Game mechanics — overview

The high-level map of how vCareer plays. Use this as the entry point into the Game mechanics section; each subsequent page goes deeper on one piece.

The core loop

1. Enter a class. Six are available. Pass a 10-question theory test, pay ∀1,000, get your starter type rating.
2. Pick a mission. 8–12 are generated for your tier, your hangar, current ATC, and current weather. They expire.
3. Fly it on your sim, on VATSIM, the same way you would otherwise. File a flight plan, fly the leg, land.
4. Get paid. Server-side completion verification reads your VATSIM track once per minute. ∀Cred + XP credited with multipliers stacked.
5. Spend. ∀Cred buys type ratings (broadens what missions you can take) and pays tier-up fees. XP gates tier advancement.

That's the whole loop. Everything else in the docs is detail on one of those five steps.

Two currencies — and why

∀Cred is the balance you spend. You earn it from missions, you spend it on ratings and tier fees. It's in-game only — no real-money purchase, no trading, no premium currency.

XP is per-class progression. It gates tier advancement (T1 → T2 → … → T5) and is non-spendable. ∀Cred and XP share the same multipliers but scale differently — see Economy & ∀Cred.

Why two? ∀Cred answers "how rich am I?" — you can run that down and rebuild it. XP answers "how seriously have I committed to this class?" — it doesn't go away. The two axes pull in different directions and avoid the single-track grind feeling.

Six classes, five tiers

Bush, Business, Charter, Small Airline, Cargo, Long Haul. Each is independent — none gates the others — and each has its own T1 → T5 ladder. You can hold T5 Bush and T1 Long Haul at the same time. See Classes & tiers.

The flying inside each class is shaped by class templates: leg-length range, IFR/VFR rules, runway constraints, ATC-weighting. A Charter T2 mission feels different from a Cargo T2 mission even though both pay similarly per minute.

What actually matters during a mission

• File a flight plan — without it the completion verifier can't match dep + arr. Don't fly VFR-no-plan and expect credit.
• Fly the filed route, or close to it — completion checks the actual landing field; significant deviation may be flagged as a diversion.
• Stay connected — disconnecting mid-leg without landing fails the mission.
• Land at the filed arrival — unless weather forces a diversion, in which case landing within 75nm of the filed field still counts (partial reward, no failure).
• Watch the time-sensitive window — if your mission has one, missing it forfeits the +15% bonus (the mission itself remains valid).

What doesn't matter

• Smooth landings. We don't grade your flying.
• How long you spend on the ground. Block time isn't tracked; only the actual leg counts.
• Which addon you use. We map aircraft to ICAO type codes, not specific liveries or payware.
• VATSIM rating. All ratings can fly all missions; we don't gate by VATSIM controller-or-pilot rank.

Go deeper: Classes & tiers · Missions · Type ratings · Economy & ∀Cred · Sequencing & cooldowns.