The main thing I’d change about APL2 is the overly restrictive “licensing” system.
For those who don’t have the program – you purchase “licenses” to fly specific airframe families (e.g. all the A320 series planes, or all the 737s) in order to be assigned flights using those airframes. You’re staked with $5,000 in funds to begin with, which is enough for two mid-line licenses (so you can purchase both the A320 and the 737 with your starter stake). After that, you have to earn $ to buy more licenses.
The problem is that the costs of these licenses is enormous compared to your earnings from flying. To use the main available models in MSFS: The CRJ and E-Jets are $2k each; The 737 and A32x series are $2,500 (but you do get all models, as noted above); the A33x is $3k, the 787 is $4k, and the 747 is $5k. But you’ll typically earn about $30-50 per flight hour. So the cost of a new license can be about 100 hours of flying - so you’re talking a lot of hours (50-100 or so) before you can get your next license. (Less, obviously, if you have money left over from your initial stake.)
I understand the need for some kind of system like this (it’s the main economic structure in the game), but the way it’s done seems excessively restrictive to more casual players. If you ACTUALLY fly like a commercial pilot – you’re doing 60 hours a week, probably, and the money flows easily. But I didn’t get APL with the intent of it becoming a full-time job…
Also, it doesn’t reflect experience and ability. APL rates you on each flight, so you do have a tangible rating that relates to your in-sim skills at flying - but that has no bearing on what you can fly at all. It’s just a leaderboard stat more or less. In APL, you can blow your $5k on a 747 license and fly jumbos with ZERO experience. That’s just not the way it works…
I’d like to see a system that works in the rating and total hours as a gateway to the higher-end planes, and an overall reduction in license fees. Or, better yet, a combination system, where you can either “earn” your promotion to a more complex jet through performance, or “buy” the license (which represents doing a training course on that airframe), to give you multiple paths to expanding your airframe portfolio.
). The missions are really nice, though quite repetetive once you got the hang of it. And the lack of automation (buying, selling, sending people on commercial flights etc) really bugs me as soon as you start to built your own company because you have to do absolutely everything manually.
Maybe I’ll give it a try