The "Go Around" Feature

[bigfatsimulations]

The “go-around” is an air traffic controller’s get-out-of-jail-free card. It may be somewhat inconvenient for pilots and passengers, but it is a perfectly safe operation and often the right thing to do. A controller tries to move traffic as quickly as possible, but sometimes the timing does not work out, and they get a situation where an aircraft is about to touch down with another aircraft still on the runway. In real life, a controller is not questioned when they elect to “pull somebody up”. In Airport Madness 3D prior to Update 1.121, go-arounds were free. Don’t like what’s happening? Simply pull somebody up!

Unfortunately, some players have learned that tremendously high scores can be achieved by pulling up large numbers of aircraft. What a great way to maintain a tidy field! Just pull everyone up! You get no complaints about takeoff delays, and your stress meter goes way, way down.

To fix this cheat, in Update 1.121 I decided to force these go-arounds to circle back and join the landing queue. I thought it was a clever way to stop cheaters. Unfortunately, very few players agreed. When a player is legitimately trying to manage an airport, and they encounter a bad situation, they do what any real-life controller would do: they pull someone up. When an Airport Madness player reaches the point in their game where they start issuing go-arounds, it usually means that their airport is in a state anarchy. And the last thing they need is for the aircraft to circle back into the mix again!

So here’s what I’ve done with this morning’s Update 1.122: if an aircraft is assigned a go-around, they aircraft will climb straight ahead for eternity (to infinity and beyond!). If you’re like me and you have too much pride, you’ll do the right thing and bring the aircraft back for a landing. If you let it fly away, you’ll be left with a 1000-point penalty. And you’ll also lose the 1000 points you would have earned for landing the aircraft.

I look forward to getting feedback from all of you on this.

[spaceboy]

I had no idea how this worked to being with, but I think I would prefer to simply have it as an option so each player can choose their preferred method.

I always play in the hardest modes, so I like the maximum challenge, however, there may be times where I prefer something more casual and not have to worry about crashes so much, so having the option would be nice.

[sag032]

Never knew about this cheat so i'm all for it, so i have no problem with this 'fix' .

[Avwriter]

What an elegant solution. Love the idea. I think it would also be a good idea to include small penalties for using the "expidite off" and " immediate takeoff" commands. They too can become cheats if ones uses them all the time, instead of only when they are really needed.

[Twelvefield]

There's points?!

I've never once looked at the leaderboards and cannot bring myself to care about them.

I disagree with penalizing for expedite off and immediate takeoff commands. These are also common and legitimate ATC tools, as much as waving an aircraft off. But then I don't care about points, so whatever floats folks' boats.

I was wondering why my aborted landings were messing up my approaches, now I know.

I use aborts in two ways: a) if I've made a genuine mistake and have to wave off an approach and b) if I've created a lineup so long that an arrival will automatically crash (like closing off a runway). Jamaica and Toronto are bad for me for that.

Assuming I'm not a cheater, it would make sense that if the waved-off aircraft are sent into eternity, they should come back in some form on their own in the future: aborting landings should then accelerate the timer for boosting the arrival rate. Once the timer is maxed, then you can take away points.

Assuming I am a cheater, then leaderboard penalties should be a thing. Maybe instead of subtracting scores, simply post the number of aborts, expedites, and immediate takeoffs used along with the final score. Then you could sort the leaderboard by raw score (irrespective of penalties) and adjusted score (raw score minus accumulated penalties).