Where to read about gameplay/balance goals of paksets?

[DrSuperGood]

So far the following plane features could be useful for balance.

• Extra costs on takeoff and landing. Limits minimum distance between airports.
  
• Maximum flight range for aircraft between stops (not waypoints). Forces need for intermittent stops for longer flights.
  
• Variable running cost based on transported amount. Limits maximum profit per tile of full planes while still giving reasonable break-even points.
  
• Additional airport requirements such as minimum runway length and control towers. Adds additional complexity to airport design.
  
• Variable running cost based on flight distance meaning that longer flights have higher per tile costs (carrying more fuel uses more fuel). This limits maximum profit for very long range flights.
  
• Some other cargo pricing scheme for aircraft.
  

These features would allow the definition of an optimum aircraft operating range, with anything outside that making less money. It would also allow one to limit how profitable aircraft can be while still giving them reasonable break-even loads.

[jamespetts]

Thank you both - that is very helpful. Experimental (in its development version) currently has:

* maximum range;
* minimum runway length;
* control towers required; and
* runway renewal costs based on usage and weight.

The other mechanisms I will consider carefully, especially:

* making an aircraft's time between overhauls (when the overhauls feature is introduced) dependant on the number of takeoffs as well as or instead of the total distance travelled;
* separating the fuel cost and making this dependant on load (query whether to do this for other forms of transport and, if so, how to calibrate this for, e.g., railway steam locomotives or horses); and
* some simulation of fuel load and the increased fuel cost that this brings.

As to "some other cargo pricing scheme for aircraft", Dr. Supergood - can you elaborate what you mean by this?

The goal of having an optimum range for each aircraft, allowing it to make a (reduced) profit if moderately outside that range, allowing some profit with modest loads and preventing excessive profit with high loads and long distances is very much part of what I want to achieve in terms of balance: a game in which it is reasonably easy to remain solvent (even with suboptimal decisions), but in which it is always challenging, even for a successful and well established transport company, to make enough money to invest in major infrastructure.

[The Hood]

This would be good to have in Standard for planes too. Especially minimum length, takeoff costs, and some way of differentiating between early grass runways and modern concrete (e.g. weight limits or speed limits such that heavier/faster planes only can use modern runways)

[prissi]

weight limits are on the eternal todo list for standard too. The minimum runway length has the problem that it will confuse user, and also it is very vehicles specific. Moreover, even the shortest runway is 3 km long by simutrans scales ...

[Leartin]

Moreover, even the shortest runway is 3 km long by simutrans scales ...

By some obscure scale that dictates that a standard train wagon is half a kilometer long, a train can easily reach 10 kilometer length, and even a standard road is about half a kilometer broad.
I don't think it's far-fetched to say a runway is longer than a trainstation, or at least as long - which is of course pakset dependant, but usually more than 3 tiles. That "tile=kilometer" scale is only true for distances, but not for the length of objects in the game.

[Sarlock]

I think we're trying to overcomplicate the issue.  Adding more layers of complexity and cost is not going to address the issues that exist with planes.

In a nutshell, everything should be able to be simulated using:

Plane operational cost:
Fixed - standing cost per month for vehicle
Variable - cost per tile (includes take off, landing, cruising, taxiing costs)
* We could make variable costs based on weight, but this has potential to confuse the player (why is my plane losing money?).


Take offs are more expensive on fuel but landings are cheaper on fuel.  It's mostly a wash in my view.  A good per tile cost will address all costs close enough to not have a significant impact on profits.

As prissi mentions, at a 1km/tile scale a 3 tile runway is 3,000m long, which is the approximate length of many modern runways.  Tweak the maintenance cost of the runways and other airport infrastructure to make it expensive: if you want to expand an airport, you have to have a frequent airline service to afford it.  I know the realists would disagree, but I wouldn't want to mandate runways longer than this.

The biggest issue seems to be that passengers will not choose based on price of fare, so you can establish massively profitable passenger connections on maps using planes.  If you increase operating cost to 80-90% capacity, you could reduce this significantly, but finding a balance that doesn't make it impossible for newer players to make money is tricky.