Again a lot of good discussion here on the intricacies of game development versus realism, what ACEO is and who it should appeal to. I’ll again try to shed some light on our reasoning:
Easy if you want, hard if you can.
This means that we’re trying to build a game that appeals to both the mass market but also to passionate hard core simulation fans. This is in part because after all this is a business and the only way for us to keep doing this is to sell games that fund our salaries so that we can work with this full time. But we also want to make games that we ourselves want to play, hence some very detailed aspects of the game because we are in fact too hard core simulation fans. So what happens when you build games that are “easy if you want, hard if you can” is that casual players who are interested in the title and quickly get pulled in thanks to good game design and a good learning curve increase the number of sales which help pay for the development time of more intricate features. If we were to only appeal to the very niche hard core segment we would ultimately probably build a very “hostile” game that would not generate a lot of sales causing us to not be able to focus on this full time. It’s in a way sort of a similar idea as to Elon Musk and his cars, build a luxury car to fund the development of average cars, but the other way around, i.e. build an accessible game to fund it’s complex features.
This is why we the base game needs to be easily understood and interacted with across all features, partly because it’s good game design and a better user experience but also because we will simply sell more copies and fund the development of this title and the next.
Now, on to some technical Q&A of the most common questions here:
International zone cancels staff zone as they are both specific (and only one can exist at a time). Employees do not care about international zone transitioning as they can pathfind through international zone per default.
It’s performance intensive and feels unintuitive with three layers of zone. We simply do not like that solution.
It’s not a bad idea but it’s not good enough. Yes, there are real world examples of it but it would be a bit tricky from a render perspective given ACEO’s, well, perspective, and would force you into a dual floor construction. Might also mess a bit with transitioning from a jetway to a non-jetway stand so… there’s a few issues there and we have a better solution in mind.
Well, this is not the Alpha 34 topic so…
Agreed, it’s time for a Compromise™. There’s a reason why were reluctant to give definitive answers to tricky features existence or non-existence and that’s because, as I wrote earlier, solutions emerge as you work on stuff. One-way doors and one-way escalators are for the time being out, yes, and will most likely not be something we include before full release depending on all of the other factors that guide development. But reading in this topic, what most of you want to achieve with one-way doors is segregation or arrival and departure and that is, with a lot of new passenger AI behavior code in Alpha 35, an easier problem to solve. So here’s the compromise:
The jetway entrance length is extended from two (x) to four (x) and baggage claim can now be built in both secure and open zones. This allows for a full end-to-end segregation of arrival and departing passengers, but only if you want. You can shield off the jetway’s arrival point with walls and immediately build escalators or stairs if you want to create specific corridors, which is why we think departure and arrival on the same floor is an easier solution. Baggage bay connections with baggage claim areas cannot be mixed to further guide to construction, i.e. baggage bays will be forced to either connect with only non-secure or secure baggage claim areas. This feature is relatively easy to implement with the changes in Alpha 35, it doesn’t utilize any new complex pathfinding or zone stuff but instead relies on the proven core of our current systems. Will probably share a few pictures of this in the dev blog once that drops.