I believe, but it might just be me as well, people are spawning on the runway because this is the only option they have. Once they do, they sit there for a while because it might take some time for them before being ready to taking off. I don’t blame, although this annoys me as well, because they aren’t given any other choice either. And this is the same for MP: they are not given the choice either. This is just a game option flaw which is easily solvable to me.
There are multiple issue I can see and it is not easy to apprehend because these are orthogonal concepts
The main reason people spawn on runway might be to save taxi time, but I believe it is more because the aircraft is ready to fly with all startup procedures already done. I personally don’t want to always start it all up and I like being able to quickly jump in and fly for example. I’m not saying my point of view is the same for everyone but I wouldn’t be surprised the main reason people do spawn on the RWY is because this is the only option for starting the simulator with an aircraft up and running. When I do spawn on the runway for this reason, the first thing I immediately do when pressing the “READY” button is pressing the Y key (slew mode) and quickly shift the position aside to free the RWY.
The other problem is people of different skills and different flying objectives. Some are just having fun and others want to fly by the book. It is not clear which MP lobby is appropriate. The “Live” lobby might be better suited for pilot-minded pilots from the standpoint of real time weather + time, but if you want to practice at certain locations and you can only do so at certain hours IRL, you have no other choice than using the “Normal” lobby instead. I believe lobbies shouldn’t be separated by real time weather and time, but by like-minded usage instead.
Because of these 2 main problems, you end up with a mix of people disrespecting the others, holding the runway fort and frustrated pilots.
This is why I believe it won’t require much for addressing these 2 main orthogonal issues:
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Use a nudge to drive same minded pilots to the correct existing lobby. There is no need to create a collection of lobbies, the 2 existing are already sufficient for this. Eventually a 3rd one only for people flying with online networks like Vatsim or Pilotedge so that they don’t interfere with the other same minded pilots wanting to also fly by the book but under the FS2020 ATC system.
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Prevent spawning anyone on the RWY. This is just common sense and I don’t care pilots piling up on the threshold instead of the RWY end: the most important is to preserve the landing pilot from obstruction first and foremost. Furthermore, in taking the habit of spawning on the threshold, especially if the “FLY NOW” button also displays a “LOOK FOR AIRCRAFT LANDING PRIOR ENGAGING ON THE RWY”, pilots will slowly but surely learn it is important to pay attention to this.
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Add the option to start with the cockpit engines running and startup procedures done. This will refrain people from having to start at the RWY threshold only because otherwise they’d have to start from C&D cockpits.
With only this, not much to code and implement actually, it would already make a difference.
PS: the 1st option above is just changing the description text in the UI, the 2nd option is just changing the spawning point and the description in the UI, the 3rd option is just adding the code you’d run in the actual “spawn on runway” case. You see, not much to code and even test prior release. Can be done in 1/2 day by a single developer from the existing code base.
You might want to support these covering the ideas explained above:
Start with aircraft ready-to-fly or cold-and-dark option when spawning on RAMP/GATE
Help solving arcade and simmers players sharing the airspace with the help of a simple nudge
Make it impossible to spawn on runway in Live mode