Being forced to follow a pre-determined path or (Follow the boxes) without having the ability to plan our own routes really kills Career mode entirely for me and feels unrealistic. If you really have your own aircraft and company you should be responsible for planning your routes and paths depending on weather and other things. It’s also fun to plan things out and program it all in the aircraft.
I feel like this is a feature desperately needed and it can be optional for those who just want to fly the route the career gives you. This might also better support things like Beyond ATC.
The entire career path needs to be examined.
PPL never once mentions radios but will ding you if you don’t use them at the end. I progressed to the Beaver and on the first mission, got dinged for putting down the flaps to T/O while taxiing to RWY. Ran out of fuel as the aircraft didn’t have enough to complete the last 100 miles and when I landed at an airport along the way for fuel, I failed the mission for landing at the wrong airport. Over flew an airfield with the C172 and opted to land on the reciprocal runway for safety due to trees and got dinged for landing on the wrong runway.
Stop the micro management of the Career path.
Lesson 1 - How to create a flight plan so we CAN go out and fly the airplane.
Lesson 2 - Preflight includes proper fuel management for the flight.
Lesson 3 - Radio Communications.
None of this is covered but is critical to safe operation of an aircraft.
What we’re being graded on is a result of a lack of understanding of what makes a flight successful, a lack of technology that can measure the myriad nebulous and subjective criteria, and/or the creativity to work around that in a way that isn’t so antithetical to real-world flying. Maybe a little of each.
For instance, it wouldn’t be hard to nerf the customer demands to a more realistic altitude and to show the objectives and the plan on which were being measured, even if it’s not changeable. Make the route “suggested” for beginners, but completely optional. That would prevent a lot of the nonsense. Make the EFB planning meaningful.
Broader goals would be a lot easier to achieve. Did you exceed major aircraft limitations? Was there gross inefficiency in time or money spent (in some cases, that’s just the cost of doing business)? Was there a serious safety issue (controlled airspace incursions or proximity to terrain/obstructions for example)?
Some of the bugs are really troublesome.
The ticky-tack stuff could be phased in later once you get an idea of how the first implementation is going.
Why this doesn’t seem to have been tested and ran by more pilots and instructors is baffling to me.
The concept of a pilot in command and the responsibilities that entails is one of the most important in aviation. It is the reason for the entire process of certification. Unfortunately this is taking that concept right out of our hands and reducing it to a flawed interpretation or a gamey caricature that’s almost a mockery in some places.
Flight planning is a critical component of every flight and career mode takes that away from us.
Microsoft and Asobo worked to make this sim open to everyone regardless of experience. The problem is, in doing so it dumbs it way down for those of use who actually know what we are doing.
So they should sell a “Pro” version for serious pilots and a “Gamer” version for those who usually play COD. Packaging it all into one and expecting to keep your serious and loyal pilots happy is unrealistic.
This is essential because the missions are also very poorly planned. Asobo has created a random flight plan, set random altitudes, and called it a day. Now we are faced with missions with ridiculous altitude settings, asking us to run into the mountains, and with less fuel than we need for every mission that has a headwind. Do I want to climb to 30k ft in a 3 hours flight on the cirrus to avoid terrain and save fuel? Oh no, please sir how dare you! Descend to 15K ft and crash into Matterhorn.
Some days I like the flight plan being setup already, some days I don’t. We can access the EFB from the mission screen but not reset the route. The EFB has an option to send the route to the avionics, but this is done automatically already.
Maybe we can get two toggles in the mission screen (like the clouds switch). One that automatically sends the route to the EFB when continuing and one that automatically sends the route to the avionics. These are on by default, but the choice is remembered for the next flights. When both are on, the on-screen helper indicators are shown in flight by default, when one is off they are hidden by default (still toggleable by the key bind option).
This will make things easy for casual pilots and more realistic for advanced pilots.
The only caveat is that there needs to be a way to load the default flight plan into the EFB within the mission screen. Maybe the toggling of the “automatic EFB” switch can fill/clear the EFB right away.
After getting a reply by CharlieFox00 I learned that this below section is already included after getting the IFR certification:
Besides all this there should really be a real weather option instead of just a clouds option. We might have to plan around a weather front or just decide that the mission cannot be done at that moment. This will give us the depth necessary to use the career system at an advanced level.
Maybe a realism option in the settings can determine if the “clouds” option will just add some clouds or if it will inject real world weather. Just like there already is an option to inject real world traffic into the career system.
I might be wrong and thinking about something ells but you can make your own flight plans. You do it before you enter the mission on that tablet thing. I do it all the time to edit the landing paths as the auto generated ones are often weird.
I suppose I will need to test this out. I was thinking building a flight plan through Simbreif and importing into the EFB but I haven’t been able to change the actual flight plan through the EFB. Maybe I need to do it sooner in the process? I’ll need to test that out.
career mode is in beta state, makes impression that they invented it week ago. 8 did ppl and got bored of ferryflights after two flights, these awful dialogs, repeatability and bugs killed remants of my positivity
Definitely this. Making it mandatory to follow the blue boxes in career mode is a stupid idea, and not being able to create your own flight plan is even more stupid. No idea why they’ve made it like this
I’ve been thinking about the career progression a lot this week, especially now that we’ve actually been exposed to it.
First, split the helicopter path completely off from fixed wing. Don’t force those folks into that.
Second, the PPL shouldn’t have “missions” as we see them in the current format. With very few exceptions, all a Private Pilot does (is allowed to do) is train for the next rating, build time on their own to qualify for their next rating, stay competent/current/proficient, or just fly around for fun, including their own long trips.
With that in mind, the PP missions should be “personal” missions. They should accrue experience, cost money, and not affect reputation at all (unless maybe you crash?). Planes should be available to rent or buy, and the damage should count - it should be persistent. This way someone could choose to just stick with PP forever and fly/rent their own airplane around for the “$200 hamburger”. It would be left where you last parked it and it would have to be maintained. Any passengers you take are your choosing and you can’t make money. The flight plan is entirely up to you. Rentals would have to be returned to home base by a certain time, and if not, there could be a reputation and/or monetary penalty.
This would satisfy a large chunk of users who just want to free fly, but have it be meaningful and persistent.
What’s currently available in PP should not begin until you get your commercial ticket. Full stop.
Heres the thing with the blue boxes. I dont think you have to follow them, you have to follow the flight path lines on the radar. After reading a tips post that was posted earlier today where the OP stated that flying above the boxes didnt impact his scoring, I tried to do a flight with just following the flight path lines on the radar and totally ignoring the blue boxes as they were not even aligned with the radar lines and my 2h cargo flight ended up with 125% score in airline procedures. It also made me score above S ranking which I feel was a bug at this point But from what I can see, the blue boxes do not really matter.
and in EFB i have moified the plans successfully - you just cant seem to change which runway to use at the destination airport - which sucks as not being able to pick our runways breaks the game - because we are being forced to land with Tailwinds alot.
But so far - using Send to Avionics and File Plan with ATC seems to work and I have been using this on the missions - as long as it doesnt stray too far off the “suggested” route.
However - if you are on an IFR flight plan - you MUST follow the assigned Cruise altitude or you WILL be penalized.
In VFR the sim doesnt care as long as you are equal to or above the altitude it tells you to fly.
I’ve been able to create a flight plan in the EFB, but how are you getting it to send to the avionics? Every time I select that option it never gets the departure or approach correctly in the 172. I feel like I have to manually set that.
What I’m seeing on the radar in the 172 doesn’t line up with the EFB.
completely agree.
When doing a mission, simply flying over an area, I am obliged to follow this route and it takes me through an area that I am not allowed to fly over, so I get a red message which appears and it makes me lose points.
There is a lot of potential with career mode but at the moment it is still in beta testing and needs major updates.
But from what I can see, the blue boxes do not really matter.