Dev Notes: New Profiles, New Ranks, and Big Economy Changes

Hey commanders! Today I want to take advantage of our brand new Pilops blog to give you a more detailed note about what changed in Pilops, what our key considerations were, and where we are heading next.

As usual, I need to say this: this update is a big one.

Not just because there are new screens, fixes, settings, and economy adjustments, well, all of that is cool enough, and there are quite a few of those. But the main idea behind this update is simpler:

Pilops should feel more like a world full of pilots, not just a private logbook with numbers.

That has always been the direction. You fly in Flight Simulator, Pilops tracks the flight, the economy moves, your operation grows, and other pilots are doing the same thing around you. But for a long time, a lot of that identity was hidden. You could see rankings, flights, companies, aircraft, and activity, but the pilot behind all of it still felt a bit invisible.

This update changes that. So, let's get into what changed.

Small fixes

Let's start easy with the small fixes first.

• Fixed route goods generation, which was considering only one type of capacity. Now, even if your stand has only passenger or cargo capacity, we will keep generating goods as long as the stand capacity allows it.
• Increased the duration of used aircraft ads. 30 days was expiring too fast, so from now on, all new ads will expire after 90 days.
• We were cluttering the airport goods list with route goods, so we removed all route goods from the airport goods page.
• Several black screen crashes were fixed.

Pilot Profiles Are Finally Here

The biggest visible change is the new pilot profile.

Every pilot can now have a proper public profile with an overview, fleet, flight history, avatar, ranking context, and privacy controls. That means your Pilops career is no longer just something you see from inside your own account. It becomes something other pilots can actually look at.

This matters more than it sounds.

Flight sim careers are built slowly. One short hop, one cargo run, one aircraft purchase, one slightly ambitious route at a time. After a while, that becomes a story. Where you started. What you fly now. Which aircraft you own. How often you fly. Which company you are part of. How far you have pushed your operation.

The new profile system gives that story a home.

You can now show your fleet, your flights, your career stats, and your companies, or hide parts of it if you prefer to keep things private. Profiles also support avatars, so rankings, active flights, and profile pages feel less anonymous.

I like this direction a lot because Pilops is not supposed to be a lonely career mode. If another pilot is flying across the same economy as you, I want that pilot to feel like a real person, not just a row in a table.

Ranks and Level Progression Got a New Shape

Progression also got a serious pass.

There is now a dedicated levels page where you can see the full rank ladder, your current rank, and the XP required for each step. The rank structure itself was updated too, with cleaner progression from early pilot stages all the way to the higher tiers.

We also added a level-up celebration modal, but I won't spoil the surprise with a screenshot; you'll have to fly, level up, and see for yourself.

Small thing? Maybe. But I think it matters.

Pilops is a game layered on top of a simulator. The flying should stay serious enough to respect the sim, but the progression should still feel good. When you spend time planning a flight, loading cargo, managing fuel, taking off, landing, and completing the job, it should feel like your career moved forward.

Now that moment is clearer.

And there is more: your avatar border and tier color also react to your progression! It gives your pilot identity a bit more life across the app, especially on your pilot profile page.

Settings Are Also Live

The settings area is now a real part of the product.

You can edit your profile, change your language preference, choose your weight unit (lbs or kg), manage notification preferences, change your password, control profile privacy, and request account deletion.

Economy Changes (the Controversial Side)

Ok, now we are going to move to the most controversial part of it. I know there are a lot of economy changes here that may be a bit unpopular, but we need to apply them to keep the system healthy and running for many years ahead.

The first gap we want to cover: airliner aircraft are expensive, and profit was not keeping up with how expensive they are.

The number of hours a pilot needed to fly to pay back an airliner was much higher than we wanted, so we made two changes to compensate for that.

#1 Maintenance

We had a single engine maintenance limit across the app, which means that a Cessna 172 and a Boeing 777 had the same available engine hours before going AOG.

That is not how it works in the real world, and it also created a huge maintenance cost.

So now engine maintenance limits were updated by aircraft category:

• Propellers: 80 hours (same as before)
• Turboprops: 120 hours
• Jets: 160 hours
• Airliners: 200 hours

This makes progression feel more natural. A small prop and a large airliner should not behave like the same machine with different artwork. Bigger aircraft need their own rhythm, costs, and maintenance expectations.

#2 Fuel Price

We want to change fuel pricing across the app to keep it more balanced, and eventually make it float based on pilot activity across the globe.

But for now, we just changed the Jet A1 price to be cheaper.

Jet A1 fuel is going from 6 to 5 per lb. That should make jet operations a bit less painful and bring operating costs closer to where we want them.

Airlines and the Commission Cap

On one side, we have a lot of users upset about the cost of airliner operations.

On the other side, many companies were paying commissions that were too high for the economy we are trying to build.

There is no way to run a profitable airline with large aircraft if the company is paying 70%, 80%, or even more to its pilots.

Also, when every company offers a huge commission, company owners get trapped in a position where there is no way to pay less, otherwise no pilots will apply to their companies.

There are a bunch of changes coming to companies in the next update, but for now, we decided to change how much airlines can pay their pilots.

Airline pilot commission is now capped between 10% and 50%.

Companies need room to grow, and believe me, they will need even more over the next couple of months. We are not happy with how companies look right now, and there are big changes coming.

For now, this is the first step.

Pilots need a reason to fly for them. If commission settings become too extreme, the system stops behaving like an economy and starts becoming a loophole.

The new range keeps company payouts more controlled while still giving airline owners flexibility.

What This Update Is Really About

For me, this update is about identity.

Pilops already had the core idea: fly in MSFS, earn progress, build your operation, and affect a shared economy with other pilots.

Now the people inside that economy are more visible.

You can have a profile. You can show your fleet. You can see ranks more clearly. You can spot avatars in the ranking and active flights. You can shape what other pilots see about your career.

That makes the world feel less empty.

And that is the whole point.

Microsoft Flight Simulator gives us the sky. Pilops is trying to make that sky feel like a place where careers, companies, routes, aircraft, and pilots all connect.

There is still a lot to improve. Always.

But this update is a good step.

See y'all in the skies!