With all the failures that happen around missions due to unexpectedly adverse weather, or unuseable airports, or aircraft that spawn into situations that instantly crash them, I have a solution that would solve several of these aspects:
Move the official mission “start” to a point after everything loads in, prior to loading passengers and/or starting engines. This could possibly be done via a virtual clipboard that would have a checkbox - something on the order of “I have reviewed available weather, airport, aircraft performance information, and have verified the aircraft is in airworthy condition.” Check it, and the mission start button appears.
It could also potentially be on the EFB, but I’d rather an overlay that appears when you enter the aircraft. The next steps will not be allowed until you sign off. Nothing about the mission “starts” until you do. You can walk around, do the preflight, even use the drone to inspect the airport conditions any time prior, without penalty. And at any time up to that point you can reject mission without penalty.
This is similar to real life, like those times you get all the way to airport and the fog hasn’t burned off yet, or you preflight and find a bald tire, or whatever circumstances that cause you to decide “no-go” after you’ve already made it to the airplane. We know the simulator injects a lot of unexpected stuff and there’s no solid way to predict that, so this gives us a sorely needed out.
You may say “that’s what the abort button is for” or “thats what the preflight is for.” Yes, but that doesn’t work when your airplane spawns into a building and gives you a crash before you can hit the button. It also gives a key, written reminder about the preflight actions necessary, which aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the “training” modules.
Most simply explained, it moves the threshold of the mission start to a later point than it does now (which is currently before everything loads in); a kind of “invincibility mode,” if you will.