The Skypark for MSFS 2020 looks awesome!

[RALF9636 1,955]

19 minutes ago, Keven Menard said:

I'm curious to know, what would you like to see be different from what our contracts offer today?

We like getting inspired by our users instead of the competition. We're always looking outside of what's already being done.

Some ideas for mission types apart from standard A to B pax or cargo flights:

- landing (and taking off again) at a remote place outside of any airfield to drop off or pick up passengers or cargo (e.g. supply, evacuation, emergency or humanitarian missions)

- alternatively just drop off cargo flying low and slow 

- photo or reconnaissance missions

- you could build whole scenarios for multiple missions around events (e.g. spot a wildfire, evacuate hikers, bring in firefighters, deliver supplies etc.)

- scenic flights for tourists

- advertising banner flights

- Skydiving launch flights

- Crop dusting

- take part at an airshow

 

 

[kaosfere 3,115]

One more:  perhaps cooperative community events where a company wants to build a new HQ, or an FBO, or something, or maybe help out with a lucrative construction contract.  Everyone needs to chip in to haul 10,000 pounds of concrete blocks, a bunch of lumber, pallets of construction supplies, and what have you to one area.  Make it something that lasts multiple days, have the company give a money bonus tho whoever hauls the most stuff.

(Yes, this is kinda like working with a team to build an FBO in FSEconomy, so it's not a "unique" idea, but its not really one anything else has.)

Another:  special missions tied to real-world events.   Fly relief flights after hurricanes or earthquakes*, bring VIPs to major political or sporting events ...   oh!  It might be fun to allow people to contract to a particular sports team and fly them to all their away games.  This is probably more of a challenge in the US than for, say, the Premier League, where you have five different sides all in London, but it could work in some places.    If not national soccer matches you could apply it to things like the Champions League that do require longer trips.

* Yes, there could be issues around building "game" content based off of real-world disasters, but I think it can be done sensitively and not cause any real problems.  That's a judgement call, thuogh.

[Keven Menard 658]

Just now, RALF9636 said:

Some ideas for mission types apart from standard A to B pax or cargo flights:

- landing (and taking off again) at a remote place outside of any airfield to drop off or pick up passengers or cargo (e.g. supply, evacuation, emergency or humanitarian missions)

- alternatively just drop off cargo flying low and slow 

- photo or reconnaissance missions

- you could build whole scenarios for multiple missions around events (e.g. spot a wildfire, evacuate hikers, bring in firefighters, deliver supplies etc.)

- scenic flights for tourists

- advertising banner flights

- Skydiving launch flights

- Crop dusting

- take part at an airshow

 

We've built the system around those exact criterias. Over the coming weeks you will see new content popping up.

The contracts included right now are the floor. They're there to ensure you always have a background of contracts to do. 

 

This is a taste of what's to come

Just yesterday we released the Maryland crab runs with rich content like a hand-written description and video media explaining what the contract is about. I'm pretty sure nobody else has this level of integration.

[Keven Menard 658]

16 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Another one: provide collectables of a sort, things you can only pick up by going to a particular airfield, or area.   Let people have achievements ("commendations", perhaps, if you want to keep the immersive flight-company feel) for hitting an airport in all 50 US states, or every EU capital, or what have you.   Also tracking milestones in a career:  get a commendation on your 100th flight, on 10 smooth landings in a row, what have you.  Things to provide some more free-form structure and goals aside from "get money and XP" but without the micro-managey business aspect.

Once the server-side is intact, have rally competitions.  Players have N days to complete this defined list of flights, score for a combination of speed and fuel efficiency, broken down by plane class, maybe hand out gold, silver, bronze trophies.  There an any number of ways this could be justified in lore:  perhaps you add another company that sponsors these things to help select "only the best" pilots, or something like that.

I'll see what else I can dream up.  😄

Those are the exact things we're chasing. You have a clear vision of where we're going with this.

We've build this for ourselves in the first place... we're users too.

[captain420 3,099]

Very nice! I'm looking forward to the upcoming features and future of this app! I have a question.

When we pick a contract to do, will the app automatically create the route for us or is this something we have to do manually? I would hope the app calculates the route for you, and then your job as the pilot would just fly (it'll be up to you whether you want to fly it manually or use the onboard avionics with AP) and follow the flight path to reach your destination.

Edited December 16, 2020 by captain420

[Keven Menard 658]

2 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Very nice! I'm looking forward to the upcoming features and future of this app! I have a question.

When we pick a contract to do, will the app automatically create the route for us or is this something we have to do manually? I would hope the app calculates the route for you, and then your job as the pilot would just fly (it'll be up to you whether you want to fly it manually or use the onboard avionics with AP) and follow the flight path to reach your destination.

Right now it creates a direct flight for you (there will always be a DCT option) but we want to integrate with 3rd-party data providers in the short-mid term and have proper automatic flight plan generation.

[captain420 3,099]

17 minutes ago, Keven Menard said:

Right now it creates a direct flight for you (there will always be a DCT option) but we want to integrate with 3rd-party data providers in the short-mid term and have proper automatic flight plan generation.

Great to know that it's in the works! That is going to make the experience much better by not having to rely on manually creating the route yourself. Having it create a random route every time would make each and every flight more unique and interesting as well.

I really hope that this feature will be part of the standalone non-cloud version.

Edited December 16, 2020 by captain420

[Keven Menard 658]

4 minutes ago, captain420 said:

I really hope that this feature will be part of the standalone non-cloud version.

We'll have to study the cost of the various options out there but we really want this to be in the standalone version

[captain420 3,099]

Another quick thought. Like you mention Direct A-B will always be an option, but to make it even better by giving us more choices on the routes we can take by having it give us several options when auto-calculating a route. Such as the short route, scenic route, long route, quickest route, and we can click on the route that we wish to fly. Kinda like the example below where it offers you more than 1 option.

Edited December 16, 2020 by captain420

[langly 129]

9 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Another quick thought. Like you mention Direct A-B will always be an option, but to make it even better by giving us more choices on the routes we can take by having it give us several options when auto-calculating a route. Such as the short route, scenic route, long route, quickest route, and we can click on the route that we wish to fly. Kinda like the example below where it offers you more than 1 option.

At some point you will have to do some of the work yourself... you know, like a real pilot.

[RALF9636 1,955]

... but please let us optionally still import our own routes as well.

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, kaosfere said:

Another:  special missions tied to real-world events.   Fly relief flights after hurricanes or earthquakes*, bring VIPs to major political or sporting events ...   oh!  It might be fun to allow people to contract to a particular sports team and fly them to all their away games.  This is probably more of a challenge in the US than for, say, the Premier League, where you have five different sides all in London, but it could work in some places.    If not national soccer matches you could apply it to things like the Champions League that do require longer trips.

* Yes, there could be issues around building "game" content based off of real-world disasters, but I think it can be done sensitively and not cause any real problems.  That's a judgement call, thuogh.

This type of topical mission currently occurs in Air Hauler and I see no problem with it in terms of sensitivity, however, there is an opportunity for it to be something more here. How about this for a nice feature idea...

You pay a small fee (for example one dollar) for an in-game mission/missions to a relief area, but your payment is sent as a donation to the real-world relief fund you are flying your simulated aid to. In return you get a badge/title/good karma/xp (whatever) in the game where you have flown a relief mission. In this way you get to fly a relief flight in your sim, and it actually helps with the real-world relief effort.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Chock

[kaosfere 3,115]

36 minutes ago, Chock said:

You pay a small fee (for example one dollar) for an in-game mission/missions to a relief area, but your payment is sent as a donation to the real-world relief fund you are flying your simulated aid to.

Love it.

[captain420 3,099]

1 hour ago, langly said:

At some point you will have to do some of the work yourself... you know, like a real pilot.

Yeah of course, but options are always good for when we just want to sit back and relax a little. It doesn't hurt.

[Keven Menard 658]

9 hours ago, captain420 said:

Another quick thought. Like you mention Direct A-B will always be an option, but to make it even better by giving us more choices on the routes we can take by having it give us several options when auto-calculating a route. Such as the short route, scenic route, long route, quickest route, and we can click on the route that we wish to fly. Kinda like the example below where it offers you more than 1 option.

That’s pretty much how the flight plan selector works already. Now it’s just a matter of creating those flight plans!