! I can no longer play AT2 without thinking how much better ATO is but I just can't see you balancing the game effectively for continued playability for me. I cannot afford to play AT 24/7 no matter how much I love the game and the pay to win concept doesn't further my high level of respect for you as a developer. If you do deliver on my hope, selecting a starting year as well as the options provided in AT2 would bring my level of satisfaction back to an all time high.

The game has come a long way, don't let it die for me in this online only version!

 

Another issue in addition to speed that desperately needs to be addressed in addition to speed, is the number of players per channel. You MUST reduce the maximum number of players, and I'll tell you exactly why.

With 350 players, and only a limited number of cities, you end up with way too much competition to be fair, especially to newer players who aren't as established.

In real life, when an airlines loses money, it goes bankrupt and shuts down. In the game, when a player can't make money, they will simply stop playing the game, and I assume you don't want that.

At the very least, make several different channels with varying numbers of maximum players. For example, Max 50 could be an easy room, and max 200 could be hard.

The bottom line is, something needs to be changed.

This game is good, but with some of these changes, it can be really great.

 

My results turn out to be: if the attendance is low, reducing scheduled flights will produce higher profit, and the seasonality in demand makes net profit vary at 50% down and up. A small size plane (<100 passengers) generates 1500-2500k per month and a big one (like 747) can generate up to 10000k. These exclude expenses like salaries and maintanence. When considering everything in, I have net profit =20-25% of routes profit.

 

I doubt there can be so many ACTIVE players left on a channel after several years. Although it shows 200+ players in my channel I guess active players are around 50. Some airlines have only less than 20 routes in 1980s, how can that be possible if they continue playing the game?! @admin, should we consider a way to handle this situation? The "zombie" airlines are occupying valuable JFK & LHR slots!

 

Agreed. And also in response to what Alpha999 said, the passenger demand system should be tweaked as well. Losing 50% occupancy on a route from one month to the next is a little crazy, even adjusting for high and low seasons. Not to mention that occupancy goes down sometimes despite the global passenger demand going way up. The whole system needs to be more intuitive.

 

I agree with you guys.

- too many players
- offline AI at your own pace. I'm willing to pay monthly subscription for the game server to incorporate AI (most devices can't probably handle the size and features of the game if local)
- I'm a fan of AT1 and AT2; now I'm thinking about ditching ATO after several days of playing because the number of players are just too many.
- Buy your way to the top: I think the developers should limit the number of credits that can be purchased as one can just easily buy his way to the top and over run new start up players who are barely learning how to play the game.

 

Cargo vs passenger planes

Please can someone explain to me whether I should be buying cargo planes or passenger planes? Advantages and disadvantages.

Which is more profitable?

I currently own 9 planes all passenger.

Thanks in advance =)

 

First of all @ tman its up to you. I think passenger routes make more profit per plane but there's a lot less competition on cargo routes. I operate 200 aircraft and about 40 of them are cargo.

Personally i think the amount of users is fine as it is right now in channel 2, around 220. Although you should boot the inactive people because they are taking away a lot of passengers on busy routes.

I also don't really agree with people that say its pay to win. Well yes if you want to be top 3 it is. I haven't invested a penny in the game and have been steady in the top 10 for a month now.

Also the amount of passengers fluctuates so badly with almost 40% less passengers on lows than on highs, that's very unrealistic.

One last suggestion, maybe fit a button to renovate multiple airplane at once. renovating them 1 by 1 takes forever.

 

Cargo demand

I see some of the tools for determining passenger demand for a route prior to opening said route, but how can you predict cargo demand?

 

Cargo vs passenger

It depends on your ranking n company size.
If you r at the first decade, cargo cannot give you enough demand even you monopoly the route. It is more profitable to use passenger route.
However, if your company is big enough (400+ planes), the HR cost for passenger route is horrible. If you don't have cargo, agency n hotel, an economic resession can kill you.
The HR cost is about 60% for cargo route with the same max profit plane.
But cargo route seems to be for high rank player. Low rank player is difficult to get monopoly high profit cargo route.