As a work around I’ve found that the aircraft filter in the mission view IS working to filter out missions that it thinks the C208 can’t do.
From the small sample I’ve checked so far the missions that the C208 can do were all generated with ~1700lbs payload but there’s a potential red herring there, I haven’t checked a large sample! I might try to make a table of it all to see if I can reverse engineer what the mission generator is actually generating.
For non-cargo missions I noticed the other day it was actually filtering based on the available number of seats in the plane, and the runway surface type (not the runway length though), so it does seem to be genuinely going deeper into the specs - i.e can land a PC12 on rough surfaces, but not a CJ4.
Ok - I did some quick numbers yesterday evening, and it appears the is actually working reasonably close to intended with some quirks (so I’ve edited my original post above). Here are the numbers (excuse formatting!):
I’ve extracted the important bit into a table further down.
The ‘rule of thumb’ is an approximation - internally it will do something like Y + Mx (where Y is fixed fixed fuel usage for take off and landing, and M is fuel use per cruise hour) but I couldn’t be bothered working that out, I just made an approximation of 2.65 * the distance in nm is the lbs of fuel used. it will get less accurate as the distance changes towards extremes but is good enough for this.
So the below is worked out by the Constraints are
- The C208 can carry a maximum fuel of 2272lbs
- In sim the C208 can carry a maximum of 3447lbs fuel and cargo.
- 3 missions that were theoretically possible wereexcluded because of the runway, not the fuel. This surprised me, I didn’t know this occurred (it doesn’t appear to be quite right, if I can’t land a C208 I’m definitely not landing a C408…)
- Freight in Transit just appears to be flavour text, it doesn’t appear to make any functional difference
| Payload lbs | Freight in Transit | Distance nm | Rule of Thumb | Max Cargo | Note |
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
| 1 | 1863 | | 581 | 1,539.65 | 1,907.35 | Excluding 208 for being incompatible with the runways? 1164ft long. oddly does allow the C408 |
| 2 | 2145 | | 604 | 1,600.60 | 1846.4 | Too low fuel cap - definitely true |
| 3 | 1761 | loose cargo | 668 | 1,770.20 | 1676.8 | Too low fuel cap - likely true but close |
| 4 | 2260 | cargo in bulk | 589 | 1,560.85 | 1886.15 | Too low fuel cap - definitely true |
| 5 | 2247 | bulk | 399 | 1,057.35 | 2389.65 | Ok |
| 6 | 2299 | bulk | 319 | 845.35 | 2601.65 | Ok |
| 7 | 2145 | materials | 604 | 1,600.60 | 1846.4 | Too low fuel cap - definitely true |
| 8 | 1812 | materials | 565 | 1,497.25 | 1949.75 | ← 705ft runway??? Excluded based on that |
| 9 | 2469 | loose cargo | 561 | 1,486.65 | 1960.35 | Too low fuel cap - definitely true |
| 10 | 2068 | manufactured goods | 551 | 1,460.15 | 1986.85 | Too low fuel cap - likely true but close |
| 11 | 1720 | boxes of goods | 629 | 1,666.85 | 1780.15 | TIMEZONE - this is ok |
| 12 | 2229 | commodities | 585 | 1,550.25 | 1896.75 | Too low fuel cap - definitely true |
| 13 | 1722 | commodities | 549 | 1,454.85 | 1992.15 | Ok |
| 14 | 1905 | bulk | 547 | 1,449.55 | 1997.45 | runway exclusion 2605 asphalt takeoff 1962 landing (but would accept C408??) |
| 15 | 1916 | bulk cargo | 548 | 1,452.20 | 1994.8 | TIMEZONE - this is ok |
Observations:
- The mission generator seems to generate around 550-650nm and between 1700-2300lbs typically, in large landmasses with lots of airports.
- The mission generator appears to behave differently when there is geographic isolation - NZ for example, it rarely generates anything greater than 400nm which means just about every mission is possible for the C208. I don’t know what mechanism this is by but whatever rules are in the rules engine this is the outcome. The scenery is pretty good, but lots of the airfields are quite small, VFR only and can be challenging.
- I can’t conclusively tell how the mission generator behaves based on the planes you have available, and how ownership changes this.*
Playing:
- A different world location may give you a better mission yield. NZs scenery pack is pretty good, lots of VFR approach only airfields which may or may not be your thing. I haven’t found any other areas that generate missions the same way but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
- The mission filter for C208 works which will take away some of the pain of mission selection (I realise that’s not much use if it’s generating few missions for you).
Mission Generation:
- Asobo should change the weightings of the mission generator so that it produces a more even number of missions for the C208.
Hopefully of some use.
Rob S
1 Like
Having the same issues with the C208 and was hoping they would have fixed this by now. I currently have 3 missions available near me in the USA, and haven’t seen any in other parts of the world, not that i could afford the transfer costs.
