Passenger aircraft
Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:28 am
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!
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!