Career Mode: mission steps should focus on a goal

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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1

It would be great if mission steps are focused on a goal of a mission rather than a way how to fly an aircraft. Especially because it is hard to make the steps right and free of bugs for all different aircraft, airport layouts and scenarios.

Each mission specialization should not have more than 4-5 steps to complete it:

  • if it’s a passenger / cargo flight to a destination, there should be only one mission step - land safely at the destination airport;
  • first flight / sightseeing - get to points A, B and C; stay within certain distance, altitude, speed; land at the origin airport;
  • firefighting - put down a fire with what you have at your disposal;
  • search and rescue - get to a search location, rescue, and land back;
  • crop dusting - treat fields and land back.

Currently, mission steps are too specific and full of different bugs. A few examples are:

  • unable to complete a mission in certain scenarios after landing at the destination airport because a trigger didn’t detect completion of a seemingly redundant step - like flying to final or over a fix;
  • unable to vacate the runway at the designated holding point because the airplane didn’t slow down enough; exiting on a different taxiway causes a penalty;
  • taxi back on a 3 km runway in a Cessna 172 instead of taking off from the intersection;
  • flying a pattern in a mountainous airport that would inevitable hit a mountain or exceed performance of an airplane;
  • always left hand patterns.

Let the pilot have a final authority over the way how to fly an aircraft.

12 Likes
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Agreed as it is quite restrictive.

Scoring criteria wouldn’t even have to change at all. The objectives are just far too hand-hold-y. I especially like the firefighting suggestion, allowing the pilot to potentially scoop from any body of water they choose.

2 Likes
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Couldn’t agree more and adding to the list of broken things: Passenger announcements. They are very moody of when they can be triggered. Several times I didn’t get Descent trigger and before landing trigger, After landing trigger happens on the gate way too often. All this penalizes me on Airliner Procedures

1 Like
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Agreed. There is no reason to require a specific runway; let pilots use the most appropriate runway for the weather or any other if they feel it is necessary. It should only be necessary to land at the correct airport.

We should not be forced to request flight following or IFR clearance, particularly during the climb out which is one of the busiest times during the flight. Especially when it is not necessary, eg. during a perfectly clear, sunny day. IFR clearance is normally requested, if needed, before you even leave your parking space not as you are taking off.

Put the hold short points at the actual hold short markers. Place them at each of the hold short markers and let us go to the closest one. It is highly annoying to land on the specified run way only to have to turn around and taxi all the way down a 3,000 ft runway because the highlighted hold short point is all the way at the other end past the touchdown point.

2 Likes
5

Very much this.

What do we need to accomplish, to what standard? Follow up on that. Skip all the rest, as it is just a nuisance.

Especially skip the requirement to press a button every once in a while to pretend to communicate with ATC. I have Sayintentions and prefer to use that, for obvious reasons, thank you.

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Fully agree. Also it would be nice to be able to park anywhere at the destination airport and not at a specific place that is sometime within a building, preventing completion of the mission…

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I’m all for this. Couple of thoughts:

Takeoff / Landing

I’m okay with getting points deduced if I don’t request landing clearance, however currently landing at a specific runway is part of the mission setup. Sometimes I end up wanting to change what runway I want to land at, and even at uncontrolled airpoirts, this doesn’t work in most cases. The mission has forced me to land with 20kts tailwind in the past. Just in general let me, the pilot, decide on which runway to take off and land (Of course clearance is needed at controlled airports).

Flight Stages / Cruise State reached

On some missions there is a set cruising altitude to reach in order of triggering the “cruise state” events of missions (anything with passengers or medevac). When I request a different altitude through ATC, the “cruise state reached” event won’t trigger. The objective should be to communicate having reached cruise to my passengers/crew whenever I want. After I do so, maybe set up a time window of 20 or so minutes (depending on mission length of course) where patient inspectons and food service takes place. During that time window the plane must fly as steady as possible, no major altitude changes/pitching/banking. Also let me decide when to communicate the start of my descent. This event currently often times doesn’t trigger at all for me, which hurts my reputation after each flight.

Passenger, VIP, Cargo, Medevac missions should effectively only have the following objectives:

  1. Board
  2. Welcome Passengers (not for cargo)
  3. Take off
  4. Announce cruise to cabin and fly steady for x minutes (not for cargo)
  5. Announce descent to cabin(not for cargo)
  6. Announce landing to cabin(not for cargo)
  7. Land at destination
  8. Park

All other current objectives are covered under aviator performance and should only be covered there.

This would also solve the following problems I have:

  • Don’t force me to use IFR under VFR conditions.

  • Allow me to file my own IFR flight plans with ATC. Currently not usable, the plan remains the same for the mission steps, even if changed via EFB and filed via ATC.

  • Don’t tell me to realse the parking brake as soon as i set it while I’m sat at hold short talking to ATC

  • Remove announce position/on final opjectives, since the game often detects “on final” way to late so I end up manually announcing “on final” just for the objective to show up way later while I’m 20 feet above the runway and then reduce my reputation because I didn’t complete the objective.

About the end score ratings of missions:

“Respect condition of the aircraft” is entirely my problem, as soon as I’m freelancing with my own aircraft (which is the majority of play time for most players). I pay the maintenance - it’s my problem. If I extend my flaps while I’m too fast, I get a reduction for “Respect condition of the aircraft”, a penalty for aviator performance and higher maintance cost. This is effectively a triple penalty.

“Airline procedures” are also my probem if it’s my airline. You also get a double penalty for many things (eg. taxi speeding). Aviator performance already covers all relevant “airline procedures”. Airline procedures would make sence if it was soley about wether I did communicate the flight stages to my cabin, as mentioned above.

Anything else will be punished through aviator performance anyways. All these missions should only give me a rating based on flight smoothness/cargo integrity and wether flight stages were announced to cabin. Anything else is double penalties.

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Sounds like a great idea just like in the real world procedures change due to wx traffic etc, in the real world you wouldnt expect to fly a boxed approach every time. like some vip missions want you to fly to Final over a very hilly area realistically you wouldnt

1 Like
9

Great idea.
Maybe the idea behing all this “take my hand and walk me through all steps” is to engage audience that need this guidance, aka “casual gamers”. Maybe this Career mode not even intended for experienced simmers?
This can be solved by moving this guidance to one or several assists categories so those who need extra guidance, can have it.

10

i hate how the mission grades are also very vague, like “airline procedures” what the hell does that mean? what the hell do i do if i want a 100, sometimes i get a 100, but then i do the exact same steps only this time, i am landing at a towered airport and this time get 50 percent?

1 Like