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AIR BUCKS VERSION 1.01 MANUAL & STRATEGY GUIDE

MANUAL

Impressions Software Inc.


Software Copyright 1992 Impressions

All rights reserved worldwide

Strategy Guide Copyright 1992 Impressions

All rights reserved worldwide.  No portion of this manual
may be copied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any
electronic medium or machine-readable form without the prior
written consent of Impressions Software Inc.



Technical Support Line

If you have any problems installing this software, please
call our Technical Support Line at [phone], and a
member of our Support Staff will assist you.  Hours are
9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. E.S.T., Monday through Friday.












CHANGES IN VERSION 1.01

At Impressions, we pride ourselves on our commitment to
satisfying the customer.  Among the praise and commentary we
have received, there have been many requests for different
features to be added to Air Bucks.  Some people have wanted
the interface to be more flexible, making access to
important commands more rapid.  Some have suggested a
beginner's mode, so that players have time to learn the
game.  Some have asked that we redesign the visual style of
the game.  And many people have asked for more strategic
pointers on how to set prices for a route.   We have
listened and reacted -- we hope that you like the results --
and that you continue to tell us what you think!

Version 1.01 of Air Bucks is an interim upgrade which
refines the interface for the game and adds features and
pointers to help first-time players start out.  Version 1.2
will add  256-color VGA graphics, a zoom mode and other
additional features.


CHANGES AND ADDITIONS -- VERSION 1.01
   * The FAST speed is now 2.5 times faster than it was
     for version 1.0.
   * The PLANE INCOME chart is now also available from
     the Routes and Planes menus, in addition to being
     included on the toolbar (see below).
   * Under Difficulty, the EASY FIRST THREE YEARS option
     gives inexperienced players a chance to learn the
     game.
   * The REPLICATE command under Ticket Price now copies
     the three prices for the currently selected leg of
     a route onto all legs of the route.
   * A TOOLBAR now appears when all menus are cleared
     from the screen, allowing the player instant access
     to important commands.
   * The algorithms for generating INCOME CHARTS have
     been corrected.
   * Finally, the computer player's A.I. regarding
     PRICING STRATEGY, and the OVERALL ECONOMIC MODEL
     have been further enhanced.



IBM PC - INSTALLATION AND LOADING

(IMPORTANT:  If received this booklet within your Air Bucks
package, then your copy of Air Bucks has already been
upgraded to version 1.01.  In that case, PLEASE IGNORE THIS
SECTION.)

The files on this disk will upgrade the copy of Air Bucks
already installed on your hard drive to version 1.01.  When
the UPGRADE program is run, certain files in Air Bucks'
directory will be replaced with new versions of themselves.
Then, Air Bucks v1.01 will be ready to run.  Upgrading the
game does not require additional space on your hard drive.


HARD DRIVE INSTALLATION

First, switch on the computer.  If WINDOWS, DOSSHELL or
other menu programs appear automatically when you turn on
your computer, you should exit them now.  In either case,
you should now be at the DOS prompt, where you can enter
commands.  The prompt should look something like either
"A:\>" or "C:\>".  Insert the Upgrade Disk into a floppy
drive, and type

     A: <ENTER>
     or
     B: <ENTER>

 -- to access whichever drive the disk is in.  Then, type

     UPGRADE <source-disk> <dest-path> <ENTER>
 -- to run the UPGRADE program.  <source-disk> is the name
of the drive from which you are running the Upgrade; <dest-
path> names the drive and path where Air Bucks is located on
your hard drive.  NOTE:  There must be a space between
UPGRADE and the source disk, and between the source disk and
the destination path.  NOTE:  You must use a colon after the
drive names for both the source and destination disks.

When the upgrade is completed, Air Bucks will be ready to
run from the hard drive as before.


EXAMPLES

To run the upgrade program from floppy drive A:, when Air
Bucks is installed in the AIRBUCKS directory on the C: hard
drive, type

     UPGRADE A: C:\AIRBUCKS <ENTER>

To run the upgrade program from floppy drive B:, when Air
Bucks has been installed to the GAMES\AB directory on the D:
hard drive, type

     UPGRADE B: D:\GAMES\AB <ENTER>




AIR BUCKS -- HOW THE MODEL WORKS

The economic model programmed into Air Bucks takes into
account a multitude of factors and statistics.  The airline
executive who believes that he can make a cool million JUST
by keeping his prices competitive, may soon find himself up
to his ears in bank loans, and paying his meager profits out
as stock dividends.  The businessman who keeps a firm grip
on all facets of his company is the one who could make
incredible profits.

In economics, demand is a relationship between price and the
quantity demanded of a product. In Air Bucks, DEMAND is the
measure of how many people will buy a ticket to fly on one
of your planes.  It is measured as a percentage, and is
calculated using a wide range of factors described in detail
below.  One goal in playing Air Bucks is to maximize demand
for your planes -- to fill your planes as much as possible,
at the highest possible price. This would then maximize the
income for that flight. Controlling demand is crucial to
earning money -- the amount you earn per flight is the
percentage of demand TIMES the price per seat TIMES the
number of seats in the plane.

Unfortunately, some of that money earned must be spent to
cover COSTS. In Air Bucks there are two types of costs:
flight costs (which are incurred for every flight that you
run) and overhead costs (which are charged annually or
monthly, and are not directly related to the quantity of
flights that your airline flies).

The largest factors used to determine the costs per flight
are the distance and the fuel cost at the start of each
flight. The resulting cost is then increased for any
additional Comfort factors you have selected, and adjusted
for the size of airplane flying the route: it costs far more
money for a large jet to take off and land than it does for
a small turbo-prop plane, so the average cost per mile needs
to be adjusted to take that into account. This is the reason
why modern airlines use much smaller airplanes for the very
short flights.

Other costs per flight (such as maintenance fees, staff and
landing fees) are deducted annually: you must be prepared
for a large deduction from your bank balance at the end of
each year!! Overhead costs (head office, advertising, bank
interest and so on) are deducted either annually or monthly.

You should also be aware that Air Bucks will support up to
400 planes -- regardless of who owns them. Your corporation
could in theory own and run all 400, or none.

For your information, demand is NOT calculated just by city,
as many users have thought; demand for a route (or leg of a
route) is calculated every time that an aircraft takes off;
all the planes in Air Bucks actually "fly" their routes --
the model DOES NOT simply work out how many flights the
planes could fly each month, and multiply through. This
means that the latest possible information is used to
calculate demand every single trip. This is also the reason
why the computer slows down as the fleet size grows -- it is
working much harder!

We have had several technical support users suggesting that
the computer players had some sort of advantage: we state
categorically that this is not the case. The computer
players have no more information than you, and are given no
advantages. They do, though, use the information available
to them.



AIR BUCKS -- YOUR AIM

Your basic goal is to maximize profit, preferably by putting
a passenger in every seat and filling the holds with as much
cargo as possible, while charging as high a price for both
cargo and passengers as you can!

While it is possible to fill every plane, surprisingly, you
may well NOT want to do this. You might well need to drop
prices so low in order to fill the plane, that you make less
money than charging a higher price and having fewer
passengers! Or, you may find that you are spending too much
money to create this demand, and your revenue from fares is
being swallowed whole by excessive costs.

This is really where much of the fun of Air Bucks comes in -
- you can decide whether you wish to try a cheaper price
with less luxuries strategy, or go for the best in quality,
the highest prices -- and fewer passengers. Air Bucks
allows for either of those extremes, and also many
strategies somewhere in-between, to work well. You are in
charge -- what do you want to do?

To help you carry out your chosen strategy, Air Bucks allows
you to adjust many different factors -- all of which have an
effect on both cost and demand. Due to the complexity of Air
Bucks' economic model, and the nature of some of the
factors, it is not possible to give precise rankings for all
of Air Bucks' many options. There really are no set
solutions to the game!  Besides, if you knew exactly how the
game worked, you would lose the fun of trying to perfect
your business strategies!

What follows is, therefore, a guideline which describes each
factor in more depth -- and which hints at how you might
like to use it.

With these tips in hand, we encourage you to continue to
experiment with the game.  There are several ways to achieve
success, using different policies.  In fact, there are
several different ways to achieve full demand -- so in
theory, it is possible to achieve GREATER than 100% --
though, as in real-life, the numbers are adjusted for this,
and you will not be able to fill your plane past capacity.
You must try to find the most efficient strategy to increase
demand, always being careful that your techniques do not
cost so much that they deny you a chance at turning a
profit.

RELETIVE RANKING OF FACTORS AFFECTING DEMAND

Most Important
    Ticket Price
    Plane Speed
    Quality of Sites
    Strange Pricing

Important
    Seasonality
    Age of Your Planes
    Competition
    Wages
    Advertising
    Reliability
    Plane Size
    Size of Route Network

Special Circumstances
    First Class Travel
    Cargo
    Comfort Level


DESCRIPTIONS

TICKET PRICE -- This is the single most important factor.
When properly chosen, ticket price has the power to increase
demand dramatically; when mismanaged, it can drive ALL
customers off your planes.  The customers decide what a good
price is, based on the cost of the trip.  Finding the best
ratio of ticket price to cost is a challenge; obviously,
many people will fly with you if you charge only $1.00 per
passenger, but you won't be making any profits from them.
You must find the right balance between offering good value
for the customer, and charging enough to cover costs (plus a
profit).

Note:  You cannot fill your planes to capacity JUST by
charging rock-bottom prices.  Even though a good ticket
price is crucial to your success, it alone fills less than
HALF of each plane.  The rest of the passengers on a 100%-
full plane are attracted by the many other things you can do
to increase demand.

PLANE SPEED -- As the game progresses, faster and more
modern planes enter the market.  The speed of a plane in Air
Bucks can fill up to a THIRD of flight; customers naturally
prefer to ride the newest planes, as these usually provide
the best in passenger comfort and safety.  And more
importantly, the fast planes get their passengers to their
destinations more quickly.  This effect on demand increases
as the older planes become older, and the newest models look
progressively better when compared to them.

QUALITY OF SITES -- In Air Bucks, all of the things that
make one city preferable over another are represented by one
statistic: SIZE.  Size is an important factor in affecting
demand; large cities will have more customers living in
them, and more reasons for people to want to fly to them.
Therefore, a direct flight from large city to large city is
the best route to fly, and flights between small cities are
the worst.

There is one exception to this -- if a small or medium size
site acts as a stepping-stone between large cities on a
route, then demand will be higher.

Again, good prices and choice routes are the major
components of a successful air service, but they are not the
ONLY ones.  You won't fill a plane by changing only these
two factors.

STRANGE PRICING -- This may be just a game to you, but to
your customers, air travel is very serious business.  So, if
you start making screwball pricing decisions (like charging
less for first class than for cargo), your business will
drop severely.  Passengers like stability.  Silliness has no
place in the service industry.

SEASONALITY -- Demand for your planes does fluctuate over
the course of a year, to reflect the changing air travel
market from season to season.  You might want to adjust your
prices, as the shift in demand can affect profitability.

AGE OF YOUR PLANES -- Here, age does not mean how many years
you have owned a particular plane; rather, it means how long
that particular DESIGN of plane has been out on the market.
As it ages and is surpassed by the latest models, a
particular model of plane will start to look less desirable
to the customer.  Specifically, demand on that plane type
begins to decrease after TEN years on the market, and will
continue to slowly but steadily decrease every year after
that.  This is different to plane SPEED, which increases the
demand for a particular plane design because of its
benefits; Plane age decreases the demand for a design
because of its detriments.

COMPETITION -- There is a limit to the number of passengers
that want to fly any particular route -- and hence, also to
the number of planes that can profitably fly on a route.
That limit is not defined as a fixed number (it grows over
time), but if you too many planes fly a given route, demand
will begin to drop.  Thus, you will need to seek many routes
to fly on, and not just overfly the few you have.  Just as
in real life, you must use your judgment as to when to fly
new routes, and when to add planes to existing routes.

WAGES -- If you don't give your staff the wages they
deserve, their treatment of customers will diminish, taking
the demand for your planes down with it.  It is important to
always raise wages after strong profits, as your employees
use your success as a guide for how much money they deserve.
Nowhere is this more noticeable than after a particularly
successful year; if you don't reward your staff, expect to
see a sharp dip in demand come January.  On the other hand,
employees can only increase their efficiency so much before
increased wages start to have diminishing returns.

ADVERTISING -- Advertising works similarly to Wages, in that
too little advertising will decrease demand, but too much
advertising might not be worth the expense.  Again, some
managerial judgment is in order. Be aware, too, that the
effectiveness of advertising is linked to the size of your
company -- people expect a larger airline to advertise more,
so you will need to increase your ad spend as your revenues
grow.

RELIABILITY -- If you keep your plane maintenance level low,
then your planes will be constantly breaking down, creating
the image of a "dangerous" company.  As a result, some
customers will shy away from your services.  The money you
save in maintenance fees may not equal the ticket fares lost
as a result.

PLANE SIZE (SHORT JOURNEYS FOR LARGE PLANES) -- Planes
designed to fly extremely long distances become inefficient
when faced with relatively short routes.  When this occurs,
the cost of running that route DOUBLES, as compared to when
using a more appropriate plane.  This does not effect
demand, but profitability will plummet.

SIZE OF ROUTE NETWORK -- Because customers do not like
having to transfer airlines when flying complicated routes,
and because they like to stick with one airline where
possible, your demand will grow with your route network.
This means that the demand for each flight will be higher
for an airline with more active routes (if all other factors
such as price, age of plane, advertising etc. were the same)
than for a smaller airline.

FIRST CLASS TRAVEL -- Just as in real life, the market for
first-class seats is located mainly in the larger cities.
Demand for a plane flying to and from large cities will
increase if first-class seating is available.  On a plane
flying only between small or medium cities, first-class will
have more empty seats.  (The wealthy people in small cities
probably have their OWN planes!)

CARGO -- If a plane has cargo space allotted, it will
automatically be filled when a city on that route has a
cargo job waiting to go.  Cargo jobs appear from time to
time, and can be monitored using the JOBS AVAILABLE and
DEMAND REPORT commands on the Cargo menu.  Cargo
availability is variable from site to site; sometimes, cargo
space on a plane will go unfilled, and potential passenger
profit may be lost.  On the other hand, when cargo is there,
the money is good and cargo is more forgiving of an older,
slower plane.  You might prefer to set up a cargo-only plane
instead; see the tips in the section on ROUTE STRATEGIES.

COMFORT LEVEL -- The eight options available from the
Comfort command let you charge more for the same distance
flown, and thus increase your profits.  The eight options
have different levels of effect, which are up to you to
discover.  Note that they also increase the cost of your
flights.





ROUTE STRATEGIES

Obviously, where you decide to send your planes is very
important to your success; it has a tremendous effect on
demand, and can affect your long-term profitability, when
competing with three other globe-spanning services.  Here
are a few general tips that will help in deciding what kind
of route network to create.  Note that the following
information pertains primarily to passenger planes --
routing for cargo and cargo-only planes are covered in the
next section.

In general, the name of the game is to create a web of
routes connecting cities all around the world.

The temptation after reading the factor descriptions above
is to only fly between large cities.  However, there are two
major reasons not to completely ignore the smaller sites.
First, in the first decade or so of game time, some large
cities are beyond the reach of your airlines, without the
benefit of stopping over en route.  Therefore, the small and
medium cities in the middle of oceans and large continents
are vital for connecting flights between the more profitable
locations.  As you upgrade your fleet to the latest models,
these small locations will lose their significance in your
network.

Second, even when you have jumbo-jets connecting the most
distant points on the globe, and fly to every large city on
the map, there is still more profit to be had.  Travel still
occurs between these smaller locations, and the money-
seeking executive will find that a carefully-run service to
and from these locations can add a nice pile of cash to your
bank account.  Also, shorter routes between less-important
cities are a good place to deploy older planes, as they
become too outdated for the big business.  If those aren't
enough reasons to explore this avenue, consider that your
opponents will be doing so.




CARGO STRATEGIES

Working the cargo market with passenger planes is largely a
hands-off affair.  Your planes fly from airport to airport
as you have directed, and if there is cargo waiting at an
airport, and your ticket price is competitive, your plane
will automatically load up and collect the earnings.  If
there is more cargo waiting than your plane can carry, it
will remain there until the plane returns to that part of
its route.

In thinking about the cargo market, you should look at the
DEMAND REPORT map under the Cargo menu.  Here, sites with
high or very high demand for cargo carriers are indicated by
the colors black and red, respectively.  If you have a route
flying through an area or areas with greater demand, you may
want to increase the cargo capacity of the planes assigned
to it.  On the other hand, if none of the cities on a route
appear on the Demand Report map, you may want to replace
cargo areas on that route's planes with passenger seating.
However, always keep in mind that demand for cargo changes
throughout the game; if you follow the advice above, you may
find yourself refitting or rerouting planes repeatedly to
better exploit cargo opportunities.

Another important place to look at is the CARGO INCOME chart
under the Finances Menu.  There, the two important figures
are CAPACITY and VOLUME.  The capacity of a plane measures,
both in units and as a percentage, how much cargo it can
carry on a flight; volume represents how many units of cargo
are generally available on that route.  If the volume of
cargo produced by a route is sufficiently greater than the
capacity of the plane flying on it, that plane will have to
complete its route many times to completely ship the cargo.
This is an ideal situation, as the plane will then garner a
fairly steady cargo income from the route.  However, this
effect can be diluted if more than one plane flies on the
route; and cargo appears at intervals, so there will still
be "dry" periods for these planes.

You still have to be careful to set competitive prices for
cargo; in fact, cargo uses the SAME formulas (for the most
part) as in calculating demand for passengers, replacing one
person with one crate of cargo.  Additionally, if you set
"silly" prices for cargo (like making it more expensive than
economy seating), the world will notice and avoid your
service.  And if a plane fills less than ONE QUARTER of its
seats, it is ineligible to pick up cargo.


CARGO ONLY PLANES

One of the options mentioned in the Air Bucks manual is the
creation of cargo-only planes.  These planes have no
passenger seating, having replaced it with storage space.
Flying cargo is a fine purpose for those older planes that
are incapable of turning a profit as a passenger carrier.
Turning out cargo planes may be the preferred alternative to
selling old planes of the fleet.  However, the chartered
cargo business requires a lot of attention and changing of
routes to be successful, so too many of them may make the
business unmanageable.

The creation of a cargo-only plane is simple.  Simply REFIT
a plane, replacing all seats with cargo space.  Then, use
the JOBS AVAILABLE command to find a particular location
with cargo waiting.  Then, MAKE a chartered route, solely
for this plane, and make its final destination the location
you chose.  Keep in mind that if that location is too far
away from the last city the plane flew to, then the plane's
range will make it unable to complete the journey, and your
route must include a stopover or two.  Making the route
CHARTERED means that the plane will sit at its destination,
once it arrives.

In some cases, the plane's capacity will be less than the
volume of cargo available at the site.  In that case, you
may want to make the plane's route a scheduled one for a
while, preferably between the site and another with cargo to
pick up.  That way, all of the cargo will eventually be
picked up.  To look for such cases, look to the Jobs
Available and CARGO INCOME commands.

For game purposes, picking up cargo is all that is needed to
complete the job and collect the income.  Then, you can seek
out new locations with cargo jobs available, and reroute
your plane to them to pick up some extra cash.  You may also
use the DEMAND REPORT or Jobs Available commands to decide
on stopover points that may prove to be profitable in and of
themselves.




QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS IN AIR BUCKS


Q: I have assigned a plane to a route, and I get urgent
messages saying that the plane needs a new one.  What's
wrong with the route I have?

A: The problem is most likely one of two things.  Either the
route you assigned to the plane contains a leg longer than
the maximum distance the plane can fly, OR the plane is
currently at a location that is not on the route, and is too
far away to reach the first stop on the route.

In the first case, you must change the route to make all
distances shorter than the range of the plane, or you must
replace the plane with one with greater range.  In the
second case, you must make a chartered route to reach that
first stop, using short hops across your network of routes.


Q: Why do landing fees explode when I start doing very well?

A: The more money you have, the more the airport owners
think you can afford to spend, and thus the more they will
charge.


Q: Every time I see my bank balance go up, it seems that the
amount earned is different.  Is the economic model random?

A: No.  Because the computer actually simulates every flight
for every day of the entire month, the number of flights
between each balance update may vary.  Additionally, demand
is recalculated for every flight, and as it accounts for
slight variations in customer desires with each flight, the
demand shifts slightly each time.


Q: Why do I lose large amounts of money from time to time,
without warning?

A: Fees and outgoing costs are paid out at the end of each
month and year.  You will probably find that the sudden
downturns come at the end of the month.  If you are losing
too much money to costs, you may want to change your
strategies to include less frills, or perhaps reduce your
wages and advertising budgets.  If you go bankrupt in this
way, you definitely need to rethink your plans.




APPENDIX: COST FACTORS

Cost per flight is calculated as follows:

     (Mileage/10) * Fuel Cost

This is then moderated by several factors:

   * Comfort Factors (any selected by the user will
     increase the cost)
   * Relative Plane Size (larger planes on short
     journeys result in more costly flights)
   * Note that Maintenance Costs and Landing Fees are
     both charged annually, and not per flight.

It is not really practical to provide specific equations or
tables:  the equations are complicated by the fact that some
factors only crop up in some circumstances. There is only
one table of data -- that for inflation, which is based on
historical data.






LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS GAME!




We have worked hard to provide an up-to-date, improved
version of our game; but we know that we can never be
perfect.  So, if you have things that you would like to
see added to list of improvements already planned for
Air Bucks 1.2, write in and let us know!


IMPRESSIONS SOFTWARE
Attn.: Customer Support Executive
7 Melrose Drive
Farmington, CT 06032