Both passenger flights and general aviation flights are not receiving refueling services. Both are enabled via the Operations tab. Currently, all AvGas trucks are house in one depot, and all JetA1 trucks are housed in another depot. I notice that when they are assigned to stands they can refuel aircraft, but once they need to resupply, they get stuck in a loop trying to leave the stand; so I decided to station them in a depot for that reason. Now it seems refueling services are broken altogether.
On a side note, it would be nice to be able to assign 2 service trucks to a stand to facilitate quicker turnarounds, or if you have extras in a depot, allow them to pick up the slack even when stands have assigned service trucks.
For this initial iteration we didn’t want to put any restrictions on and instead let you test it all out, also it’s always a bit difficult to figure out where to draw lines on what options you make available. I.e. yeah, it’s not very realistic that you can perhaps assign a fuel truck to a certain stand but then again each player disposes of their own airport and if you really want to assign fuel trucks too I can’t really see a reason as to why we should limit it. But I’m open to suggestions posted here!
Yeah, that I agree with, there are a few cases which are pointless and I will check those.
Well, that’s one of the more tricky parts about making a game like this. There’s a difficult trade off: Either we dispatch a truck immediately when boarding starts but if that boarding takes several hours to complete that push-back truck will be unavailable for other jobs throughout that time period. However, if we (like we do now) don’t dispatch a pushback-truck then the aircraft can sit for quite a while on the stand waiting for an available push-back truck before being able to leave. In the end though I think we’re better off with the current system, as there now is an option to either build a vehicle depot nearby (this system at least should try to dispatch job tasks close to the vehicle or assign a push-back truck to the stand.
We might also do some changes where you’d look at more variables than just time for when deploying a push-back job, i.e. “when X time is remaining and/or when Y passengers have boarded” but it all comes down to a specific airport’s layout and how it operates. It’s quite complex and again I am always open to new perspectives and ideas.
Correct, vehicles are assigned to stands and not via a one to one relationship between depots and stands (I never even understood that this was a request?). Depots and parking lots act as generic hubs where vehicles are stored when they are idling, stands also act like that but the difference is that vehicles assigned to a stand only grab job tasks dispatched by that stand (like in real life.
What we’re enabling is what you’re commonly seeing at airports, i.e. for example push-back trucks (but more realistically service trucks or belt loaders) that are immediately available for jobs happening on the stand it’s parked on.
The current UI assigning way is lackluster, yes, and only for now deemed “good enough”. We will implement another way of assigning vehicles as its not very well done right now (something for the new hire to look at!).
For specific issues like this I recommend writing to us immediately via support [ a t ] airportceo [ d o t ] com and we can handle your request there.
Will check all bugs related to this today, including baggage related problems (there’s a new generic parking method in place which might have caused issues like this). A new update will be out this afternoon.
We might also do some changes where you’d look at more variables than just time for when deploying a push-back job, i.e. “when X time is remaining and/or when Y passengers have boarded” but it all comes down to a specific airport’s layout and how it operates. It’s quite complex and again I am always open to new perspectives and ideas.
@Olof Maybe it would be possible to add settings in airport operations tab or similar for this so we can choose when vehicles get dispatched depending on our aiport design?
Blockquote Well, that’s one of the more tricky parts about making a game like this. There’s a difficult trade off: Either we dispatch a truck immediately when boarding starts but if that boarding takes several hours to complete that push-back truck will be unavailable for other jobs throughout that time period. However, if we (like we do now) don’t dispatch a pushback-truck then the aircraft can sit for quite a while on the stand waiting for an available push-back truck before being able to leave. In the end though I think we’re better off with the current system, as there now is an option to either build a vehicle depot nearby (this system at least should try to dispatch job tasks close to the vehicle or assign a push-back truck to the stand.
I’d rather have them do this anyway. I have a nearly 1-1 ratio anyway because if there isn’t a truck available somewhere at all times, the choice of truck can be the one on the other side of the ramp.
Also, currently, the truck assigned to the stand is not the one necessarily that picks up the duties. I had a screen shot of one sitting there while another did the refueling.
Sorry, but that’s not entirely correct. What you are seeing are pre-assigned vehicles by a controller at the airport services and even though it would be “realistic” for the player to also handle this job, overloading (which is what the initial complaint was) will definitely happen. This was one of the main points in this idea fueling-truck-logic-rework to have the depos act as mini services controllers… This would reduce the CEO [player] micro-management task, thus allowing him to focus on expansion and problem-solving, while also being efficient in performing the servicing tasks.
I know that thread mentioned fueling [simply because fueling is the most common servicing task in the current state] but the logic is applicable to most servicing.
We could implement that too, if it were to receive enough votes. There’s nothing that would keep us from implementing vehicle parking objects as hubs for a set of stands, except for additional development time and additional strain on the job task system (as that would mean more in general, and more complex, sorting).
Well, neither, because in real life a scheduler also takes into account the travel time for the truck from the previous job [or depo] to the actual job. So you have the scheduled push-back time from which you subtract the calculated time that the truck would take to travel from previous location to the task location and that is the moment when the job would need to be initiated.
Agreed, but in terms of technology we’re simply not there yet at this point. To get a really accurate deployment you cannot simply calculate the time once, you need to account for traffic, possible congestion and road interruptions caused by the player or other events. In a real world airport you can rely on the fact that it’s designed by architects who in most cases know how to layout an airport (which we cannot count on the player to be partly because of inexperience but also because this game is not a simulator but a tycoon game) and operated by professionals with human-level intelligence (which you cannot call the in-game employee and vehicles at this point… ).
The system in its current shape tries to do a trade off between not arriving too early and not too late and there are some ways you can affect that, but I agree that it is far from perfect. It’s an early access game after all, and so is the stand assigning feature of vehicles. All should be improved over time!
whooa … no need to over complicate with traffic calculations and rush hour… leave some room for poor design and management
Though on that topic, it would be nice that the efficiency variables to depend on the hired COO level. Something like if he/she is a “no-clue” type of COO tasks begin as current, if he is a level 2 distances are computed, traffic is accounted for lvl 3, etc.
I agree that this is something to look forward to.
I love that idea. How about setting a condition that if all passengers are thru security the pushback can initiate while boarding is underway? I can understand that pushback can be needlessly unavailable if passenger are struggling to reach the gate on-time, but if they are past security then only poorly planned layout can stop them and that is on the player to figure out.
What about boarding staff? Can they be dispatched if it’s past boarding time while deboarding is still underway?
I have planes traveling a bit long to the gate (no traffic, just long way) and by the time they arrive, boarding is already delayed and I have wait further for deboarding to complete to dispatch staff from the other part of the airport, because the only rerely stay in the nearest staff room
Well, that’s one of the more tricky parts about making a game like this. There’s a difficult trade off: Either we dispatch a truck immediately when boarding starts but if that boarding takes several hours to complete that push-back truck will be unavailable for other jobs throughout that time period. However, if we (like we do now) don’t dispatch a pushback-truck then the aircraft can sit for quite a while on the stand waiting for an available push-back truck before being able to leave. In the end though I think we’re better off with the current system, as there now is an option to either build a vehicle depot nearby (this system at least should try to dispatch job tasks close to the vehicle or assign a push-back truck to the stand.
We might also do some changes where you’d look at more variables than just time for when deploying a push-back job, i.e. “when X time is remaining and/or when Y passengers have boarded” but it all comes down to a specific airport’s layout and how it operates. It’s quite complex and again I am always open to new perspectives and ideas.
Blockquote
How about setting a condition that if all passengers are thru security the pushback can initiate while boarding is underway?
I love this idea… and one more… if the plane has one passenger remaining for >5 minutes, execute stupid passenger protocol whereby a security person is dispatched to pummel the moron delaying everyone starting on their vacation and screwing up the entire airport schedule… (/fingers crossed)
I’ve noticed that no secure staff room has any airport staff in it. They always go to the rooms outside of the secure area to rest. Sorry if this has been discussed before Just want to get it out there in hopes of a fix
I’m just having horrible issues with when assigning vehicles to a stand, or depo it just breaks all jobs for some reason, anyone else having this issue?
Late night deployment here with Alpha 29.6-1. You’re correct that there were many critical issues with stand assigning vehicles as expected, so here’s the update to fix them all (jinxed!):
Release notes - Airport CEO - Version Alpha 29.6-1
Improvement
[ACEO-9474] - Transitioned vehicle depot and parking lot buttons from "aircraft infrastructure" menu to "infrastructure and transportation" menu in build panel
[ACEO-9478] - Added a page system to employee panel to prevent lag when display multiple employee containers
[ACEO-9485] - Generic incremental naming method for all non-drag placeable objects
Bug
[ACEO-8642] - Rare null reference issue can cause franchise employees to get stuck
[ACEO-9174] - Runway set to "departure only" does not always connect to stands properly
[ACEO-9401] - Service vehicle assignment dropdowns do not close properly when focusing on other UI elements
[ACEO-9433] - Missing null reference check on spawning of job task related trailers can cause assigned service vehicles to get stuck in a loop
[ACEO-9459] - Missing null reference check for job task objects with assigned vehicles can cause the job task dispatchment system to stall
[ACEO-9475] - Vehicle lights do not enable properly after unparking at night
[ACEO-9476] - Stair truck top visible when parking at vehicle depot
[ACEO-9491] - Vehicles assigned to non-stand parking object sometimes cannot execute job tasks properly
).
