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.
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.
My issue seems to be related to this. I’ve recently returned to career mode (last time I flew was in SU2, I think). At the time, I flew a lot of 208 missions all over Europe, Middle East and Africa. I had left my plane in Africa, so when I returned I had hoped to be able to pick it up from there. But now there are essentially no missions available for it anywhere outside of Central Europe for me, and there used to be tons in Africa and the Middle East.
I also tried moving it to America and found nothing there either (though I haven’t “discovered” most of America yet).
the C408 and the PC12 have heaps, and if you get the PC24 there are some long med cargo missions that populate (base payout closer to 1m rather than 600-700k credits), these don’t appear at all until you have a plane that can do it.
When I log on tonight I’ll tell you where I see the most for the C208 across the areas I’ve unlocked
I could get the C408, I guess. I can’t understand the avionics of the Pilatus planes, so I try to stick to Garmin, but there’s no King Air 350i, Daher or Cessna Longitude for cargo. Even though those planes should be just as capable of it.
It would be nice to have cargo variants where they exist for sure, and the other way around as the C408 is sold as a 19 seat commuter model.
Poking around at the aircraft available the thing that unifies them is they are all utility planes, have or can have big wide opening cargo doors and reinforced floors. Those others might not have freight variants (even if they are used for freight) if that makes sense?
Cargo in bizjets turns out to be a reasonably unique thing with the PC24 too, it’s designed with flat floor and big doors unlike the others.
Just bought the C208 for Career on PS5. There are a few missions in Saudi area and in N Africa. Loads in EU.
Anyone else seeing extreme yaw, nose to right (cant trim it out either) but oddly GPS needla pointing about 4 deg to the left of compass direction?
Also after take off she is hellish to try to settle her into a climb and get the AP to turn on and stay on. If you start in nose up after take off and you try to set FLC to climb it does not work. Try to get VS to settle with AP is crazy.
Then if you try to trim her she wobbles in the air left and right with the same wobbly behaviour like when she lands.
Loads? I just had one dumb mission that led me to a runway that’s barely long enough for my plane to lands on, and that’s it. I know career mode has “denisity zones” that regulate how many contracts each region has during the current season, but if you don’t have the entire map unlocked (which takes ages when fast traveling around the world), you have no idea where to go.
Just spent 10 min traveling around Australia, seeing that it’s supposed to have lots of missions during winter - but nay, not a single one found for my 208B.
Career mode needs serious quality of life improvements.
Well today there are no medium cargo and no VIP in freelance. So, today I agree with you. Something has messed up the PS 5 game for sure. I’m about to check if PC is the same.
Only 8 missions (not all visible here but if you zoom in and move around a bit I found 8) across the whole Eastern US for the C208 and it’s equally sparse everywhere else also.
I’ve got about 100 missions in North America, Canada, Alaska. About 20 are night missions. Are you using the filter on the map choose medium missions and C208B. I found very little in Japan, Africa, and Europe. Zooming into cities you can pay a fee to open up more map. Some missions don’t show up until you are only so high/closer over the map.
August 14 SU6 update. I can no longer select any medium cargo mission for the Cessna 208B. August 13 was fine. today I can see missions but cannot select them manually or through the filters which is greyed out selecting directly off of the map does nothing. I cannot fly in Career mode at all but Free Flight still works but all the planes new problems in career mode is also in Free Flight mode.
