Quick question: don’t think it’s been asked before. As usual, apologies if it has been.
We know there’s going to be “regions” in the game, however I’d like to ask exactly what constitutes a “region”? Regions can of course be on a global scale (North America, Europe, Asia) or a more local scale (North of England, South East England, South West England, etc…) and anywhere in between. I’m curious as to what is planned at present. Obviously larger regions make things easier to think about, but smaller regions will offer a more tailored experience for the player. We already know that regions will affect the flights on offer, but knowing how big they’re going to be will change things. Larger regions will see potentially very long flights operated by tiny aircraft (not realistic), and for those of us that want to build in airport in a particular real life location may see some very odd routes being proposed (for example, someone creating a new London airport may see lots of Heathrow flights which obviously wouldn’t happen in the real world).
I’m all for countries with a small number of sub-divisions where appropriate, for example, dividing the UK into Scotland, England, N. Ireland and Wales; or having various regions of the US (North East, Mid Atlantic, East and West North and South Central, North and South West). Obviously smaller countries could just have one region (Ireland, Czech Republic, Netherlands etc). But I’d like to know what the devs have in mind.
I am also curious about this. I am hoping to set up an airport in my own country (Canada) and be able to take local flights and then eventually accommodate cross-country long haul flights as the airport develops.
Hi See, I’d actually think that North and South regions would work quite well for both France and Germany! North France would see smaller planes flying to the UK and the neighbouring Benelux countries, whereas the South would see the small planes serving North Italy and Spain.
Obviously with really small countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland) there would be no point. Really big countries like USA, Canada, Australia and Russia would really benefit from regions though.
The easiest way while still keeping the (geo)political realism in view is to present a map (à la Google Earth) spanning a simple code over the globe giving it real latitude and longtitude values and connect those through some “nodes” with climate areas.
It could be as simply placed as in the following picture: Click for a pic!
I can imagine the interface and gameplay looking as this:
Option 1 you get: You can choose presets like LAX, JFK, LHR, FRA etc throughout the world as city near super locations.
Option 2 you get: You can click anywhere on the globe (except on water, d’oh… or… can you? ) to choose your spot (optionally type in your LAT/LON) and get accordingly your climate preset. Then you get the option to select a demand preset of some sort (meaning you want your airport to have all connections? (bus, train etc) or having a metropolitan city nearby? or should it be in the middle of the Sahara? Some sort of those selections.
That could please all. Low development (I developed that so… )/programming time since you program only a LAT/LON net onto a graphic/globe and ask the system to get the correct climate from the coordinates. The demand options are just variable values. No heavy strings and complicated circling connection…
The player can literally place the airport wherever he wants! How is that not amazing? You could place it in your garden if you get the right coordinates.
It would give some realistic flight options (using the co-ordinates, the game would be able to calculate distance to other airports, so could be programmed to avoid creating flights to an airport 20 miles away or something silly).
I remember the very first Airport Tycoon game/Airport Mogul… had a bunch of different “regions”. That basically translated into different tracks of music and ambient noises playing the background. Still, pretty cool game and the soundtrack was pretty cool.
[quote=“me123, post:8, topic:287, full:true”] to avoid creating flights to an airport 20 miles away or something silly).
[/quote]
You may call it silly … it may be silly … I think it’s silly too … but just for the record:
Meanwhile there IS the probably shortest international flight of only about 21km (~14mi) from St. Gallen - Altenrhein, LSZR / ACH (Switzerland) to Friedrichshafen, EDNY / FDH (Germany). You’ll be flying for whole six to eight minutes!
… but to be honest, Friedrichshafen is an intermediate stop on the way to Cologne (Germany). So it may not be that silly then.
… back to topic:
I’d like to have a world map, where you can select your location/existing airport to play at. You don’t get a pre-designed airport then, but start building from the very beginning. Maybe some airports could also have the option to play a pre-designed one based on the original, but that would be a candy. Anyway, by selecting the location, your climate and environment conditions are set based to the original. If once terrain may be added, it could also affect how rough your map will be.
) to choose your spot (optionally type in your LAT/LON) and get accordingly your climate preset. Then you get the option to select a demand preset of some sort (meaning you want your airport to have all connections? (bus, train etc) or having a metropolitan city nearby? or should it be in the middle of the Sahara? Some sort of those selections.
)/programming time since you program only a LAT/LON net onto a graphic/globe and ask the system to get the correct climate from the coordinates. The demand options are just variable values. No heavy strings and complicated circling connection… 
You could place it in your garden if you get the right coordinates. 