Career Mode - Tips Learned Climbing to Level 100 (MSFS 2024)

Here are some things I figured out over the course of hitting level 100 in career mode, which I thought might be helpful to newer players:

  • Make Money with a Cargo Company. You’ll probably have heard already you want to own your own company as quick as possible, so that you can keep that massive amount your employer is otherwise skimming off the top. The option to start a company doesn’t show up until (a) you’ve banked the money to pay the license fee *and* buy the cheapest eligible plane, and (b) you’ve acquired the specialization for the business type. Every type of “specialization” corresponds to a type of business license. So probably the first company you’ll be able to create, after saving up around $22 or $23k, is a sightseeing tour company, because the license is cheap, the specialization is easily obtained, and the starter 172 is available for something like $21k. Sightseeing tour missions are generally around 45 minutes, and payout something like $35k to $40k, which will feel like a lot of money at first. As you realize how much airplanes actually cost (a new 172 is around half a million, a passenger airline jet is $99 million), you will realize it is not that much money at all, and also the flights (doing circles at low speeds and unpredictable altitudes) are too tedious to repeat endlessly. I suggest making your first company a cargo company instead (just pay attention to the criteria for unlocking the specialization). Or at least think about what kind of flights you’d enjoy grinding until you make enough money for something better than the 172 (Charter Service intrigues me, but the missions are too rare).
  • Make Money with No-Skipping Longer Trips. The “no skip” bonus for sightseeing missions is trivial, it’s like $5k out of the ~$35k you typically earn. But do a cargo mission instead, and you’ll get something like a $30k no-skip bonus on top of a $20k base income for a 45 minute flight. I’m going to guess that’s because the bonus is based on *distance*, and the sightseeing flights are very short and slow. The “bad weather” bonus is bigger on long flights, too (just did one where it was an extra $20k, and the weather wasn’t even actually bad). Also, cruising along a flight plan is considerably less stressful and tedious than flying circles over corn fields. On a long cruise you can enable the autopilot, bump up the sim rate, and go eat a snack.
  • The Power of Autopilot. The Garmin computer system on the 172 (and a bunch of other planes, in some variation) is called the “G1000”. It is capable of a pretty incredible amount of automation that the in-game tutorials teach you *nothing* about, but YouTube is full of good tutorials. VFR departure and approach procedures from your EFB (tablet) generally do *not* transfer into the Garmin, because it just doesn’t have support for the same variety of VFR procedures. It can be well worthwhile to manually program an approach procedure (every runway will at least the have the option of a “visual” “straight”). Having an approach programmed will allow you to use VNAV to pace your descent from cruising altitude, and it transitions seamlessly into a glide slope that you can lock onto with APR mode. Even if the approach is not part of a continuous flight plan, you can add one on the fly, e.g. after a failed landing attempt. If you have an approach planned already, there will be an option under PROC to “activate”. Or if you’re setting it for the first time, “activate” is one of the options within the “set approach” menu (the other is “load”, which puts at the end of the flight plan). Activating an approach makes it the next waypoint in your flight plan. So if AP and NAV mode are enabled (and your CDI is toggled to GPS mode, rather than VOR), off you’ll be ferried to the top of a glide slope, to start a perfect landing. Just one of the cool things you can do with the computer.
  • Running out of Gas. I’ve had two flights with the 172 that I only just barely survived with less than zero gas left in the tank. One time I think it was because I forgot to lean the fuel mix after take-off. The second time I was very careful to optimize the fuel mix and travel at efficient RPMs, but I followed a flight path suggested in the EFB that had waypoints, and wasn’t a straight line. The estimated fuel requirement that you see before takeoff clearly assumes a straight line, and is only just barely enough for that. So beware your fuel on longer flights, and don’t by shy to add more to the tank than you think you’ll need. Unlike with a jet liner where the fuel is a sizable fraction of the weight, little prop planes like the 172 are pretty fuel efficient, and the weight of extra fuel is not a huge deal. [EDIT: commenters below have pointed out that there is a mappable control to instantly add 25% to your fuel tank. Bit of a cheat code, but I'd do it in a heartbeat to avoid crashing an owned plane] [EDIT 2: I discovered topping up your fuel in career mode, before a flight, does absolutely nothing, the money is flushed straight down the toilet, you always start with a half-filled tank in the Cessna aircrafts, no matter what] [EDIT 3: I'm told they fixed this in the December 10th patch, so adding fuel works now.]
  • Crashing an owned plane. If you crash (or even just damage) your plane, the game won’t forget it, even if you immediately try to abort out of the mission, or alt+F4 the game. I bought a second 172 after saving up enough (about $250k), and crashed it on my *first mission*. Total loss, and insurance covered nothing. I even picked the premium insurance option, but I think the alt+F4’ing must have screwed up the coverage. Don’t alt+F4. [EDIT: a different theory is that the insurance didn't work because when I started the mission, I didn't have enough money in the bank to pay for the premium insurance coverage that I selected -- I had something like $2k and its hourly rate was $12k. If that was the problem, beware the game does not warn you that you don't have insurance coverage]. [EDIT 2: So it seems insurance applies to reduce the cost of repairs, rather than as any kind of reimbursement. So basically it's invisible even when it is working. But maybe it does work after all?]
  • Avoiding Taxi Speed Demerit. Just skip it, is my advice. But FYI the taxi speed before getting dinged with an “aviator” penalty is 20, measured in ground velocity. Ground speed is not air speed. In most cockpits, including the starter 172 and even in the Boeing 737 Max, there is a “GS” readout on corner of the second cockpit display.
  • Airport Flyover Demerit. Another irritating demerit is for flying over airports without permission – I *think* you can avoid that by flying at a higher altitude. I found some documentation on IRL airspace restrictions that made me guess 3,000 ft might be a threshold, but on flights that are an hour or more, I go up to 8,000 to be safe. Since I’ve started doing this, the only “flyover” demerit I’ve gotten has been shortly after take-off during the initial climb, when I was still at low altitude. [EDIT: I've now gotten the demerit while flying at very high altitude, but it is at least much more rare at high altitude]
  • Tip Just for Stream Deck Owners.​ If you have a Stream Deck, the free “Flight Tracker” plugin can be massively useful, in a variety of ways, some of them especially well suited to career mode. It has a handful of preset functions, but the real power is in the “generic toggle”, which you can hook into SimConnect actions and variables (you can look these up online, they seem to be the same for 2024 as they were for 2020). I have one button on Stream Deck set to show the ground speed (which I watch like a hawk while taxiing). I have another pair of buttons that show the sim rate, and toggle it up and down. I have a flaps indicator. Etc. [Edit: My game suddenly started crashing A LOT, and I am suspicious that this plugin may have played a contributing role (but not sure). The plugin I referenced doesn't seem like it's getting regular updates. I found another plugin called "PilotsDeck", available on GitHub (and linked from MSFS add-on sites), which is really well-supported and has been updated for MSFS2024. It is vastly more complicated, but more powerful if you take the time to figure it out.]