Cities: Skylines - Airports Review (Jackson413)
Some of the aspects of this expansion are great and it adds a cool aspect to the city that is different from the international airport. However, I cannot recommend the expansion in its current state.
Pros:
- Building the airport was super fun
- The extra ways to integrate mass transit was very nice, especially having a train station attached to an airport concourse in addition to the metro stations
- Having more control over cargo airlines was another unexpected nice-to-have
Cons:
- The overall feel of how air traffic is handled in game vs in real life leaves much to be desired. If you know how airports work, the way that they work in game is not even close to it. I am by no means an aviation enthusiast and I know this game isn't about flying or airports, but the following are pretty disappointing and I wish this was improved:
----- Planes going to the tail end of a runway and taking off with little to no space needed to gain speed
----- Planes taking off and heading in the same direction
----- Airports are managed ridgedly at the airport and it'd be nice to see that reflected a little more
----- Planes using the same runway simultaneously. In real life, multiple planes should never be on the same runway in typical operation
- There are some bugs and oversights that make the expansion feel unpolished in comparison to the older expansions
----- Crime rate is pegged at high for my airport terminals in the expansion and police can't get there even with helicopters.
--------- This is not a problem with airports that came with the base game
----- Garbage is often a problem and garbage trucks don't seem to want to come to take the garbage from the terminal unless you force it to happen
--------- I solved this by putting a recyling center on one end of the one way road so that they're forced to go past, but it still is an issue for some reason
----- The cargo airport isn't used nearly as much as the ones that ship with the base game, even though my cargo airport is extremely accessible
--------- Cargo planes often just go to different stands for some reason which is super annoying
----- A part of my airport caught on fire and the only thing that can put it out is a fire helicopter. This is super silly. If my airport catches fire, I should be able to have an airport fire crew or my fire trucks should be able to come to my airport.
----- My cargo airport won't use the runways I built for the rest of the airport. In fact, it wouldn't work at all when I connected the cargo part of my airport area to the rest of my airport via taxiways. I had to build separate runways and then I had some traffic come in.
----- Getting everything lined up and neat looking took much more work than planning roads, especially getting multiple runways to be aligned and neat looking. Some improvement on that aspect of user experience is greatly needed. Colossal Order might need to hire more UX staff.
- Lack of granularity and overall finish
----- I wish that there was just... more stuff and more aspects of airport logistics added, plane maintenance and fueling, maybe baggage or something
----- We can plan scheduling for the rest of our transit. I wish I could have planes fly between airports in my city too.
----- My city is based on mass transit, but there should be airport parking without mods
Anyways, there are my initial thoughts. I like what the expansion adds, but it doesn't feel complete and finished. There are a couple bugs that should be fixed as well.