Progress on upcoming 1.30

[bigfatsimulations]

I'm working on our next airport - Los Angeles International (KLAX). I hope to have this up in early February. The airport has four parallel runways, which I think will be fun to work.

There will be a great deal of taxiing aircraft that need to cross active runways, and the traffic intensity will be set much higher at this airport. You will definitely need to have your chair in the upright position while working KLAX!

I'm hoping to add an "expedite taxi" button, which players should find useful.

I'm going to see about adding more gates than I have in the past. It's difficult to add much more, without the airport becoming very spread out, and greater difficulty seeing airplanes. LaGuardia has just 8 gates, and nobody seems to complain about a lack of them. Now, in reality, these major international airports have more than 100 gates. Obviously, that is way beyond the concept of Airport Madness (where there are typically 10 or 20 active aircraft. In reality it takes a flight 8 minutes to get from the gate to the runway, but in Airport Madness 3D, that time is cut down to about 30 seconds).

I plan to keep the updates coming.

[sag032]

Will you have intersection departures available at LAX ?

With regards to gates being spread out and difficult to see, i think that will be an added bonus for a 'large' airport with four runways. The previous airports were fun to play but i do like a challenge and LAX can be the airport with more challenges ;)

[bigfatsimulations]

Yeah, good call. KLAX could be the "big" airport. As for intersection departures, I don't know if I'll go that route. As it stands, there are four departure runways to choose from, and I'm not sure if that's a level of detail that I'm ready to add.

[Avwriter]

I agree. There is another more reality focused tower sim, that includes such detail for those who desire it (it even includes KLAX). Better to keep this sim simpler and more focussed on fun. That is what is is best for.

[bigfatsimulations]

Escrito originalmente por Avwriter:

I agree. There is another more reality focused tower sim, that includes such detail for those who desire it (it even includes KLAX). Better to keep this sim simpler and more focussed on fun. That is what is is best for.

Possibly my next title will be something more realistic. We'll see. Maybe I'll call it Airport Madness Pro or something.

[Avwriter]

How about Airport Sanity :-)

[bigfatsimulations]

Escrito originalmente por Avwriter:

How about Airport Sanity :-)

Airport Sanity - by Big Fat Simulations. A relaxing game - no airplanes, just an empty airport. Superb game performance, with zero bugs!

[Saracen26]

Escrito originalmente por bigfatsimulations:

Escrito originalmente por Avwriter:

I agree. There is another more reality focused tower sim, that includes such detail for those who desire it (it even includes KLAX). Better to keep this sim simpler and more focussed on fun. That is what is is best for.

Possibly my next title will be something more realistic. We'll see. Maybe I'll call it Airport Madness Pro or something.

You have a lot of the foundation in place to already make it happen. With Tower3D on Steam being an absolute piece of crap and the Japanese 'I am an Air Traffic Controller' franchise never likely to ever see a release on Steam, you could very much likely corner a niche, yet very dedicated market of gamers who crave this stuff. Along with existing AM fans (I'd be all over it!), you'd really have no competition on this platform to stop you.

That should be a rather exciting prospect for you and would actually put you on the map if you could make it work.

You are an ATC and know the profession. If you were to say Early Access it to get the feedback with help from the Hardcore and AM fans to find a happy medium, it would work really well.

Something like ATC3 would be the way to go. Less airports than AM, but plenty of detail, a good amount of depth. You retain the "Madness aspect" with the amount of aircraft you have to handle on the ground by assigning runways, gates on landing etc.

Looking at this ATC3 video, this is kind of what I'd imagine a deeper Airport Madness experience to be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXHGugmJrB8

[bigfatsimulations]

Escrito originalmente por Saracen26:

Escrito originalmente por bigfatsimulations:

Possibly my next title will be something more realistic. We'll see. Maybe I'll call it Airport Madness Pro or something.

You have a lot of the foundation in place to already make it happen. With Tower3D on Steam being an absolute piece of crap and the Japanese 'I am an Air Traffic Controller' franchise never likely to ever see a release on Steam, you could very much likely corner a niche, yet very dedicated market of gamers who crave this stuff. Along with existing AM fans (I'd be all over it!), you'd really have no competition on this platform to stop you.

That should be a rather exciting prospect for you and would actually put you on the map if you could make it work.

You are an ATC and know the profession. If you were to say Early Access it to get the feedback with help from the Hardcore and AM fans to find a happy medium, it would work really well.

Something like ATC3 would be the way to go. Less airports than AM, but plenty of detail, a good amount of depth. You retain the "Madness aspect" with the amount of aircraft you have to handle on the ground by assigning runways, gates on landing etc.

Looking at this ATC3 video, this is kind of what I'd imagine a deeper Airport Madness experience to be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXHGugmJrB8

Thanks so much for your ideas here. I've been debating what do do after AM3D. I'd like to create an Airport Madness: Builders Edition where people can build and share their own airports, but that's a ton of work, and I'm leaning towards Airport Madness Pro. Maybe Builder will come after.

[Twelvefield]

Would the Builder's Edition be 3D? That would be big for me. But so would Pro in any form. Either way, I'd instabuy it.

[bigfatsimulations]

Escrito originalmente por Twelvefield:

Would the Builder's Edition be 3D? That would be big for me. But so would Pro in any form. Either way, I'd instabuy it.

Definitely. I've made six 2D versions of Airport Madness. I don't plan to do anymore 2D games at this time.

[U2NUMB]

Well whatever you do ... I will be there day one to buy it!

[Avwriter]

Ideally, the Pro vesion should allow us to select every possible runway combo at multi-runway airports, even those that are not fully realitic. 3D was a big step forward in this regard, but it is still somewhat limiting. For example at KLGA I would love to be able to use 04 and 31, or 22 and 13. 22/13 would be especially interesting because the ends of the two runways are so close.to the intersection.

[Twelvefield]

If that's the case (and I agree it should be), then wind should be a factor as well. Then you could have planes laying on rudder and landing crabwise or you could roll the dice and have planes land downwind and have excessively long run-outs. Those are bad things, of course, but you're the controller.

[umbralwarrior]

Personally, for me, I don't want AM3D to become ultra-realistic. I just wouldn't be able to cope (I already can't finish many of the achievements because I'm rubbish :) ). A median has to be found between ultra-realism and fun. If it becomes too much like hard work, you'll get rid of the casual players like me (or just me, I don't know, I can't speak for others).

That said, I do enjoy the game and keep coming back to try again... :)

[Saracen26]

Escrito originalmente por umbralwarrior:

Personally, for me, I don't want AM3D to become ultra-realistic. I just wouldn't be able to cope (I already can't finish many of the achievements because I'm rubbish :) ). A median has to be found between ultra-realism and fun. If it becomes too much like hard work, you'll get rid of the casual players like me (or just me, I don't know, I can't speak for others).

That said, I do enjoy the game and keep coming back to try again... :)

I suggest you look at the ATC3 video I posted above, you'll find that realism doesn't equal a nightmare hard game.

There will be more depth, more to do and more to manage. But the trade off in that is that you won't be getting 3 or 4 planes at a time trying to purposely collide or aim for the same runway at the same time.

You still will have to manage planes in a similar manner, making sure their spacing is sufficient and that they are assigned runways and gates, but the game is more relaxed and not so much about "Madness".. If anything you will not be anywhere near as "Rubbish" as you think...