Glossary

Every vCareer-specific term in one place, alphabetical. If you've seen a word in the UI or docs and aren't sure what it means, it should be here.

∀Cred

vCareer's in-game currency. Earned by completing missions, spent on type ratings and tier-up fees. No real-world value, no purchase, no trade.

Accepted

A mission you've taken off the board. Lives in My Missions for 7 days regardless of board churn.

AirportRef

The structural airport catalog. ~8,000 entries categorized by runway and max-aircraft codes.

AircraftRef

The curated aircraft catalog. ICAO type designators with category + flyable-class mapping.

Alpha

The current phase. Closed to a hand-picked CID allowlist while we tune the mission generator.

Anchor

The base rate: ∀1,000 = 1 minute of paid flight at Bush class rate with no multipliers. Everything else derives from it.

Beta

The next phase. Public, gated by invite or open signup. Date not yet pinned.

Board

The mission board: 8–12 generated missions shown to you per refresh.

CID

VATSIM Customer ID. The numeric identifier we use as the user primary key.

Class

One of six career tracks: Bush, Business, Charter, Small Airline, Cargo, Long Haul. Each has its own T1 → T5 ladder.

Class entry test

10-question theory test gating class entry. 70% to pass, ∀1,000 per attempt.

class_pay_rate

Per-class multiplier on the base reward: Bush 1.0, Business 1.1, Charter 1.1, Small Airline 1.2, Cargo 1.3, Long Haul 1.4.

Completion log

Immutable audit row written on every mission terminal-state transition. Source of truth for what was paid.

Completion tick

Background job that fires every 60 seconds. Reads position samples + VATSIM history, decides which missions transitioned state.

Country anchor

The 70/30 generator quota: ~70% of board missions have a leg in your home country, ~30% are ferry / international.

Diversion

Landing within 75nm of the filed arrival because the original field went below mins. Partial reward, no failure.

First-time bonus

+10% multiplier when either dep or arr is new to you. One-shot per airport, not per route.

Generation

The five-stage pipeline that turns player state + VATSIM snapshot into a board of missions.

Hangar

Your declared list of aircraft. Drives feasibility filtering at generation.

Home country

Two-letter ISO code you set at onboarding. Drives the country-anchor quota.

ICAO type designator

The four-character aircraft code used in flight plans. The PK we use for hangar entries and type ratings.

IFR / VFR

Instrument vs Visual flight rules. Per-class templates restrict missions to one or both.

Mission state machine

OFFERED → ACCEPTED → IN_PROGRESS → COMPLETED | COMPLETED_DIVERTED | FAILED | EXPIRED | ABANDONED.

Multiplier

A factor that scales the reward and XP. Five exist: weather, atc_coverage, time_of_day, first_time_at_airport, time_sensitive.

My Missions

The list of missions you've accepted but not yet completed. 7-day expiry per mission.

Position pipe

The 15-second-cadence job that samples live VATSIM positions for users with active missions.

PilotPositionSample

A single position record (lat/lon/alt/groundspeed/callsign at a moment in time). 90-day retention after mission terminal state.

Recency penalty

Generator downweight applied to airports you've recently visited (last 5 missions) or repeated full dep+arr pairs.

Refresh cooldown

5 minutes between manual board refreshes; 1 hour auto-refresh window.

Starter rating

The free type rating granted on class entry. Bush → C172, Charter → PC12, Long Haul → B77W, etc.

State machine

See Mission state machine.

Tier

Position on a class's T1 → T5 ladder. T1 is granted at entry; subsequent tiers gated by XP + tier-up test.

Tier-up test

~25-question theory test gating advancement inside a class. 75% to pass, fee scales with tier.

Time-sensitive

Optional mission attribute (~20% of cards). Carries a 'depart within 60min' window for a +15% bonus; missing the window forfeits the bonus only.

Type rating

Authorization to fly a specific aircraft for completion credit. Earned (starters + milestones) or purchased (Ratings Shop).

VATSIM

The volunteer-run online flight-simulation network vCareer reads from. We are not affiliated with VATSIM.net.

VATSIM Connect

VATSIM's OAuth identity provider. Our only sign-in path.

Vataware

Third-party flight-track aggregator. vCareer has an adapter but defaults to the VATSIM Member API; toggle via FLIGHT_HISTORY_SOURCE.

XP

Experience points. Per-class, non-spendable, gates tier advancement. Earned alongside ∀Cred but on a different scale.

Term missing? Open a request via the contact page.