yes. I have it unlock.
1 Like
Yeah it’s very obscured how the payout is calculated… Best thing I can suggest is to always do the “highest” specialization level mission (regardless of payout) to have the best commision. Right now that seems to be skydiving for me.
Also refer to my post above about the landing light. If you have it on for takeoff and also before approaching Final then you won’t get the ding. You can turn it off in cruise.
1 Like
For the one mission I just flew with the assistants turned off, it was surprisingly okay with my flying. I didn’t do any worse than my previous missions. Perhaps I was aided by kind of knowing what it was expecting me to do from the two missions I flew before with the assistants on.
That is good!
1 Like
The game is pretty weird about this though. I couldn’t select any airfield with more than one runway even though I was looking at general aviation fields. Quite a few GA airfields have multiple runways but I guess according to Career Mode they’re all international? Take Gloucestershire Airport in the UK for example. Old RAF station that has the typical 3 runway layout. These days its mostly a general aviation field with the odd bizjet, but I can’t select it. Down to the south there’s Bristol Airport which only has one runway and I can select it despite it being an international airport with Boeings, Airbuses and ATRs flying all over europe every day. I mean I guess Bristol does have a flying club but I think a new pilot would be more at home in Gloucestershire where they don’t have to deal with airliners flying in and out 
I did a couple of flights in career mode and was annoyed by the forced assitance options but now I’ve read you can actually disable them I’ll give it another shot. I wish I could do a full shutdown as well, I got a mission over screen as soon as I turned off the engine. I like to shut everything down please. The voices were kinda funny in a terrible way. I had this guy getting all emotional about flying over his home town in the most flat and robotic voice you’ve ever heard. Also more missions should be generated for your home base as otherwise it’s kinda pointless. Also they should use the EFB to show you the mission details instead of that ugly popout box IMO.
There’s promise here though so I hope it can be improved over time.
2 Likes
Just a heads up for people that haven’t gotten there yet, Live Weather does come into career mode after you get the instrument rating!
7 Likes
That’s fine if they’re making the landing light a requirement, but I considered it a bug because the UI said it was a “night landing” when it was clearly daytime, and I had flown two prior First Flight missions with the landing light off and had no consequence. So even if it is a requirement, it’s still buggy on how its labeled and enforced.
1 Like
I agree, it should be “Landing Light off during Takeoff/Landing”.
Some of the missions have “Airline Procedure Compliance” as a scoring metric and I think the landing light actually affects your score at that point.
I think it is starting to grow on me.
Having the ability to turn off the assistants has made a big difference.
I think I understrand why these Free Flights instantly teleport you to a closer airfield to fly the mission from – it caters to the newer, less experience player or someone who is totally fine with a more casual experience – and that is totally fine and good! However, I would really like the option to allow for customization in this regard. I’d love to fly a full First Flight mission from KKIC (my base) to sightsee over Cambria rather than be teleported to 66CA.
Yes, the flight would be longer, but I want to fly! Increase the XP for that added distance, make it worth doing. In real life, a flight from KKIC to overfly Cambria wouldn’t be crazy.
Allow more flexibility in choosing parking for GA. Remove the on-rails element of that part of the flight. Again, this could be an option.
Give back the freedom to go through a shutdown procedure and replace covers via an end-flight walkaround. The mission over on engine cut takes away that full aviation experience that some of us would like to savor. Again, this could be set via an option.
Of my experience so far, I love the missions I’ve done and I’ve only done three! I like this easing into the experience with a circular flight over towns. I’d prefer the whole thing do this from my base explicitly, so as to give more meaning to the base as an anchor point. The teleporting is an interesting concept, but one that seems more suited to a “random daily discovery” flight series or something akin, as an activity outside Career Mode. I want the base to have meaning and to be a necessary start/stop point for the missions.
I really hope there will be some evolution here as the sim matures.
I believe choices are the best way to improve this. Give us the user the ability to customize it more to our flight sim experience expectation and I think it will be far more appreciated and accepted. Plus, it will allow the mode to grow as a newer flight sim pilot gets more experience and wants more depth.
5 Likes
I had high hopes for Career Mode and moderate expectations. Unfortunately, it sounds like this is living up to my expectations. It sounds very gamey and that is a huge turn off for me. It is way too strict with flying through boxes and meeting specific numbers (e.g. altitude), and it sounds like some of the numbers are extreme or otherwise out of reach for the specified aircraft. I want to see the objective requirements relaxed, particularly for navigation (e.g. ATC procedures), pathing, and altitudes. Ironically, I think it would be both more realistic and more satisfying that way.
I disagree heavily with the design choice of setting a home base and then teleporting anywhere over the world to start a mission. Add on top of that forcing me to do training and initial mission types all over the world, and it really breaks continuity. I thought that you would at least always teleport back to your home base after completing each mission, which is still unrealistic but is certainly more immersive than this. This is purely a random mission generator with stat keeping. The home base appears to only be where your “office” screen is. I realize that this is a high level design choice and is unlikely to change, probably to appeal to the instant gratification crowd. So maybe this mode just isn’t for me. I also realize I could at least try to only look at missions close to my home base, but all that teleporting really disinterests me.
I am interested to see how companies work. I’m interested to get into the customization features for them. I do wish there was multiplayer coop available for appropriate missions (e.g. fire fighting) and that you could create a group company if you so chose and work together with others. I don’t mean shared cockpit, but flying under the same company banner.
I think relaxing the mission structure and getting rid of box flying - give me a waypoint/altitude and let me get there myself - would be a practical first step to improving the mode.
Interesting, I just got dinged for having it off and it is straight up daytime.
Yeah I think it’s bugged, maybe it’s screwing up a time zone check or something.
You don’t get dinged for leaving it on, so I just flip all the lights on now as soon as I fire the engine up and forget about it.
1 Like
Ok flying the first VIP charter mission. Much much better experience than all the previous mission types. ATC actually matters because it’s IFR, and the dispatch messages and passenger briefings make it all feel much more realistic than the other mission types.
Also the passengers have kept their annoying AI mouths shut lol
3 Likes
I just had a career breaking bug occur.
If you crash the first plane you get in career/company mode the costs to repair/buy a new one are prohibitively expensive, even with insurance.
On my second flight it asked me to take off from a runway that was too short and my plane crashed. Now my company is basically over as the employee missions they give you pay less than 10k/h and the repair costs are 150k+ which means I’d need to do 15h+ of flying VIP missions without skipping just to repair this little Cessna. This needs to be fixed ASAP as the moment you crash you basically have to reset your entire career. It’s literally faster to completely reset the career than to put in the effort to fix that plane.
To say I’m upset is an understatement but I’m trying to keep it polite. This basically means the 15h+ I spent in career mode thus far were completely wasted. Please please please hire better QA as this is such an obvious oversight among many others that I don’t know how this was able to pass.
3 Likes
Which mission did the crash occur in?
With how often crashes occured in FS2020 from weird runway jaggies and other random ■■■■ it honestly makes me scared to get to this point in the career.
And wtf, they need to buff that insurance for sure.
It was a basic sight seeing mission, the only ones you can do when you first start a company. There were trees surrounding this little field runway and they are too tall.
1 Like
Interesting ok thanks for the warning. There seemed to be no real consequence for crashing in the first few missions.
So my thoughts after playing a fair few hours of career mode. I’m reviewing this from the perspective that this is a foundation that be evolved over time to include new features.
-
There really should be a ‘hardcore’ mode where you are restricted to missions out of the airport you last flew in to, or pay to get a flight elsewhere
-
The pacing seems about right at the moment. I’ve done the PPL, Instrument Rating, Night Rating, and High Performance - I was worried these were going to get all completed within a few hours and this is not the case
-
There are issues with the recogniton system for landing. This should be developed over time to focus on landing accuracy rather than how soft it is. Numerous phantom complaints but likely will be minor fixes -
-
The variety of missions is good, although as others have mentioned a filter and guide would be helpful for this.
-
There feels to be a missing link between getting out the cockpit and being outside. There ideally needs to be animations for getting out the cockpit seat and passenger events should be real-time rather than cut-scenes. All features for the future though.
Overall a very solid foundation and I’m looking forward to have this evolve over time
2 Likes
I managed to do it. Barely. Got like $16k credits from the mission too which was pretty nice, put it towards getting my turboprop rating. The Caravan seems much nicer so I can’t wait to use that.
1 Like
Might be worth to add but before you purchase your own company you work for others, so that is why you can take missions anywhere in the world. They basically ship you around the world as a pilot and you fly their planes. After you buy your own company and purchase planes, the planes will be placed in a airport of your choice and if you decide to do an mission for your own company at another airport you will have to pay to get your plane delivered there.
1 Like