There might not be a perfect/right answer to this, perhaps just pros to each.   Or hear your experience with each?

To give more variety to my flying, I'm after the tycoon/empire building side of it.

• I would like the career/tycoon side of it.
• I would also like some basis for flight rating, beit in financial penalties/passenger ratings or a score.

I tried OnAir back when it came out, which was ok but early days, as at the time signups to FS Economy were paused. My company in OnAir ran out of money while I was away from the game for a period with rented aircraft! 😄

I've been looking at the following:

Cost  /  Career building  /  Flight Rating/Passengers

• FS Economy  -  Free  /  Very open  /  Economical focus  /  Not sure it has rating?
• OnAir  -  €~5/m (sub)  /  Full Tycoon/career building  /  Sort of rating, by penalties etc
• FS Captain  /  £35.94/one time  /  Unsure of Tycoon/Career element?  /  Flight Grading + Passengers react/measure performance
• FS Charter  -  Open Beta  /  Not found much other info
• NeoFly  -  Free /  Not found much other info
• Skypark  -  £25/ one time  /  XP/Karma  /  Passengers as a type of cargo / No sign of rating?
• Air Hauler 2  -  £32.99/one time  /  Suggests career building  /  No sign of rating?

Do you have any experience of them and their pro/cons?
 

 

Edited June 28, 20223 yr by HockeyNut

i leave this here, sound like something you might looking for 🙂

https://secure.simmarket.com/simbitworld-a-pilots-life-chapter-2-(de_16553).phtml

 

22 minutes ago, Bam2000 said:

i leave this here, sound like something you might looking for 🙂

https://secure.simmarket.com/simbitworld-a-pilots-life-chapter-2-(de_16553).phtml

Thank you. I had found that page, but dismissed it due to it coming up under 'FSX & Legacy'.  It looks like that's not intentional!

Wish it had a free trial. 😀  Will try to watch some reviews/vids on it.

Edited June 28, 20223 yr by HockeyNut

Having been a part of FS Economy for a very long time, I feel qualified to answer this one aspect of your question.  If you are willing to start with ZERO money, aircraft, owned properties/FBO's, rentable gates, etc. then building a tycoon/slash empire can be for YOU. Quote from the home page >> "With those virtual earnings, pilots can purchase their own airplanes, join or start virtual businesses, open up FBOs, and more - all within the free world of FSEconomy. FSEconomy adds a new dimension to your flight simulation experience, and that doesn't even count all the people you will meet along the way". 

Now having said that, you need to know this will require hundreds of hours of flying your chosen aircraft. You begin by selecting a "job", renting an aircraft, loading fuel/cargo/pax, then delivering the pax and/or cargo to the required destination.  After expenses are deducted, you are paid the net profits, then on to your next job. This process is repeated as you begin building your future empire (buying/leasing your own aircraft), buying FBO's which provides you income from all pilots using your FBO to purchase, fuel, tie downs, car rentals, maintenance, etc etc. You can create your own business which allows you to hire pilots and have them fly jobs for you. The things you can choose to do are endless and after years and years of enjoying, it does not become boring.

A quick look here will show you just how much career building you can look forward to >> https://sites.google.com/site/fseoperationsguide/introduction

Good luck on whatever future choice you make !

 

 

I've tried OnAir & AirHauler2.

Do not like the subscription aspect of OnAir, it works out far more expensive than AH2. With respect to OnAir you have three options (or did when I used it), a server that basically showers you with money, one that is extremely tight with money or one where you can't have AI.

Air hauler is more balanced, and has the advantage that it's not online. You can also set up pax routes, so you will never come back to no money. With the option of VAs as well you can completely customise your startup (especially once you have a company) running.

G

 

The biggest problem I have found with most career/management type add ons is that they require you to fly the trip in one go, resuming isn't supported. Unless one of the above mentioned does, of course!

AirHauler2 doesn’t allow you to save mid-flight but it does allow you to pick up a route/flight from various points. For example, if you are short of time you can pick up a flight from approach or on final to your destination runway.

Some May view this as cheating but it’s your game to play how you want and a lot of long flights in calm weather can be tedious anyway

On 7/1/2022 at 6:54 PM, Elvensmith said:

The biggest problem I have found with most career/management type add ons is that they require you to fly the trip in one go, resuming isn't supported. Unless one of the above mentioned does, of course!

Neofly 4 (still in beta) will allow you to do missions in multiple legs. I don't think you can save mid-flight though,

AirHauler 2 is a glorified spreadsheet.  I bought it, used it for a few months and now don't.

I replaced it with A Pilot's Life 2, which is an improvement in the one area I care about:  scoring each flight.  It unfortunately limits access to the big wonderful world of MSFS by restricting your routes to the airlines that hired you, and that part is tedious.  You can change airlines but then you're stuck in that limited set of routes.  I've lobbied with the developer who seems somewhat open to improving this piece because others clearly desire this as well.  There are some workarounds for this, in that you can buy "tickets" to allow you to fly other routes, but it's tedious at best.  I'm contemplating buying a 2nd copy so I can be in more than one airlines at a time.  Ultimately APL2 is a placeholder until FSCaptain arrives.  They're working on a version for MSFS.  It's really what I'm after as it has all of what I care about:  scoring your piloting skills per flight, and full on flexibility to fly wherever and whenever desired.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

AirHauler 2 is a glorified spreadsheet.  I bought it, used it for a few months and now don't.

Ultimately that's what they all are (well database), just a different emphasis and UI hiding (or not hiding) it.

I like the flexibility that AH2 allows, current playthrough I don't even own an aircraft and fly for a VA funded by my previous company! Will be an age before I can buy anything....

G

37 minutes ago, Gazzareth said:

Ultimately that's what they all are (well database), just a different emphasis and UI hiding (or not hiding) it.

I like the flexibility that AH2 allows, current playthrough I don't even own an aircraft and fly for a VA funded by my previous company! Will be an age before I can buy anything....

G

I tried to nudge them to consider developing the scoring piece but they were not interested.  Had they done this I would have stuck with it for as you say its flexibility.  Hopefully FSCaptain will proceed for MSFS it had the best balance of all in P3D and was even integrated with Ground Services X.  I have no interest in running an airline but like the structure and meaning scoring provides for every flight--it keeps me focused.

8 hours ago, orchestra_nl said:

Neofly 4 (still in beta) will allow you to do missions in multiple legs. I don't think you can save mid-flight though,

That's a shame as being unable to resume on a saved flight really limits what you can do.

25 minutes ago, Elvensmith said:

That's a shame as being unable to resume on a saved flight really limits what you can do.

AFAIK, MSFS itself also doesn't support reloading a flight in progress very well, or has that been fixed?
Most of my flights do not last more than 4 hours so it has hardly been a necessity for me. If I have a limited time I either choose a shorter flight or "cheat" by accelerating the sim in the less interesting parts of the flight.

On 6/28/2022 at 12:53 PM, HockeyNut said:

Do you have any experience of them and their pro/cons?

I comment on the ones I tried.

FS Economy : free, easy to use, great community. The downside is that it is fairly outdated, quite a few airports in FSE do not exist anymore or have different names.

OnAir  : probably the most advanced economic simulation so far. It has made huge progress since the early days. Depending on the level of difficulty you chose, earning money can be painfully realistic. The downside is a relatively small community.

FS Captain: currently in beta for MSFS. It was the best airline operations simulation for FSX and P3D, but the beta version for MSFS is still lacking a lot of features, due to limited support in the MSFS SDK.

NeoFly : I tried it, found it very nice, with a good variety of jobs. However, it somehow didn't really catch me, it appears to stay a bit more on the surface than other economic simulations.

Air Hauler 2 : Very good economic simulation, but the lack of community in the game made me stop using it.

 

2 hours ago, Noel said:

I tried to nudge them to consider developing the scoring piece but they were not interested.  Had they done this I would have stuck with it for as you say its flexibility.  Hopefully FSCaptain will proceed for MSFS it had the best balance of all in P3D and was even integrated with Ground Services X.  I have no interest in running an airline but like the structure and meaning scoring provides for every flight--it keeps me focused.

Fair enough, currently seeing if I can combine AH2 and Walker (VA) to get the best of both worlds! Since the VA scores the flight for me.... Plus I love their liveries!..

 

G