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Tomaz Drnovsek

OnAir vs. Air Hauler 2

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I use AH2 and had a shot of the free trial of On Air.

My 2c worth

Pros:

Slick modern professional interface

Easy connectivity to your aircraft

Nice reward based progression which unlocks features

Attractive map feature

Cons:

Ongoing subscription model will be more expensive in long run

Lack of jobs to connect airports without dead head runs

Still some bad spelling and grammar mistakes in primary interface (this is payware remember)

 

So why not use the free trial and see for yourself if you like it enough to start paying for it.

In it's current form I didn't but it has potential.

I also use FS Economy (on occasion). It's similar but freeware and has a large community. So that's another avenue for you to look at.

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I've been on FSE (FS Economy) since the beginning. I've never heard of On Air. 

 

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On 12/18/2019 at 1:27 PM, Killieboy64 said:

Pros:

Slick modern professional interface

Easy connectivity to your aircraft

Nice reward based progression which unlocks features

Attractive map feature

Cons:

Ongoing subscription model will be more expensive in long run

Lack of jobs to connect airports without dead head runs

Still some bad spelling and grammar mistakes in primary interface (this is payware remember)

I guess we have pretty different concepts of "modern professional interface" 🙂 I'd call it that maybe in 2012. But if people like it, great! I actually prefer AH2 UI over OnAir. It looks more professional to me, although it's pretty outdated by the 2019 standards.

The subscription model is the biggest turn off for me. 30€$ products suddenly become 120€$ products. I used to like subscriptions but if you really think about it, we're paying much more now for stuff than we used to when one time purchases were the norm. 

I did use the free trail. It's an OK product, I liked the ease of connecting it to the sim, the interactive map is cool but all in all it it's not that much better than AH2. As I said, the pricing is way over the top (for me) and the biggest turn off. So, for the time being I'll stay with AH2. I'll evaluate the situation in the future. Of course, it will depend very much on that which one will support MSFS 2020.

 

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10 hours ago, Tomaz Drnovsek said:

I guess we have pretty different concepts of "modern professional interface" 🙂 I'd call it that maybe in 2012. But if people like it, great! I actually prefer AH2 UI over OnAir. It looks more professional to me, although it's pretty outdated by the 2019 standards.

The subscription model is the biggest turn off for me. 30€$ products suddenly become 120€$ products. I used to like subscriptions but if you really think about it, we're paying much more now for stuff than we used to when one time purchases were the norm. 

I did use the free trail. It's an OK product, I liked the ease of connecting it to the sim, the interactive map is cool but all in all it it's not that much better than AH2. As I said, the pricing is way over the top (for me) and the biggest turn off. So, for the time being I'll stay with AH2. I'll evaluate the situation in the future. Of course, it will depend very much on that which one will support MSFS 2020.

 

I believe OnAir works with XP11; is that accurate? I understand there will be AH2 for XP11 sometime next year but that could be one year from now. 

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Hi all,

Just following up here - AH2 for XP is in testing with JF at the moment and should be available in a couple of months time :)

Cheers,
S.

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Hi everyone,

I first found OnAir when it was announced here in June of 2019. Antoine, the project manager was looking for a few closed beta testers and I was curious. Having used AH2 for almost a year at that time, I wanted to see a different take on the "fly with a purpose" idea.

As a disclaimer, I want to say that I am now helping the OnAir developers (voluntarily) with some projects, managing the community support (including the Discord server) and taking care of the documentation. But, I will try to keep the description of my experience with both programs as fair as I can.

I had lots of fun with AH2 and I think that Slopey has done a great job with it. Besides a few weeks with FSE, it was the only thing I used that gave me a feeling of flying with a purpose in my sim. I liked the idea that there was always an appropriate job available every time I wanted to fly any of my aircraft (right distance and load). I also liked that I could stack a bunch of jobs onto my AI pilots and they would execute them in order, without much micromanagement on my part. I liked the commodity trading idea, adding an additional way of making money. I liked the idea of being able to build your own aircraft (though I never found a need to use it). I also liked the idea of factories (allowing you to make the higher tier commodities for trading, but again, it's not something that I ended up using). It was also nice that Slopey was (and I assume still is) active on the forum and addressed issues and questions quickly.

I don't have anything bad to say about AH2. The only thing that was a mild disappointment was that many ideas that I (or others had) were dismissed, but that's more of a personal thing. Some developers just have a more tight grip on their design and want to stick to it. That's understandable.

Moving on to OnAir. One of the first things that I noticed after joining the closed beta was that the OnAir dev team was very receptive to incorporating community feedback, ideas, features and suggestions into the program. They wanted to (and still do) make the program what the community wants and not just what they think is best. I could not count on both hands how many of my own and other people's ideas have already been incorporated, from small quality of life adjustments to bigger game-play features.

Once I started beta testing, I have not gone back to AH2. Here are some of the reasons why I enjoy OnAir more...

It's a persistent, online world. There are still more player interaction features planned and in development but it already feels more like I am in a world with other people; all the available jobs are shared by everyone and there are FBOs owned by other players all over the world where you can purchase fuel or repair your aircraft. You can even outsource your jobs (or parts thereof) to other players to help you complete them. There is a modding architecture (eventually will be made available to players) where missions and events can be created and shared with others. There was already a global cooperative event for Christmas, where the whole community joined together to help Santa deliver presents all over the world which provided extra income, experience points and a nice goal for everyone to work towards.

While I enjoyed having the perfect job always available in AH2, I actually found it very refreshing and fulfilling to have to search around a bit to find the most profitable and "perfect" jobs in OnAir. This, to me, feels more realistic and adds a level of strategy and logistical fun.

I also enjoy having a lot of settings in OnAir with which I can tailor my experience. I can make it as easy or realistic as I want. I can choose whether to allow instant transport of myself or my employees, change the checkride difficulty, the minimum aircraft renting hours (no short term rentals in AH2). I can set my cargo/passengers to be loaded instantly, unlock the entire company skill tree and disable employee need to rest...and I can do any of these at any time. If I want a real challenge though, I can play in survival mode, where all the above "easy" options are disabled. Speaking of survival mode; a second survival-only world (with exploit fixes and game-play balancing) is coming soon which will be even more challenging and which will include leader boards. When it is live, players will be able to run two companies with one account; one on the original world and one on the new survival-only world. By the way, most of the "easy" options I mentioned were not available from the start, but the community asked for them and they were added.

Some other interesting features and some that are planned/in development:

  • (community requested) Ability to purchase your own routes with specific from/to locations and time slots...for those players who prefer to fly regular routes.
  • (planned) Modding - create your own adventures with specific goals and share them with others...so many possibilities with this one.
  • (community requested and already implemented) Work Orders - create multi-leg routes for aircraft to lessen the need for micromanagement.
  • (planned) Stand alone version - offline and one-time-payment with no subscription.
  • (planned) Global chat - for now, there is a Discord server here: https://discord.gg/WY5htXu
  • There is also a possibility of a virtual airline feature where people can hire other players to work for their companies.

To address the other questions/concerns in this thread...

Spelling - yes, there are still some spelling issues. English is not the developer's native language and they are doing the best they can. This will all be taken care of.

Ease of finding jobs - using "Search surrounding Airports" should give you a lot more options. And keep in mind, you won't always find the perfect job in OnAir as it tries to be more realistic. So yes, some effort has to be made in order to find the most profitable jobs. One suggestion: to start with, have a couple AI pilots fly jobs, making the most profit for your company while you focus on flying what you like, without having to be too concerned about making a lot of money personally.

Subscription - because OnAir is an online world, there are servers to maintain. The cost can be as little as 2.38 Euros/month if paid in advance for 24 months or 2.92 Euros/month if paid in advance for 12 months. There are also 6/3/1 month plans. The subscription also allows the devs to spend more time and resources to further enhance the program. And by the way, there are no extra/separate charges for being able to use different sims. All the supported sims (FSX, P3D and XP11) are included...and, you can use any supported sim to fly in your company at any time. The new MSFS will also be supported, as long as the SDK allows it.

As a final note, I like to reiterate what someone else already said: if you are interested, there is a free 15 day trial. You can also download the manual for more details here: https://www.onair.company/content/OnAir AIRLINE MANAGER - CEO's Operations Manual.pdf (The "What is OnAir Airline Manager" section in the manual might be of special interest)

I suppose this has gotten long enough now so thank you for reading and whatever you decide, enjoy flying with a purpose in either one of these programs 😉

Here is the main web site for OnAir again: https://www.onair.company/

Great day and clear skies to all!

Jacob

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