___ __ _ / | ___ _____ ____ / /_ (_) ____ / /| | / _ \ / ___/ / __ \ / __ \ / / /_ / / ___ |/ __/ / / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / /_ /_/ |_|\___/ /_/ \____/ /_.___/ /_/ /___/ _____ ____________ __________ _____ ______________________ _______ ___(_)_______ __ ___/_ / / /___ __ \_ _ \__ ___/__ ___/_ __ \__ __ \__ / _ ___/ _(__ ) / /_/ / __ /_/ // __/_ / _(__ ) / /_/ /_ / / /_ / / /__ /____/ \__,_/ _ .___/ \___/ /_/ /____/ \____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \___/ /_/ Aerobiz Supersonic The Complete Guide ver 1.0 (6-5-99) by Dan Simpson (manymoose@hotmail.com) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N O T E S - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Aerobiz Supersonic is a sort of sequel to Aerobiz, except it is more of a remake of the first game than a sequel. They merely added new planes and a couple other features and called it a brand new game. Anyway, the point of the game is to have the best and most profitable airline by a certain time. You can compete against either 3 computers or 3 players or any combination of those. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Contents: ---------------------, | 1. The Scenarios | | 2. The Planes | | 3. Game Basics | | 4. Routes | | 5. Other Ways to get Money | | 6. Misc. | '----------------------------' ---------------- 1. The Scenarios ---------------- There are 4 scenarios, each has different jets because each is set in a different time period. Each scenario gives you 20 years to be the best, and each year has 4 quarters. 1. The Dawn of the Jet Age -- 1955 to 1975 2. Air Travel Takes Off -- 1970 to 1990 3. Airlines Cover the Globe -- 1985 to 2005 4. Supersonic Travel -- 2000 to 2020 For a list of which era has which planes, look in the next section "2. The Planes" for the list. After you select your era, you then select a difficulty level, from 1 to 5. One being easy, five being hard. Then you select how many human players will play. If this is your first time with the game, you may want to play on DEMO. You will get to see how the computer strategizes by watching 4 computer players playing against each other! For an easier game, select and play more than 1 human player. This would cut back on actual opponents to compete against. Note: Due to the amount of wars in the middle east in the "Dawn of the Jet Age" scenario, it isn't recommended that you have any dealings in the mid-east in that scenario. ------------- 2. The Planes ------------- Old planes do go obsolete, so if you don't see all the old planes, that's why. Note: During the era of the Cold War (which is up to 1989) non-russian airlines cannot buy Russian planes (Ilyushin and Tupolev) and Russian airlines cannot buy non-russian planes. Note: When new planes are first introduced, all you get is to see it, they won't start production on that plane until the next year. Note: Prices of planes listed is the Initial price, the prices do decrease over time. Note: If a given plane has a second year listed, then that means that while you are playing a scenario that plane will be taken off the market. Also realize that some planes are only available in certain scenarios, so don't panic if you don't see something even though it should have been available. Plane list is sorted by Builder, then by Years: Name: Builder: Years: Range: Seats: Price: ----- -------- ------ ------ ------ ------ Concorde Aerospat. 1976-79 4000 120 110000k A300 Airbus 1975 3620 350 60000k A320 Airbus 1982 4180 180 28000k A300-600 Airbus 1985 5500 370 62000k A310 Airbus 1985 6000 280 47500k A340 Airbus 1993 8870 330 99000k B707-120 Boeing 1958 4180 140 42300k B707-320 Boeing 1960-82 5560 160 45000k B727-100 Boeing 1964-71 2310 110 21600k B727-200 Boeing 1967-84 2620 150 33000k B737-200 Boeing 1968-88 1500 110 24750k B747-200 Boeing 1970 6750 450 134000k B747-300 Boeing 1983 6750 500 112500k B737-300 Boeing 1985 1620 120 34100k B757 Boeing 1985 2930 200 35750k B767 Boeing 1985 4060 230 38500k B747-400 Boeing 1989 7180 550 135000k B777 Boeing 1995 5500 360 54000k IL14 Ilyushin 1954-60 1870 30 8000k IL62 Ilyushin 1965 4930 150 24000k IL62M Ilyushin 1970 5620 160 28800k IL62MK Ilyushin 1978 5500 170 34000k IL86 Ilyushin 1981 2560 350 37800k IL96-300 Ilyushin 1988 6870 300 45000k L1049 Lockheed 1951 4750 90 19800k L1011 Lockheed 1972-84 4500 350 72000k DC6 MDC 1947 4000 80 11200k DC8-30 MDC 1959 5120 140 43200k DC8-50 MDC 1961 6060 150 44550k DC9-30 MDC 1966 1500 120 23400k DC8-60 MDC 1967 5930 240 40800k DC10 MDC 1971 5560 350 67500k MD80 MDC 1981 3560 150 33000k MD11 MDC 1991 7750 360 102000k MD12 MDC 1995 8000 400 120000k MD100 MDC 1998 4680 200 36000k TU104 Tupolev 1955 2500 50 13500k TU124 Tupolev 1962 3500 40 18000k TU134 Tupolev 1967 2310 70 17600k TU154 Tupolev 1972 2430 150 21600k TU144 Tupolev 1977-79 2620 140 81000k TU154B Tupolev 1977 2500 160 25200k TU204 Tupolev 1989 2870 210 26000k Caravelle Sud 1959-72 1500 80 30000k Viscount Vickers 1953 1680 70 20000k -------------- 3. Game Basics -------------- The first thing that you have to do in the game is to select a Region to start from. Logically you want a region away from the computer players. Here is a small breakdown of the Best Regions to start from: Best Starting Cities: 1. SE Asia -- Tokyo, Singapore 2. N. America -- New York, Los Angeles 3. Europe -- London, Paris 4. Africa -- Cairo 5. S. America -- Mexico City Avoid: Mideast and Australia These are the best because of their size, but more importantly they all have good locations. Never get a starting city in the middle of the Region as you won't be able to do any Long/Medium distance routes, and the ones you will do will be less effective. After choosing all the starting cities, you will be given an option to change the names of the companies (i.e. Metlink, Sunrise, UK AIR, etc.) and their colors. You will then be given your goals by a staff member, and tossed into the scary world of Airline Management! The Buttons: (from left to right) ------------ Top - Create New Route, Adjust Routes, Negotiate for Slots, Order/Sell Planes, Budget, Business Ventures Bottom - Create Hub, Advertising, Staff Meeting, Info, Options, End Turn Slots: ------ First off, note the numbers under the various cities in your region. Those are slot numbers. The higher the number, the more flights into that city you can do. There are a few things to remember with slots: - They aren't unlimited. Eventually every city will run out of slots at their airport (given enough demand) and it takes time to build new slots. - They aren't free. Slots do cost money, so don't just go around getting slots everywhere you MIGHT need them. In fact, if you don't use all your slots after awhile, you may want to return them! - In determining the Max amount of flights possible, you have to consider how many slots you have in both cities on the flight route, not just the city you are flying to. If you are doing a New York to L.A. and NYC has 2 slots and LA has 8, you can only do 2 flights. - Remember at the most you can be negotiating for new slots in 4 cities. To get new slots, push the STAFF icon (it looks like 2 hands), and send a staff member to a city to negotiate for slots. Depending on relations between your company and this city, your negotiations could take as little as 3 months (one quarter) or 12 months (4 quarters). Remember that you only have 4 staff members! You can, if you want, send 2 staff members on the same job to speed things up. Hubs: ----- To expand to other areas of the world, you will need new Hubs. They're like miniature versions of your home base, allowing you to create new routes from them as you would your home base. Hubs can be created at any Green city that you already have slots at. Use the same logic in selecting your hub as you did your home city. (choose large cities, at an edge of the map, like Paris) Tourism: -------- Every once in awhile you will see various messages like "Olympics will be held in XXXX" or "XXXX is experiencing a boom in tourism. Take advantage of these! They will give you a large bump in traffic. Also pay attention to warnings about wars about to break out and cut off the route before it gets cut off for you. Note: Wars increase the price of oil, which increases your expenses, which lowers your profits. So don't panic if you see a bunch of Red Routes after a war breaks out! Special "Offers": ----------------- Eventually a country will come up to you and ask you to back their new proposal with some of your hard earned cash. What do you get? Their love. Goodie. It will improve relations with that country's cities, but nothing more dramatic than that. Note: To switch between regions at any time, use the L and R buttons, and use the Y button to select a region on the world map. Note: To speed up text as it is scrolling, hold down one of the ARROW buttons. --------- 4. Routes --------- Choosing a new route is always a tricky business. Will there be sufficient demand on the route to make it profitable? Will you be able to charge enough to make a GOOD profit? Is there going to be competition on the route? And once you finish the route, how do you tinker with it to make it even better? The maximum amount of routes you can have is 40, so you have to choose wisely where to start a new route. The Best Routes: International Routes -- that is, anything going from one geographic area to another. Like New York to London, or Los Angeles to Tokyo. There is always a great demand for these routes, PLUS the distance means it is economical to use large planes like the 747, which carries a lot of people, which means lots of money. Also you may be able to charge whatever you want here if you get 100% capacities. Note: You can only have one international route into each region, that is, if you do a Tokyo-Paris, you can't do a Tokyo-London, but you could do a Tokyo-New York. Long/Medium Distance Routes -- not quite international, these go from one extreme end of a geographic area to another. Like New York to Miami, or London to Athens. Use a medium sized jet here, but have more flights. You can't charge as much, but the short distance means less expenses. If you have 3 or 4 of these in every region you are in, you will do fine. Bad Routes: Short Hops -- these are really bad. Avoid making any routes like this! An example is the London to Paris route. Sure it may SOUND good, but even if you get a profit from it, it won't be as much as you would get otherwise on a better route. Although it will get you people, which can get you market share. Tinkering with Routes: If your route is at 100% capacity and is raking in the bucks, then you will want to tinker with it to make it even better at making money! - Swap to a larger plane - Add more planes - Buy new slots at both airports and increase the flights - Increase the ticket price by 10% If your route is not 100% and/or is losing money then you need to get it to be profitable. - Swap to a smaller plane - Decrease the amount of planes/flights - Advertise! - Cut prices by 10% Note: A route that is Red is losing money! -------------------------- 5. Other Ways to Get Money -------------------------- Business Ventures: ------------------ The far right button on the top row is the Business Venture button. You can buy a business anywhere you want. (you don't need to have flown there) The idea is mostly to complement your airline, so you want to buy Hotels, or Bus services. It requires a staff member to buy the Business so make sure you have one before you attempt to buy, and it also takes time. Not all businesses are instantly profitable. To check their profitability, call a staff meeting. Advertising: ------------ Advertising is directly related to Business Ventures and so is listed down here. You can only advertise when you actually have a Business, because you are advertising the Business, not your airline. However, your airline reaps the rewards of the Advertising. Confused? Anyway, there are 3 categories of Ads, and you can only do the ones that correspond to the Businesses you have. Also if you increase the amount spent on advertising, it increases the likelihood that something will happen! -------- 6. Misc. -------- There is a small "Bonus Game" in Aerobiz Supersonic, and it is a "Flag" game. Find the icon that looks like the SNES controller, and press A then SELECT to get into the game. It will show you a flag, then give you 4 options as to which country it belongs to. Simple. -- from GameSages -- http://sages.ign.com/codes/12/8227.html ASCII Art created using SigZag by James Dill: (freeware!) http://www.geocities.com/southbeach/marina/4942/sigzag.htm Shameless Self Promotion: I have also written faq's for: NES: The Legend of Zelda Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom SNES: Utopia: Creation of a Nation PC: Ultima 4 Ultima 7 Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle Ultima Underworld -- Keyboard Commands Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Rollercoaster Tycoon Colonization -- the Single Colony Strategy Guide -- the Cheat Guide All can be found at: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ Questions? Comments? Mistakes? Email me about it! manymoose@hotmail.com Original Version (6-5-99, 15k) STILL TO DO: Finish listing all the planes! This Document is Copyright 1999 by Dan Simpson