Career Mode Wishlist

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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Below are a few suggestions I’d like to see added to career mode:

Company bases

Just like real-world airlines, which use airports as their base of operations—often with several bases around the world—adding this feature to the simulation would not only make it more realistic, but also allow you to start your own airline or freight company from your home airport and expand globally. It would be a cool feature to load into your selected base and see your aircraft on the ground, moving around, as well as flying in and out. Imagine using the in-game ATC and hearing your company’s callsign! Having a base would also make aircraft maintenance cheaper, just like in real life. It’s generally faster and more affordable to repair an aircraft at its home base rather than at an airport without a base.

Pilot recruitment

Employing our own pilots would make career mode more realistic by giving us the option to hire a less experienced pilot at a lower cost or a more experienced pilot at a higher cost. Pilots with less experience would have a higher chance of accidents compared to more experienced pilots, which would require us to carefully consider our insurance policy. Just like how insurance is billed every 24 hours, the pilots we employ could have an hourly rate based on their level of experience.

Flight schedules

Allowing us to schedule our flights would greatly improve company management. When scheduling flights, we would need to consider key factors like pilot flight hours and aircraft availability. Incorporating this into the sim would enhance the realism of owning and operating a company.

Fuel prices

Adding real-world fuel prices that match the current cost of aviation fuel would further enhance the realism of the simulation. This would require simmers to adjust their operations based on fluctuating fuel costs, just like in real-world aviation.

Airport costs

Airport costs, such as landing fees, ATC fees, and more, would add another layer to the experience. We could build relationships with airports, and by bringing in a high volume of flights and passengers, airports could offer us lower fees in exchange. This would add a strategic element to managing our operations.

Currently, career mode is focused on buying aircraft and grinding to earn money for the next one. But what happens once we’ve bought all the aircraft and companies possible? At that point, we’d just be earning money for things we already have, which feels a bit pointless.

Any other suggestion? put them below

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I think you’ve implied this already, but making our own flight plans would be awesome, especially when we’re flying as a freelancer. Based on demand for the routes, we would have to set prices and schedules, and our money earned would depend on how many people reserve a spot on the aircraft.

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Just add Smaller regional airliners, smaller airliners, and smaller turboprops to the fleet, the DO328 with all of its different configurations (jet and turboprop) , the A319 Neo, erj 145, and the entire dash 8 family and it would have been the perfect career mode aircraft choice selection to build up the airline’s with

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And even the default aircraft, like the a330, a321, a320, 747, 787, c408, twin otter, and other planes that are, irl, smaller regional “airliners”

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A mission or two to fly when you setup your company would be nice.

3 days since and still no missions to fly in Johannesburg SA region.

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Considering the state of career mode as stated on this forum topic

More functionality or missions is still a year or 2 out I’m afraid…

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Im pretty far thru career now, although not perhaps far thru the grind.

for me, one of the main issues is the focus on using small airfields/airstrips.
this creates so much jeopardy, as you don’t have weather information, nor ILS or even runway lights (for night flights) - that along with issues with insurance.
means the career mode seems setup to make you fail … usually after a 3 hour flight ! :wink:

also, the whole fast travel, and moving to new airports for every mission makes it feel disjointed, rather than a journey of a pilot.
e.g. the fact you cannot fly your plane to a new starting location for a mission, nor chain missions.

so I think, the my ‘simple wishlist’ would be:

a) a lot more missions, and to/from a large variety of airport types.
if I want to always fly from larger airports, this should be possible.(perhaps less credits)
b) 100% insurance payout option,
c) allow us to fly to new starting locations.
d) mission filters - the current system is virtual unusable once you get to mid-game.

however I think the biggest issue is the whole idea of ‘static generated missions’, even with a large number they become repetitive.

I think it would be better to do as other career ‘add-ons’ have done, generate missions on the fly, for wherever you are, have some kind of ‘economy’, make it multi-player. look at the likes of Elite which have done it for decades.

ofc, I recognise this, perhaps, doesn’t work so well for some mission types e.g crop-spraying/fire fighting… as these need certain things in place. but make these special missions/exceptions

anyways, I will say for its faults I do enjoy it (though im considering moving to another career add-on)… and ofc, its a first iteration, so there is hope it will develop into something more exciting :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I know… :pensive:

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A little more fuel than normal in the otter for delivery flights I keep not having enough fuel no matter what I do differently or nearly reaching near 5 precent fuel while other high performance delivery flights I don’t eat up a lot of fuel

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Ability to save parts of the flight.

Credits still given if mission crashes.

Ability to paint planes and to make logos.

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I’d love to be able to test the airplane before acquisition. Currently, I can take it for a spin in the free flight and I have paid a lot to learn, that the plane may fly different in the Career mode. Tried Pc 24, liked it and bought it. And in the Career mode, one engine doesn’t work. So, there are a couple of mills down the drain.

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