User manual GAMES PC AIRLINE TYCOON EVOLUTION

E-mail: Support@montecristogames.com m Epilepsy Warning Some people are liable to have an epileptic seizure or loss of consciousness when exposed to flashing lights or certain normal conditions of everyday life. Such persons could risk a seizure while watching televised images or while playing video games, and this can occur even if there have been no previous medical problems or experience of epilepsy. Please take the following general precautions when playing video games: - Do not sit too close to the screen; position yourself with the linking cable at full stretch. - Play video games preferably on a small screen. - Do not play if you are tired or have not had much sleep. - Make sure that the room in which you are playing is well lit. - Rest for 10-15 minutes per hour while playing video games. The story, companies and players are entirely fictitious. Any similarities to reality are purely coincidental and unintentional. Spellbound StudiosTM and Airline TycoonTM are trademarks of Spellbound Entertainment AG, Weststr. 15, 77694 Kehl, Germany. Copyright © 2002 Monte Cristo Multimedia S.A. The Monte Cristo Multimedia logo is a trademark of Monte Cristo Multimedia. All rights reserved. 42, rue des Jeûneurs 75002 Paris France Tel: +33 1 40 39 11 11 Fax : +33 1 40 39 00 10 Internet : www.montecristogames.com Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft. DirectX is a trademark of Microsoft. All the other marks or products quoted in the software and the documentation which accompanies it belong to their respective owners. Airline Tycoon - Evolution Contents Welcome to Airline Tycoon... 1-Installation Installation of DirectX 5 6 6 2-The Characters Moving Around the Game Keyboard 7 7 8 3-The First Game Selecting Your Home Airport Selecting the First Mission Selecting a Player The First Day Your Office, the Most Important Control Centre of All The First Mission Planning Your First Orders Observing Departing Flights Eight more orders... What Next? 9 9 9 10 10 11 xx 11 12 15 16 4-Routes Expanding the Route Network Route Administration Information About Routes Ticket Prices Dropping Routes Passengers and Routes 17 17 18 18 19 20 21 5-Orders Order Data (Information) Planning Orders 22 22 23 6-Transporting Cargo 7-Filofax / Notebook The Flight Planner Setting up Flight Orders, Cargo Orders and Routes Notebook vs. Filofax 24 25 27 28 29 8-Branches Renting New Branches 30 30 3 Contents AIRLINE TYCOON - Evolution 9-Staff Advisors Pilots and Flight Personnel 31 31 33 10-AeroPlanes Plane Management Servicing Planes Equipping Planes 35 35 35 36 11-The Airport Airport Expansion / Office / Personnel Office / Telescope Plane Dealer / Duty-Free Shop / Bank Petrol Air Counter Workshop AirTravel and Last Minute Counters / Museum NASA Shop / Rick's Café / Newspaper Stand / Advertising Agency Safe&Secure ltd. / Design Office Thoughts are Free 40 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 12-Aircraft Constructor Guide to functions Internet functions 50 50 53 12-Status Bar Items 54 54 13-Statistics 14-Playing on a Network Starting a Network Game (Game Master) Taking Part in a Network Game (Player) Loading and Saving Network Games Chat Mode / Possibilities for Sabotage in a Network Game 55 57 57 58 59 59 15-Options 16-Troubleshooting 17-Credits Appendix & Notes 4 Plane Specifications 61 64 68 Welcome to Airline Tycoon Evolution ations on purchasing Airline Tycoon Evolution. We hope you will have many hours of fun with it on your computer. Airline Tycoon is an economic simulation that you should not take too seriously and that does not claim to be realistic. Our aim was to create a simulation that, most of all, is great fun and that you do not need to rack your brain over too much. This may sound like an easy job; however, if you think Airline Tycoon is a walkover, you are wrong! You need to keep a close eye on all details, choose orders carefully, plan routes correctly, employ staff, keep an eye on your shares, set up branches and lots more. And on top of all that you have to make a profit, if not be the best. Airline Tycoon is unique in many details. The game runs in real-time and, at the same time, it is organised in rounds. In the real-time part you have to be ready at 9 o'clock in the morning and you then have to manage your airline (hopefully successfully) until 6 o'clock in the evening. You finish work at 6 o'clock and can lean back in a comfortable armchair in front of the TV, and hope you did everything right so that you still own an airline the next morning. Of course, you can work as much as you want, since you are your own boss. Watch out, though - the competition is not sleeping but always snapping at your heels... Congratul 5 Chapter 1 Installation Insert the Airline Tycoon CD into your CD-ROM drive. The installation will start automatically, if the auto-run facility for Windows® is enabled, otherwise you will have to run the file setup.exe on the Airline Tycoon CD manually. Once Airline Tycoon is installed, you can run the game using the "Start" button, otherwise click on the "Install" button and follow the instructions on screen. If you have created a program group during installation, then you can run Airline Tycoon either by clicking on the shortcut on your Windows desktop, or by selecting it from the Start menu: Airline Tycoon. If you have not created a program group, then you can start Airline Tycoon by running the file at.exe in the installation folder (either on your hard disk or on the CD-ROM, depending on the type of installation). Installation of DirectX DirectX is a runtime environment developed by Microsoft for Windows games. Airline Tycoon cannot be played without DirectX 6.1 (or higher). During the installation the program checks whether you need to update or install DirectX. Should you be prompted to do so, we strongly recommend that you choose to install DirectX. Later versions of DirectX will not be overwritten. 6 The characters Chapter 2 Each of the four players in Airline Tycoon has their own features. These are important in enabling you to assign counters, offices and other elements to the four players and their airlines. Each player also has their own characteristics. These show in different strategies and actions used to win the game. However, none of the four players has a technical advantage that would make it easier to become an Airline Tycoon. Tip: It may be important which of the four players you select: just take over the player of your greatest adversary, then he will not be a threat to your success. Features Figure: Airline Name Abbr. Colour Sunshine Airways SA Blue Falcon Lines FL Green Phoenix Travel PT Red Honey Airlines HA Yellow Moving Around the Game Moving around the game is very intuitive in Airline Tycoon. To move a player at the airport, just click on the appropriate place on the ground. The player walks to the desired position with a single click and runs if you double-click. If you want to access a room, then click on the appropriate door at the airport. The player will enter the room as soon as he or she has reached the door. As soon as you move the mouse to the left or right edge of the screen the mouse cursor will change to an arrow, and you can scroll through the airport. If you click on the left mouse button at the same time, you will scroll even faster. Clicking on the right mouse button will bring the player back on the screen. No need to look for him! In the example you can recognise the office of Falcon Lines by the Logo beside the door and the very individual lighting 7 Chapter 2 The characters Moving around in rooms and using items is just as easy. As soon as you move the mouse over an interactive item, person or selection text, the cursor will be surrounded by a green line. Text will also be highlighted, as soon as you can select it. Keyboard In Airline Tycoon some functions can be accessed directly using the keyboard. This will make playing much easier when the game has reached an advanced stage. Tip: If a button is pressed twice, the player will run rather than walk! A O C D W E G H K B L M N 8 Player goes to Petrol Air Player goes to his Office Player goes to Rick's Café Player goes to the Duty-Free Shop Player goes to the advertising agency Player goes to the plane dealer Player goes to the Globe (filofax) Player goes to the cargo office Player goes to the newspaper stand Player goes to the Bank Player goes to the Last Minute counter Player goes to the museum Player goes to the Nasa-Shop (not available in every mission) P Player goes to the Personnel office R Player goes to the Route management board S Player checks the Score (telescope) T Player goes to the Air Travel counter U Player goes to Mr Uhrig (airport management) W Player goes to the Workshop Y Player goes to the Security Office X Player goes to the HiTech Design Shop Tab ( ) Player immediately quits to go home F1 Call up a tool tip F2 / Esc. Display options / Quit game F3 Load game F4 Save game Pause button Toggle pause on and off +/Speed up / slow down game Space bar The time count speeds up 20 times when the player runs. Pressing O and then the space bar means that the player is back in his office almost immediately. The first game Chapter 3 When you first start Airline Tycoon, the introduction will be shown, which you can exit at any time by pressing the ESC button or clicking anywhere on the screen. Afterwards, the main menu will be displayed. Before you boldly throw yourself into the first game, you should first choose your home airport. Tip: You only have to select your home airport once, at the beginning. Airline Tycoon stores all your settings. Selecting a Home airport In the main menu, click on the option Home airport. In the following menu you will find all the airports available in Airline Tycoon. By clicking on the symbols and you can browse through all the available airports. Choose the desired airport by clicking on it. In front of the currently selected airport you will see a . Click on OK to confirm your choice and return to the main menu. Selecting the First Mission In the main menu, click on the option "New Game". At the beginning you can only play the first mission, "A new job"; all other options are greyed out and cannot be selected. Click with the mouse on the option "A new job" and then on "Next" to choose the first mission. This will take you to the player selection. 9 Chapter 3 The first game Tip: You can also change the names of your adversaries. A very interesting choice would be your partner or the nice gentleman from the Inland Revenue (a so-called death match), or your favourite neighbour, the one who always mows his lawn at lunch-time... Selecting a Player In Airline Tycoon you can choose between four different airlines. It is a matter of taste which one you choose. As far as we know, neither the different airlines nor the players have any advantages or disadvantages over one another; however we do not want to exclude the possibility that they might... Click on an airline to select it. You can change the name of the player by clicking on the default name. You can type in a new name as soon as the green highlight is shown. After the selection, click on "Start". The game begins... The First Day In the first mission you will be accompanied by Belinda, your assistant. At the beginning Belinda will give you valuable hints and tips. When you do not want any more support from Belinda, just click on the space bar or the symbol at the bottom right-hand side. First you need to go to the office of the airport manager, Mr Uhrig, where all players have to report every morning. Mr Uhrig is responsible for the smooth running of the airport and behaves accordingly. Belinda On the first day Mr Uhrig will tell you how you can perform your mission. If you did not pay attention, you should visit him again, or give him a call. However you should not disturb him unnecessarily; Mr Uhrig is a very busy man. Tip: If Belinda talks too slowly for you, just click on the speech bubble. She will then just skip to the following text or hide behind the status bar. After the conference in the morning, all players go to their offices. 10 The first game Chapter 3 Your Office, the Most Important Control Centre of All At the beginning, your office is the most important control centre of your new company. Enjoy the peace, the tasteful interior, the beautiful suede, and the not yet dried-out plant in the corner, because soon you will no longer have the opportunity to look at the interior of your office... From your office you can look up and create flight plans, equip To select an option, just click on the appropriate area on the screen. ·Kerosene management ·Finish work ·Filofax ·Leave the office ·Equip aplanes ·Make call ·In-tray aeroplanes, manage the kerosene supply, make phone calls, read your post and, of course, decide when to finish work. The First Mission In your first mission your task will be to perform five orders. It is not very important how much money you earn or how many people you transport. The only condition is that you have to complete all orders before your competitors, otherwise you have lost the mission. At the beginning of the first mission you own two aeroplanes, and you have already accepted two orders that you can schedule and operate immediately. First you will need the filofax, in which you have to assign the orders to the planes. Tip: The cursor colour changes when you can select an option... 11 Chapter 3 The first game Planning the First Orders You can access the filofax by first clicking on the globe in your office and then on the filofax in the bottom left-hand corner. This chapter explains how to plan orders. Refer to the chapter Filofax / Notebook for a detailed description of the filofax. Planning orders using the Filofax 1 2 3 4 5 6 In the bottom left-hand corner click on 6, to display a listing of your planes. Then click on 4 to see a listing of the orders already set up. On the left-hand side you now have to select a plane which is suitable for at least one of the two pre-arranged orders. A plane is suitable if: - The plane can transport at least the number of passengers defined in the order - The range of the plane will enable it to complete the flight without a stopover - The order can be carried out on time. The information for each plane can be accessed by first selecting a plane and then clicking on 5. The information for the orders can be accessed by clicking on 1 (the blue ). Clicking on 2 will always take you back to the listings. As soon as you move the cursor over the list of flights, you can see those time slots highlighted brightly in the left planning window, which will allow you to carry out the order within the set time frame. 12 The first game Chapter 3 Now click on one of the orders so that you can see the green order icon on the cursor (3). Move the icon to the planning window on the left-hand side into one of the brightly highlighted areas by clicking on the desired position. You can then move the order to another position until the flight has been fixed. This means you can easily move the order into the correct position. You should plan both orders as early as possible on the same day, if this is feasible, otherwise the competition will win the mission. Should the order icon have a red border when you put it into its position, then the order is set too late, and unless you change the planning you will have to pay a contract penalty. Correct the planning by clicking on the order icon and putting it into a different position that will allow you to perform the order in time. Whilst the order icon is still on the mouse cursor you can move the order back by right-clicking on it, and subsequently attach it to another plane. Hint: Flights are closed two hours before their departure. You can recognise a closed flight by the small lock icon. Observing Departing Flights Once you have planned your first two orders in the filofax you can see the effects of your planning. Go to the airport hall by clicking on the door in your office. First you should check if your flights are shown on the airport monitor as you have planned them. To do this, click on any of the monitors in the airport building... Remember: If an order is carried out too late or not at all, the set contract penalty is due... An airport monitor 13 Chapter 3 The first game Tip: A double-click makes everything so much faster... The first passengers start to pick up their tickets and check in their luggage. On the right-hand side: the passengers can board the plane approx. 30 minutes before the departure of the plane. In Airline Tycoon, unlike many other economic simulations, you can observe the effects of your planning in full detail. You can see what the passengers do and what they feel. Check the departure time of your first plane. Go to your ticket counter in the area on the left of the airport. The passengers start checking in from up to two hours before the take-off. When the cursor is close to a person, a thought bubble appears. That is how you know what your passengers and also the competition think. It is also possible to spy on other players. You should at least see the two flights you planned in the previous chapter with the initials of your airline on the monitor. Should this not be the case, there are three possible reasons for this: you did not plan all orders as described - if so, you should check your filofax again; you have not planned the flights for the first day (the monitor only shows flights that take off the same day); or you went home in-between and the flights have already been carried out. Tip: To speed up the run-time of the game, click on the time in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. The time will run faster as long as you hold the mouse button down. 14 The first gamel Chapter 3 Once your first passengers have their tickets, you should go to the gate. That is where the passengers will go to await the departure of their plane. Of course, the passengers do not like wasting their time with long waiting times. In the airport you will find shops, a museum and a café to prevent boredom and, amazingly, a toilet which is conveniently situated right beside the cafe. The shops at the airport are busy, because just before going on holiday the passengers still have all their spending money. Even if they do not, there is still the bank... Hint: In Airline Tycoon only one player at a time can be in a room. Another Eight Orders... To complete the first mission you have to perform ten orders. If you do not believe us, just call the airport manager Mr Uhrig. He will certainly confirm this. Once you have completed this chapter there will still be three orders missing. You therefore need first to obtain them and then to plan them. There are several ways to obtain an order. The first option is to get them at the Air Travel or the Last Minute counter at your home airport. At the Last Minute counter you will get orders that have to be planned quickly but the reward will be much higher. Go to the Air Travel or Last Minute counter. To do this, just click on the Air Travel counter and your player will automatically move there. If there is already a player at the counter, you will have to be patient and hope that the competition has not already snapped up all the best orders. Air Travel's orders 15 Chapter 3 The first game Once you are at the counter you will see the orders on the wall. There, it is possible that all orders have been obtained by the competition. In this case you will have to come back later. Move the cursor over the different orders to display their details. Once you click on an order, you accept it irrevocably. Remember, if you are not able to perform the order as requested, you will have to pay a contract penalty. This means that you cannot collect orders indiscriminately but have to study their details carefully beforehand. Since you only have two planes at the beginning, you have to ensure that you can perform the orders in time. The second option is to obtain orders through your branches. To do this, just call the branch and ask for available orders. Tip: In the personnel office you can employ an order analyst. He will actively assist you in choosing the right orders. Once you have obtained new orders you can go back to your office and select the filofax to plan the orders as described previously. Of course, it may be that you have to commute a few times between your office and the order counter until you have completed the first mission. What next? When you have completed the first mission successfully, you should be familiar with the general functions and the aim of Airline Tycoon. Your next step should be to find out everything about routes and their function within Airline Tycoon. This will enable you to successfully complete the following missions. We therefore strongly recommend that you read the Routes chapter. 16 Routes Chapter 4 Planning routes is the most important element of Airline Tycoon. Without routes, you cannot build a successful airline. In Airline Tycoon a route is the permission for flight between two airports. Unlike orders, routes cannot get lost. As soon as you have attached a route to a plane it will regularly fly this route, unless the plane is prevented from doing so by adverse circumstances. You can also fly the same route with several planes to satisfy demand. Routes and orders can be planned one week in advance. If you set an order and a route for Tuesday in your flight plan, then the plane will fly on the same route the following Tuesday. The order, however, is terminated as soon as it is completed. This means it is possible for you to devise a clever flight plan with the help of the routes for each plane, that will repeat itself every week automatically. Then you only have to keep an eye on the demand for each individual route. A plane with only half its seats occupied is hardly profitable. Building the network In Airline Tycoon you can set up a global route network encompassing all airports. All you need for this is the necessary money from the petty cash. At the beginning of the game you can only licence routes that go from and to your home airport. Once you have licensed a route, you will have to fly at least 10% of its daily demand. However, if for a time your quota is below this value, you will lose the license for this route, and it will take some time to smooth matters over. It is important to remember that only three airlines can fly a route at the same time. The consequences can therefore be fatal if a competitor snaps up a route from under your nose, and prevents your airline from expanding. To license further routes which are not connected to your home airport, you will have to fly at least 20% of passengers for that route. For example, if your home airport is Berlin and you are flying the route Berlin-New York, then you will have to transport at least 20% of all the people who want to fly from Berlin to New York to be able to license new routes from and to New York. 17 Chapter 4 Routes As a general rule, you will have to transport at least 10% of all people who want to fly on a particular route or you will lose the licence for this route. You will have to transport at least 20% of all passengers to license a route from the target airport to other airports. It is therefore not possible for a player to license a number of routes "just in case", and so block the other players. Route Administration You will find the route administration on the pin board directly next to Mr Uhrig's office (airport management). Click with the cursor on the pin board. As soon as a player reaches it, the view changes. In the route administration you can not only license new routes or drop routes and gain access to important data but you can also get important information about your competitors and their routes. Hint: To get information about competitors you have to employ an informer. Information about Routes When you drag the cursor over the route listing you can see the details for the route in 1. To fly a route, the range of your plane has to be at least as great as the distance of that route. The value "Daily Demand" shows how many people would like to use this route on average and "Current Demand" shows the number of people that would like to fly currently. An indication that the route is not working to full capacity is when the "Current Demand" is higher than the "Daily Demand". "Licence Fees" tells you the monthly licensing costs for the route. You will have to pay these even if there are no flights on this route. The "Capacity" shows you what percentage of the possible passengers would be transported by your airline. 18 Routes Chapter 4 Renting routes: 1 2 3 4 5 If you have employed an informer you will get additional information. At the bottom of the information window you can see the airlines that have already licensed this route. Following the name of the airline you can also see the capacity quota for that airline as a percentage. Additionally, you can view the route network of a particular player using 2. On the right-hand side of the screen you can list all airlines using 5. 4 will list all the routes you can actually license and 3 will list the ones you have already licensed. By clicking on a route you can decide whether you want to license or drop this route. Ticket Prices You can change the ticket prices for each route as you like. To do this, display either the filofax or the notebook. 19 Chapter 4 Routes Change to the view showing the route listings and click once on the -icon. Now click on one of the desired options to change the tikket price. Before you boldly triple the price, remember that the ticket price has a considerable influence on how much your route will be frequented. Additionally, the ticket price will have an influence on the image of your airline. Should you sell a bad service at too high a price, the image will decrease; on the other hand, your image will increase with reasonable ticket prices and good service. Dropping Routes On the second page of the route information listings in the filofax/ notebook (see Ticket Prices) you can drop a route. To do this, just click on the appropriate text. Routes can only be cancelled when they are not attached to a plane. Important Information The following information can be found in the same view in the Filofax / Notebook where you can drop routes. Image: Image of the route as a percentage, where 100% is the optimum. Rank: This shows in which order this route has been licensed. If there is a 1, then this route was first licensed by you. This value has an influence on how well the route is operating. If the rank is 3, then two of your competitors have already held the licence to this route, which means it will be more difficult for you than if your airline had been the first to fly this route. Demand: How many people on average are waiting for a flight. Capacity (aeroplane): This value tells you the average capacity of your planes as a percentage. A value of 50% would mean that the planes fly on average with only half capacity; therefore, they could transport more passengers. A value of 100%, however, would mean that all flights are fully booked. 20