Passenger aircraft

[ReHerakhte]

Note: This is basically a background idea to add to the gameworld flavour.

One of my cousins is an aircraft engineer for a regional airline in Australia. A few weeks ago he and I were discussing aircraft (like we always seem to do at family gatherings!) and he mentioned that the trend for jet airliners now is smaller rather than larger.
The current belief is that we won't see many (or any) more orders for large aircaft like the Airbus A380 or Boeing 747 because new tech (particularly in regards to engines and fuel effeciency) is allowing greater range in the smaller airliners and typically, the small airliners usually fill all seats whereas the larger aircraft often fly with a significant number of vacant seats.

For the airlines it is apparently all about felxibility along with cost effectiveness - from what I understand of it all, a small passenger jet that usually has its seats filled is more cost effective than a much larger aircraft that only has approximately 70% passenger occupancy.
In the past, the belief was that more passengers per aircraft meant more profit. Now it seems to be that longer-ranged and/or more fuel-efficient aircraft with a smaller total number of passengers makes more profit. This is why the Boeing 737, a design from 1964/65, is still being manufactured as of 2017 (and older models of 737 have been given upgrade packages) whereas it's widebodied rival, the A300 series (designed in 1969) ceased production in 2007.

So what does all that mean for Dark Conspiracy?
As much as I love futuristic designs particularly for aircraft, we can probably be quite safe keeping designs such as the Boeing 737 in use in the gameworld. Corporations are going to love cost effective aircraft for obvious reasons, even more so if there is a world-wide Depression taking place and any sort of fuel shortage.

As I mentioned above, this is all about gameworld flavour, there is every reason for large passenger jets to still be in service on profitable routes but for everything else, smaller passenger jets like the Boeing 737 & 757, Airbus A220, A319 & A320, Embraer E175, E190 & E195, Antonov An-148 & AN-158, Sukhoi SJ100 & SJ130 and Yakovlev Irkut MC-21 will probably be filling the skies. All of them are conventional designs but making use of carbon-fibre compostites, fibre-optics and so on to reduce weight and more fuel effecient engines to give them a significant increase in range (compared to similar styles of passenger jet from even 20 years ago).

I like unconventional looking aircraft but if you're having trouble coming up with real world data to make game stats for such aircraft, the above information is a good reason for not worrying it!

[Phulish]

Note: This is basically a background idea to add to the gameworld flavour.

One of my cousins is an aircraft engineer for a regional airline in Australia. A few weeks ago he and I were discussing aircraft (like we always seem to do at family gatherings!) and he mentioned that the trend for jet airliners now is smaller rather than larger.
The current belief is that we won't see many (or any) more orders for large aircaft like the Airbus A380 or Boeing 747 because new tech (particularly in regards to engines and fuel effeciency) is allowing greater range in the smaller airliners and typically, the small airliners usually fill all seats whereas the larger aircraft often fly with a significant number of vacant seats.

For the airlines it is apparently all about felxibility along with cost effectiveness - from what I understand of it all, a small passenger jet that usually has its seats filled is more cost effective than a much larger aircraft that only has approximately 70% passenger occupancy.
In the past, the belief was that more passengers per aircraft meant more profit. Now it seems to be that longer-ranged and/or more fuel-efficient aircraft with a smaller total number of passengers makes more profit. This is why the Boeing 737, a design from 1964/65, is still being manufactured as of 2017 (and older models of 737 have been given upgrade packages) whereas it's widebodied rival, the A300 series (designed in 1969) ceased production in 2007.

So what does all that mean for Dark Conspiracy?
As much as I love futuristic designs particularly for aircraft, we can probably be quite safe keeping designs such as the Boeing 737 in use in the gameworld. Corporations are going to love cost effective aircraft for obvious reasons, even more so if there is a world-wide Depression taking place and any sort of fuel shortage.

As I mentioned above, this is all about gameworld flavour, there is every reason for large passenger jets to still be in service on profitable routes but for everything else, smaller passenger jets like the Boeing 737 & 757, Airbus A220, A319 & A320, Embraer E175, E190 & E195, Antonov An-148 & AN-158, Sukhoi SJ100 & SJ130 and Yakovlev Irkut MC-21 will probably be filling the skies. All of them are conventional designs but making use of carbon-fibre compostites, fibre-optics and so on to reduce weight and more fuel effecient engines to give them a significant increase in range (compared to similar styles of passenger jet from even 20 years ago).

I like unconventional looking aircraft but if you're having trouble coming up with real world data to make game stats for such aircraft, the above information is a good reason for not worrying it!

Big Post Depression Government would be the main reason big planes are still in the air. Not just hauling politicians and flying command posts, but almost all cargo and passengers here received Federal loans on condition the aircraft become available in time of war, the " Civil Air Reserve Fleet". I could see these soon being the only big boys flying.

[ReHerakhte]

And there's a number of companies who have made use of passenger jets for hauling cargo to the point were some aircraft manufacturers starting making cargo variants e.g. the Boeing 747 and Boeing is, as of 2018, considering rebuilding surplus 777 jets as cargo haulers.
These are good pieces of background information for the game and can add some interesting sidelines to adventures. For example, people would be very used to seeing the smaller (long range) passenger jets flying overhead and every now and then some ultra modern jet flies over (corporate private aircraft) and then one of the larger aircraft takes to the air - is it used by the government to transport sensitive cargo (maybe it has some caged Beasties or even Dark Minions), maybe some wealthy corporate head honcho is having their collection of rare sportscars transported somewhere.

I suppose what I'm getting at with all this, is having these sorts of background details freely available to the Players means that you can then change something that they will, hopefully, notice. If they see something different to what is expected, maybe it's the lead into a new adventure.