Thank you all for your great feedback during the 2 weeks of the first beta stage on the economic balance beta server.
As planned, we reset all companies and start the second stage with a much bigger starting amount of 2,500,000 to be able to rent several JET hours.
Adjusted economical parameters between stage 1 and 2.
Here are the changes applied in today’s beta update:
- Jobs generation is now more focusing on airports size 3+ for small ranges
- Last-minute jobs bonus adjusted
- Event jobs prices too high were adjusted
- Instrument Failures rate has been decreased
- Fuel tanks are not at 100% when buying a new aircraft
- Annual checkup cost greatly reduced
- Engine cost greatly reduced
- AI pilots are now limited to 2 + company level
- Minimum rental flight hours have been removed to make testing less constraining.
- Regular Routes Beta is included
The second stage will last 2 weeks. The regular routes should be deployed on all worlds at the end of the beta stage 2.
Difficulty Level
We are aware that the difficulty level currently implemented on the beta server will not be suitable for all players. These rules are a test of the highest difficulty options.
At the end of the beta, when we deploy the new rules on the existing worlds, the new features (leasing, regular routes, mechanics, …) will be integrated and the economic parameters adjusted to have a difficulty level similar to the current worlds.
Cumulus and Clear Sky will keep their bonuses option (up to 90%)
Each company will have an option to switch to the New Economic Ruleset, a very challenging experience.
If you are not satisfied with the new gameplay, you will be able to revert to the former ruleset within 30 days of play with the switched company.
There will be no economic exchanges between companies in the 2 modes.
In any case, no reset will ever be made on the existing worlds.
Regular Routes Beta
The regular routes beta is included in this update.
How to access the beta world
The beta world is deployed on a temporary server that is accessible from the OnAir world Lobby.
In the second phase, all companies start with 2,500,000 credits to test the middle game balance. We need feedback related to:
- Proposed changes of existing features
- New features that could contribute to economic balance.
To send feedback, submit a ticket via the Zendesk support page utilizing the special category “Economic Balance Beta”. Please make sure to specify the 4 Digit Airline code of the company you have created on the Beta world when submitting the feedback.
All requests, responses and statuses are publicly accessible via a web interface with links available in the OnAir Application interface.
It is very important to only include a single item per ticket, since we will be responding to all feedback and need to indicate the status of each item separately for organization purposes. This will allow the team to have a structured discussion with the author of a request if necessary. Every point will be addressed; however, some may be rejected and others accepted.
The feedback will be reviewed once per week.
To send us feedback:
https://onairhelp.zendesk.com/
All players who participated in the first stage of testing and completed more than 30 jobs will receive a free 15-day extension to their OnAir subscription soon.
Changes on all worlds:
- AI flights are now allowed in VAs in Clear Sky, Cumulus and Stratus. This is to allow small VAs between friends to exploit the full possibility of OnAir.
- Fixed sightseeing jobs distance now taking into account the return leg
- logistic center PAX and cargos filters can be now be set to 0
- Landing and takeoff overhead are now included in work orders flight duration estimation
- Disabled Fragile jobs generation in FBO queries for Tycoon mode companies
- Added 4 new airports addons SSSM, GP01, GP03, GP04
- Disabled 60 minutes inactivity automatic .exe closing when in VA management mode
- Replaced Profit per NM column in Logistic Center by Profit per 1000lbs per NM
- Fixed renting/buying aircraft with exceeding seats
- Miscellaneous spelling and minor user interface changes
Next steps
The second stage will last for 2 weeks. At the end of the period, we will have a last reset of the companies to test the definitive rules.
Regular routes will be released on all worlds as soon as we gather all feedback and make needed adjustments to the beta. Probably 10/19, maybe 10/26.
HotFix:
We deployed a hotfix to take in account your first feedback on the Beta World.
Changes in beta World:
- Increased Average jobs pay to reduce the global difficulty level
- Fixed fbo logistic PAx generation using standard seats repartition ratio (70% eco, 20% bus, 10%first)
- Adjusted Enhanced Queries skill to +1, +2, +3 instead of x2,x3,x4
- Fixed some routes with 0 pax and cargo forecasts
We are aware that, even with these adjustments, the difficulty level currently implemented on the beta server will not be suitable for all players. These rules are a test of the highest difficulty options.
At the end of the beta, when we deploy the new rules on the existing worlds, the new features (leasing, regular routes, mechanics, …) will be integrated and the economic parameters adjusted to have a difficulty level similar to the current worlds.
Cumulus and Clear Sky will keep their bonuses option (up to 90%)
Each company will have an option to switch to the New Economic Ruleset, a very challenging experience.
If you are not satisfied with the new gameplay, you will be able to revert to the former ruleset within 30 days of play with the switched company.
There will be no economic exchanges between companies in the 2 modes.
In any case, no reset will ever be made on the existing worlds.
We also included hotfixes for all worlds:
- Changed some Menu xxx adjustments to better xxx
- Fixed Cashflow chart tooltip colors
- Fixed resume a flight when flying with an AI pilot hired by the VA