March 2025 Update

Greetings Everyone,

This month's update is a bit late because it's tax season for me. And as you can imagine, my taxes are a bit nightmarish and due a month before most other people because all the local/state taxes due on the 1st require my federal tax data. Oh well. There isn't too much progress to report since the last update either.

FBS Fundraising

The FBS system will resume in June. I expect to set the goal to $2000 with an additional $1000 from the leftover money from the failed artwork in Milestone #2.

GearCity: 2nd Gear

As mentioned above, the FBS system is paused until June. The few bugs submitted for v2.5.0.0 will be addressed in June when I reopen the FBS system.

AeroMogul

I spent most of the time since the last update polishing the AI route creation systems concerning slot negotiations. Several edge cases were hard to resolve. These issues resulted in not all slots being utilized in route creation. One of the issues was when a flight goes past midnight, which often happens when flying long distances with timezone changes. Another issue was with one of my test aircraft.

Speaking of Aircraft, currently, 3 models with about 20 variants are data completed in the system. Another 5 models are also in the system but not data complete. I'm at 6 data-complete engine models, with about a dozen variants. I think I'll have to make a scripted automated variant system for engines to work congruently with the planned AI engine creation system. In the real world, many early aircraft engines had dozens, if not a hundred variants of their engine. Practically every 5hp gain warranted a new model number. So instead of entering 50ish models where the only things that changed were the HP and fuel consumption numbers, we'll enter a value range for each and let the game generate the rest of the data via the system used for the AI Engine Creation System.

Since I don't have enough models currently entered, I switched to cleaning up the Game Client. The current focus is cleaning up the UI functions, fixing a few bugs, and adding new functionality found on the server side. The end goal is to get the Client in a presentable state before GC FBS resumes.

With the fixes to the slotting system and AI routes, I believe we now have the most complete complex/realistic AI system in a [b] single-player [/b] Airline Management game. While many web-based games currently have better slot/routing systems, none, as far as I know, have AI players. From what I am told, other single-player games lack AI or their slot/routing systems are less complex. There is still more work to do. We need the AI to replace units as they become worn out, replace models as they become outdated, and improve scheduling (For example, assigning multiple routes to an aircraft with spare time.) I also need to add maintenance systems that can disrupt route schedules and have the AI work around them.

But for now, the focus is on the Client and getting it caught up with the current state of the game/logic server.

Until next time!