April 2025
Wow. So many years.
The final patch removed the Czech server check.

It's a nice game. I like it. The fixed wing has become fine. The wind works fine in fixed wing.

I still miss the wind that worked in VTOL in the early builds. I would pay idk what to play those early builds. Twenty? Fifty? Make me an offer.....

Things look great now. There's waterfalls and clouds. You can take long flights and buy whatever you want from the profit. It's not hard to make all the money you need. There are tourist flights. Seriously, it's not a bad game.

You used to have to account for wind when you got there, and the landings were even more touchy, and that was so very awesome. But that was deprecated.

So much core has remained unchanged over all these years. OK, enough, sorry.

Playing now:

Turn on all the HUD options. All of them. It will make it easier with the falling and stuff.

Activate fixed or constant thrust by keyboard 'CAPS LOCK' or 'right shoulder + Y button' on pad.
Seems to be meant to be a hidden feature when you start out now. Can't land soft without it.

This guide really still applies. Set your throttle to right stick Y and set the view to D pad and use the arrow keys and mouse to work around everything else.

Ans don't leave Mr. Green at CSW. Take him to Concorde. That mission worked fine before.

Anyways, GLHF.
-dinosaur

September 2021
Whoah. It sure is fun to work your way back through the tons of propaganda on the update progress of this game over the years. Keep scrolling, because these guys have loved nothing more than to blow their own horns over the years. I sure do miss the ambient wind in those early builds. I still can't stand to play any more. What a waste. Who wrote the guide? ME. Ha ha.

April 2020
fixed wing is completely un-flyable; nothing is the fault of the developers when you make a complaint, ever, even though things keep getting worse in my opinion. pretty pretty mushrooms.

September 2019
This is all from a previous version but it still helps pretty much. The control mapping stuff may be hopelessly out of date but you can get the gist.
GLHF

December (2018) update; A lot has changed:
new weather stuff; the moving hard ceiling, the new freight stuff, new mission stuff
I keep updating this, every day actually, and I may add even more when I get some time; missions and stuff. It just keeps growing. There's a lot of good info here for starting with.
____________________________________

OK. Here goes, because I love it. I don't write guides. As a rule, I don't even comment. This game has moved me otherwise. I want them to continue to develop it. If you are thinking about buying then let me say, uh, YES, and here's the guide to tell you about it.

Watch the official trailer videos. I have flown most (all? a lot) of what I've seen there already. It's fun. I am not impressed with anything else on you tube; I have done it in game. Besides, the new weather is here.


It's hard to fly well at first, and also when you start digging in, and then it all clicks and it's alot easier and super fun. It does require attention.

A gamepad works, but a joystick is good too. The gamepad controls are explained by the help screens, but it's not clear how to use them fully at first.

I altered them some, but you don't have to.

Flying it is llike lunar lander. You soon realize you need to use the throttle with precision.
I learned to use constant thrust mode, but while important it works best for slow and easy. When it's on, CT mode, the throttle setting slides up and down with the trigger. Again, it's useful if you are slow and careful.

A joystick with a throttle works too. See CONTROLS below. I remap throttle control to the right stick on the gamepad, but it requires different dexterity than using the triggers when out of constant thrust mode. Also see my guide on this please.

With a gamepad as configured OOTB it's just fine, and fun. Grab (or release) the right trigger and go. Keyboard? God bless you. The constant thrust works the same as with the gamepad. Good luck. Slow and careful. Can't ever seem to hit zero g on the thrust to weight meter with keyboard.

Because of the way your thrust works and because your landings will be rough at first, maybe buy the chassis upgrade right away.

To do that you enter the garage, across the water at your first destination down the ramp from the pad, by going to the small er plane icon on the ground, full stop until it's green, then hit ENTER or A.

You start on a trade/fuel pad. Your destination is the same. When you line up in the plane icon until it's yellow. Full stop green. Hit ENTER. This is in all in the help.

How do you move around on the ground you say? Taxi. Learn to taxi. When you land you will be happy to be down without damage. Left stick or keyboard moves it, just like the mandatory initial five help screens say.

Flying? Like Lunar Lander or Gravitar. Tiny moves left stick to control the ship, stay on the throttle as needed to arrest your fall. Learn to read the gauges: Altitude, rate of climb, relative g force.

I know, I know... keep reading

My rig isn't very good:
(no,really, mine is not)
I7, 8gig, some AMD card that I spent more for 8 years ago.

I turn things down some and slide the render distance down some. This seems to be the main problem people are having. Someone talked about this in a review. No problems. I'm happy. Some settings are profile specific, I think. Even with low-ish settings it looks quite good to me, but my first console was an ATARI so maybe I'm easy to wow.
(Edit: I updated. 4gb Geforce 16xx and more RAM. I'm significantly happier.)

People complain about the online verification, but you can shut off your networking after the game loads.

Is it too expensive? IDK. I got it on sale on that site with the bundles for $14. I'm pretty happy, and I'm a cheapskate. Was just browsing. If you are not that hard up for money and like to fly (seriously, Gravitar) then drop the $25.

Is it challenging? Yeah, at first. It's not a learning curve, it's a skill check, but not so bad.Find your joystick; that's a fun way to fly. A gamepad is great. I have a custom setting I like where I map the throttle to the right stick on the gamepad. You can custom map everything.

No, it's not a fighter jet in fixed wing. That's not what this game is.

There's a lot of work into the model; it's interesting and helps you 'get' physics better. Put young drivers on this game to teach them about coming in too fast.

It's a fleshed out Alpha. There's active development, sort of.

It's fun to play.

The camera, third person view: It's never bothered me too much.

(Update 2019: lots of new views. Some teething pains, getting worked out.)

The ships are well modeled and you can see the control inputs and their effects. The camera chases you, so it gives you a very visceral feeling of what's happening.

If the angle has shifted above you, you are falling fast; in fact it's showing you that your rate of fall is increasing. Gee, my sink rate sure is big! Get control. You can look around manually including down from above for slow, precise landings, and then quickly reset the view with the button. It works pretty well.

I wouldn't mind more control in the future, first person or especially zoom control maybe, but really it's ok for now.
Update - mouse wheel zooms out some; was it always there? idk

And more updates: Finally first person and such if you want it.
______________________________________
This is my complaint:
The story is a little simplistic. The first few 'missions' are to show you things and move you through to bigger engines and a bigger ship. (The whole first ship and island is the tutorial.) The english is, uh, quaintly rough and there's not a lot of explanation of what to do or why except sell cargo and buy the bigger ship(s) to sell more cargo and do a few missions that don't explain themselves very well and still can be buggy. You can tell what to do; it's all marked and stuff.

It's the weakest link. There are mispellings and just plain errors all over.
(Updates: It's been getting better for most of the stuff to do; there's a lot to do in the game. There's still some detail stuff they mess up but...)
Eh. It's OK.

Because:
The Emperor does have an awfully nice body, you see. You have to buy the ship for grown ups and learn how to fly and then fly around a lot to figure out that he's not wearing very much yet in regards to a story or story missions. There are some, and it takes some time and some flying to get the ships and the upgrades to do them. You can mine and fly passengers. There's the new bad boy missions. The newest updates have tourist locations and missions.
(Update: There's more; there's really a lot to do.)

Tying the story together takes a little imagination; maybe they even wavered on arc; there are clues. Is the planet angry from the geo-scanners? Is the UFO a friend or foe? Or not a UFO anymore because they changed the text on that one quite a bit? IDK.

Anyway, follow the orange dots; there really is a good amount to do and it genuinely adds challenge and variety. Flying the big ship around has its own enjoyment. Getting enough money for the upgrades takes a lot of good landings with route planning and regular repairs. The new updates make you up your game.

Also:
There is no save that you can go back to. If you close the game gracefully while landed or in hangar everything will be as you left it, but you can't go back. Ever. To get the full experience you need to mostly get the quests done right the first time. Failure is an option on some without consequence it seems other than lack of immersion mostly. Carry on with a new orange dot to follow if needed.

The profiles are for different playthroughs.

The save files can be found and backed up. Also edited, I have read. Not my thing.

Still:
The flying and weather and environments are pretty well done, and the FLYING IS KIND OF THE THING so it's still quite worth it. There's a lot of interesting and varied terrain with volcanoes and mountains all over the map. It's challenging enough to keep you interested enough to fly around for a good while, and then you can still fly around for fun some more. Get the blue wheels with the extra taxi power. Pimped. You know how much flying that takes with the new updates?


Still Alpha and imo sort of worth the price, but I admit it is a niche kind of game.

THE FARTHER THE FEWER! -Alexander Rozhenko, son of Worf

Gamepad is great. I don't like the trigger throttle, but teeny squeezes works fine.

You can do other things.
Custom mappings follow the profile; delete it and start a new game there and your custom keybinds will remain.

With the February 2019 update
I don't like the constant thrust mode and the wind indicators swapped on the gamepad now, although I understand why they did it. If you get all twitchy and click the left stick it can be bad, more or less. But I remap the thrust to the right stick so it's hard to take my fingers off (lift up) to hit 'Y', so I swapped them back. See option 2 below.
Other options:

Option one:
You need a joystick. I found mine. Logitech, recognized, no problem.
I had no problem getting it to see my joystick but I had to map it. Check the calibration if you want, but I didn't have to fiddle here.

On the first screen of the control settings, FLIGHT, are these few things:

Bind your three axii. Not to the individual up down but to the other box that's the whole axis.
Bind your throttle to thrust in all modes.

BEWARE: Full up is full, full down is full reverse (down!), CENTER IS OFF.
You'll see.

Bind your views four ways to the hat, left right, up, down. And the center view key to some button you like.

This is how you get lateral controls working, but you have explicit yaw on the stick already.
You can use the key bind for Control mode 1 (FLIGHT 1), which is lateral movement.
Look under GENERAL to assign this to a joystick button, or left ctrl or right alt or whatever. Now assign x axis left and right to jetpack strafe under FLIGHT 1. YOU HAVE TO MAP THE THROTTLE HERE TOO or when you hit that button it cuts out.

Test this out; when you switch to FLIGHT 1, all the controls bind to that profile. That's as far as I went, but it was what I hoped for: HOTAS. I never activated CT mode; idk how that would have worked out and there was no need I think. Good luck.

On my joystick for convenience I also bound the hatch, load, unload, and Map keys. I would say bind the interact with object to something too, maybe higher priority than the cargo functions.

Bind at will, but all you need are the axii, throttle, and maybe view. Can always use the keyboard for the rest.

Map is nice because while you can't open it in flight, it toggles beacons for cities onto the HUD. Interact targets them.

ZERO THE THROTTLE (CENTER!) when you crash or when you come out of the hanger your engines will light up.

___________________________________

OPTION TWO:
Altered Gamepad!
It's OK OOTB. Learn to use constant thrust adjustment 'mode', but to start out with you can just fly by eye.

Using a joystick with its throttle gave me the idea to do this setup and I really like it.

You can map right stick to throttle:
Under FLIGHT bind the throttle to the right stick y axis.
Unbind the Dpad from cargo and flaps and set the view movement to that.
Use keyboard to load and unload freight or bind those to FLIGHT 1 D pad movements (better; do this).

There should be no yaw in all modes set here, just left right in all modes.

This messes with FLIGHT 1 (lateral movement!), which is when you hold the left shoulder, so:
Unbind the right stick y axis in FLIGHT 1 from forward/back.
Undind the right stick x axis bound to strafe.
Bind the left stick x axis to strafe. Y-axis is already forward/back.

Need to bind the y axis right stick to throttle in here also, or engine shuts off when you hit left shoulder.

Feb 2019 update;
do this in FLIGHT 2 also because you'll want to hold right shoulder for HUD tips too, lol, and it's the only way to see damage in flight now; annoying.
And I think you should swap the constant thrust mode back to left stick click and the wind indicators to 'Y'. You don't have to, but you kind of do. Just don't get all flinchy.

Bind right stick x axis to yaw under FLIGHT 1.
Now when you hit the left shoulder, the left stick slides you left and right without turning. The left stick as always slides you forward and back, and you have the throttle on the right still and explicit yaw. Watch what you might do to the throttle when using it; you'll probably only use this in constant thrust mode and it won't be as big a problem as all that. It's just not needed a lot anyways, as well. THE TRIGGERS STILL WORK for thrust adjustments in either mode.

I am using gamepad this way to play right now. More relaxed than fine handling the joystick. I like having thrust on the other stick. I don't use the triggers anymore except on the map. You can see my other guide on this setup, but it's mostly extraneous.
_____________________________________

Gamepad with A for yes and B for no works with D pad to move up and down
>>Use the mouse, or move the pointer out of the way so it's not interfering with the GP inputs, because it does. If nothing is moving this is why.
Get back on the keyboard. Use the arrows and Enter.

In key mapping land nothing with the D-Pad seems to elicit a scroll down, so you have to reach for a mouse for the lower settings. There's a scroll bar there but you can just spin the mouse wheel.

___________________

Is it a feature or a bug? (feature, just needs a toggle off though) The game constantly offers which key combinations OR gamepad buttons to press for things if they are mapped; even your weird custom mappings will be written out. However once you reach for the keyboard it then offers the keyboard equivalents. This can cause a lttle confusion occasionally.
new HUD, but maybe TMI

It's easy enough to get enough money for the second ship, but I suggest waiting and getting more like 40k first before buying the second ship.

You need to get pretty good at landing before you get the second ship. Ox has engines out on the four corners now, and you can whack them pretty easy. You can't just flap around at landing. The first ship is a trainer and is a lot of fun. Train. You'll be happier. Really, the small island IS the tutorial.

Just do the loop from the spaceport to Central (with food, like the first mission directs you) mostly, and backhaul empty batteries to Bridgepoint, right across from the spaceport.
Stop in and repair at the spaceport as you go by. Rinse and repeat a couple of times, and then the cargo changes to fragile repair droids. Land softly.

Find the other trades now by looking at the map.

Buy the bigger engines. Probably skip the fuel tank. It is fuel, it has weight, so…

Fly around, be free. Carry passengers when you want, but you can ignore them. The counter is counting when they ask for a ride, but you can just let it countdown to no. Just stay on the small island where you are, though. You might get 1k per 100 fuel if you don't dawdle.

(Update: More these days, but don't dawdle)

Don't try to carry heavy stuff, like those full batteries. At least not yet. It's no good. If you didn't crash, sell it back where you bought it. Taxi. Learn to read the gauges. Go back in to help F1 and hit the arrows through the five pages again. Start with rate of climb and altitude on the right. Learn how to use constant control and the g gauge on the left. Don't run out of fuel.

When the freight guy asks you to go to Nord, go ahead. You can do it without the upgraded engines, and I'm not sure the game offers them to you until after.

Here, it seems you can make more money by crashing and then going and recovering the pod and selling it. Letting the time expire might work too. just selling it at the trade pad where he is; not dropping it off. Haha. that was all before i think. idk. don't short circuit the missions i think is better. they're touchy enough.


***************
THE MAP CAN ONLY BE OPENED ON THE GROUND (water too) AT REST
You can only call for remote repair from the map.
In the air the map key turns beacons on or off for bases within 100k.

The interact with object key cycles targets in the air.
That's gamepad A or Enter. (yw)
****************

In general:

Constant thrust mode is essential to learn to fly in but it catches me off guard at the wrong time when I try to hurry. Once you learn to read the gauges it's great, but flying is pretty methodical. Stay on it, slow and easy. It's pretty manageable on the gamepad OOTB, and with the joystick throttle it's always constant thrust mode, really, but with much faster transitions. Seat of the pants, flying out of constant thrust mode, doesn't really seem viable on keyboard, but is pretty fun otherwise. Heavy loads: constant thrust.

Landing? Get over your target by kind of gliding in, on a slope. Crosswinds will dictate approach angles sometimes anyway, and make maneuvering in the air untenable. Sometimes you are past BINGO. Get down. Don't forget ground effect. Come in with a small constant descent rate and cut your power before you start rising again.

I just don't use explicit yaw or even the lateral very much at all when landing. It just leads to trouble and/or is for cleaning up a bad approach. Seriously, do your wiggling on the ground if you need to. Make a nice sweeping turn, come into the wind if you can, line up with the pad or a big open space with some roll room if your forward speed is drifting, and come in on a glide slope. Learn to taxi. Pick places that are in the taxi zone. Learn to do a 180 on the pad.

Up and away? You can just grab the trigger but take it easy, cowboy. Teeny moves. On a joystick throttle crank full up to get engine start and then quickly down BUT NOT TO CENTER (off) to keep engines on but low. When you add power you wiill start rising gently.

Slow moves on the throttle, watch changes in your rate of climb on the right side of the HUD.
Tiny moves on the stick. Watch the engines move on the ship, it will help you find zero if you are drifting. This is not a problem with the gamepad. Let go left stick!

Learn to read the gauges and recognize what the camera angles are telling you about which way you are moving.

Learn how to use the two different thrust modes, and what all the gauges mean.

BTW I am making fun of keyboard but you can completely fly that way if that's all you have. More methodical is all. Use the constant thrust mode.
_______________________________________________

2019 update(s)
NEW HUD
Whatever triggers FLIGHT 2 input mode, which is Gamepad right shoulder button, lights up little tiny explanation text of all the sliders and numbers on the HUD. Some of the Engllish is like: "what?" but you can see what's moving when you move what and you'll sort those bits out just fine.

So: I might not try to post any new pictures or even rewrite these discussions. I have kind of spent a lot of time on this guide; It's enough for a while. Where's my commission? No, seriously. /sigh

I think you'll be able to follow along alright.

Things are in different places, but in general you can see the same info (looks nicer, mostly) without too much trouble.

I don't like the constant thrust mode and the wind indicators swapped on the gamepad now, although I understand why they did it. If you get all twitchy and click the left stick it can be bad, more or less. But I remap the thrust to the right stick so it's hard to take my fingers off (lift up) to hit 'Y', so I swapped them back. See control remapping in this guide.
__________________________

Here 's how to understand this thing in more detail.

On the landing pad, activate constant thrust mode. Keyboard: X, Gamepad: left stick button. Now the throttle inputs move the slider. Start the engines. On the keyboard: hold the spacebar. On the gamepad right trigger or right stick y axis if you used my settings.

Now, you have to quickly slide back to nuetral lift. See the gauge on the left of the hud? The blue dot slides up as you increase thrust and the gauge is orange until the blue dot passes the orange dot. Then it's green. Your lift exceeds your weight. Your rate of climb increases. After you start rising, throttle back until you are below nuetral lift. When you stop rising move back up to nuetral lift where the dots touch. If your blue dot never gets up to the orange dot then you are too heavy. You may start rising due to ground effect before achieving neutral lift, but once you lose it you will drop if you do not achieve neutral.



Now look at the right side next to your altitude. The little (or big!) orange or blue bar that is your rate of climb. Make thrust greater than neutral to make it go up. Make thrust less than neutral to make this go down. Do it in the tiniest moves you can on the throttle adjustment for now. When your thrust is at neutral and your rate of climb is zero, you hover. Otherwise you start rising or falling.

Again, on the ground, when applying thrust slowly, you start rising before achieving neutral thrust from ground effect. At about ten meters it goes away and you need to add more thrust to achieve neutral or more.

Decrease your thrust a bit to start falling, neutralize it to stabilize your sink rate, and land gently. You will have to cut a little more power at the ground from ground effect, or just maintain a very small sink rate all the way in and let the ground effect cushion you while your interia pushes you down. Hit X to shut off constant thrust which kills the engines, assuming no other input. Make no other input.

At positive g you accelerate up, at negative g you accelerate down. It holds the ROC you set it at if you line up the dots. Inertia apllies, don't get caught falling too fast.

Just get this part: the left gauge is not the hover gauge, it's the I'm slowing or increasing my rate of climb gauge. The right gauge is where you check if you are at hover. You stay at hover when the rate of climb on the right is zero AND the g force is at zero where the dots line up.

Keep control of the sink rate at all times.

Change your thrust away from neutral a good amount, watch what happens to your rate of climb (or fall) gauge, then move it back to neutral. You are now climbing or falling at the new rate.

So, add in moving. When you are hovering, tilting forward (or strafing) gets you moving in that direction. When you center the stick (or stop pressing a key) you keep moving as fast as you got going. At higher speeds you may rise or drop depending on aerodynamic affects, but adjust your throttle with an eye on your rate of climb. It only controls hover power. Stop giving inputs (center the stick) to see exactly what's going on with the g meter and your hover. Make inputs to thrust to control your rate of climb. Make small inputs to change your speed. It's kind of fly by wire. Tilt forward for a second: speed up, tilt back: slow down.

In general when you need to slow back down, you need to tilt back (whichever direction opposite of that you tilted before) for (about) as long as you tilted forward to slow back down. Now, there is drag, which slows you down when you move around at speed, but at low speeds it's not drag at all, it's inertia. Don't overcorrect.

The other gauge on the right hand side demonstrates the lift generated by the wing; it shows the lift generated by the wing as airspeed increases. In the bigger ships it lets you know when you can enter fixed wing mode, when the green bar passes the first orange dot (stall?), and how much you'll have to control it to maintain pitch and rate of climb when you do: less and less as the gauge approaches the second dot.

Fixed wing maneuvering happens best between the two dots, the g forces don't get so high. Above the second dot you don't need any backpressure to maintain AOA. When fine tuning your rate of climb and sink, tiny adjustments. At speed in smooth air (altitude) with pitch inputs you are fine tuning only. Only at low speeds will you need backpressure to hold your rate of climb. Don't overcorrect or you will be swinging up and down. Find the horizon; add some AOA when you are going slow. Watch your rate of climb, but don't chase it. Keep moves smallish, mostly, or at least change it with intent. You have to get to the bigger ship first anyway.

You can (usually) fly really well by the seat of your pants in VTOL. Watch the rate of climb/fall and keep it under control. Watch the terrain. Sometimes it's just better, especially when you need to get down fast because you are out of fuel. Even on keyboard you may just want to grab a free falling spin for a second or two instead of fiddling in constant thrust mode. You can (and should) transition to a constant thrust hover at the last, but be careful about when: at switch over you will need to adjust your throttle to neutral lift and if you are dropping already you can crash pretty easily. Watch the rate of climb and hit the upswing.

You might just stay on the thrust control all the way in. It's the most fun anyway, but better when you have some, but not too much, power available above your weight to spare. Lunar Lander.



Anyway, I hope this helps. It's not really that hard. It's just a bit unforgiving. It's the gravity.

Neutral.
P.S. A little note about windspeed:
If you look at the screenshot above there are two numbers on the left side of the HUD;
the larger one is my effective airspeed and the smaller one is my ground speed because I'm flying into the wind.
There's similar data on the NEW HUD (Feb/Mar 2019 updates), but hard to see, and there was some glitchiness in the display introduced in the last quarterly micro update before the NEW HUD but I'm not seeing it on the new gauge now. It doesn't show the same way, but the wind information is there. I always turn on the little arrows as well anyways.

Crashed a lot? Need money? Like a time challenge? Passengers!

You can say yes or no to passengers with out problem. There are a couple that are explicit missions, the first being a "look, you can take passengers" mission. When you say yes, they will get in when you land near them (100m?) and open the hatch. It will always count down to no. It's not a mission, it's just a fare.

Does anyone need this bit: Once and for all when it says "left ALT+1" you hold left alt and then press 1. If you have been using the gamepad it will say "Right Shoulder + A".
move the d-pad left or right to get into the passenger's window when it's there

The timer starts when they get in as far as I can see. Set your waypoint AND GET FUEL before you open the hatch if you want to try to meet the time. It's ok if you don't, but it's more money.

Do land near them, try for the square. If you are too far or over an obstacle sometimes they can walk away trying to go around to who knows where. Taxi so the hatch is near the square. (I had one go off and get stuck in a corner. Got a small ship, picked him up, took him to a pad, booted him.)

They're not as picky about where they get out. Just take them near or on the landing pad EXCEPT FOR THE FIRST MISSION WHERE ITS EXPLICITLY MARKED. Their icon will say 'waiting for disembark'. They walk to a hut near the pad usually (always?); if you are on the other side of some bases the passenger can also bug somehow trying to get there, but you got paid.

Uh,
DO NOT MOVE IF THEY ARE WALKING THROUGH YOU. Little mobs it seems you can ignore. Passenger NPC's not so much. Just sit still.
It can get too interesting otherwise is all. You were warned.

You can boot them. Get near a square. Open the hatch. Wait a few seconds, and they'll go "This doesn't seem like my spot, should i get out?" Answer yes or no. (I think they stay there with an active timer. idk)

And of course, check for cargo going their way. Get it and/or fuel up beforehand.

Again, the timer does not start until you let them in as far as I can see, as long as you are not forgetful and pick them up after you say yes. If you say yes and then fly away the timer starts it seems, and probably other things can go wrong, idk. I've read some comments the other way, that the timer starts when you say yes.

To be safe, I usually say no, then land near them and open the hatch. They will ask again at this point. If you missed it just go away and come back.

You don't get a dime if they don't make it there. You DO get paid for being late, but it does go down with time. Longer flights pay quite well.

When they get in, you can see them onboard (this one is a 'mission' is why he's tagged orange):

So, you played around on the first island and saved up 30 to 50k and now you can buy the bigger ship. You can save some money by exchanging your ship, not buying it. If things go very bad and you need money you can reverse the process.

Another explicit passenger mission triggers, but you can wait if you want to; you really want the fuel tanks at least and probably the 2nd engines before you take him anyway.

Get the fuel tanks ASAP. Go buy some food if there's any left (that's what's in the Cargo Box at Bridgepoint) or water in Port, preferrable. Fuel up and fly to Raglor Transit. (Don't crash!!!!) Sell the goods (yay, seems like big money!) and buy the better engines there with the money.

When you go to fly like a plane:

Get some altitude while accelerating to 125+. Be pointed in the right direction already. Level out at the last second is a good habit to learn.

Flip to flight mode, gamepad X. When you do:

Center the stick. Gently, just a little back pressure to control your rate of climb. Full throttle to accelerate. Now it's a plane, not a drone, so fly like a plane. You will probably drop some at transition when you're learning. Backpressure to keep the nose up a bit. At low speeds you need to maintain back pressure to maintain your rate of climb. At high speeds stick inputs just fine tune it.

I don't recommend extreme maneuvering. Teeny tiny stick moves. Get control of your altitude and rate of climb. There's a g-force meter on the cargo also, in red. Breakage. Now, it is true that you CAN fly as hard as you want. I pulled 9g turns and got black out screen and rainbow g-meter. Passenger didn't mind until we ran out of fuel at altitude from all the goofing around and he died, but cargo breaks way way before then. Wings didn't. That may not last forever.

If you need to make evasive maneuvers that aren't going to be gentle or just a massive course correction, switch to VTOL and be gentle as you can. Breakage. Even if you wreck, you can minimize cargo damage.

Tiny sustained stick moves will create ship movements; you don't have to bank and yank to make turns. It breaks cargo anyway. Delivery truck, remember? When there's a volcano in your face out of the clouds, stay calm. Look for them; you see the smoke.

Anyway, get some altitude. There's lots of mountains in the clouds when you get to the main land mass if for no other reason. Some of them are quite high.

Fly too high and radar fries. The levels are marked on the HUD altimeter, at about 2850 (later 2450) ECM and 3050 (later 2750) for engine failure and extra damage. When I start zapping out I notice. (Did these change in an update recently?) They change. Mission triggered? Or ship specific. Spoiler. Drove me crazy. Not updating this paragraph again.

New update changes the levels up and down. Adds some challenge. Ship takes extra damage above critical height. If you get pushed down into terrain, slow down and switch to VTOL.

Be careful about crossing critical altitude with a high rate of climb in the mountains while in VTOL. It will throw on full down thrust, and by the time you get control back you can be falling too fast to fix. Transform and freefall might be a better option if you find yourself here and have any room to spare at all.

You fly faster at altitude. Go there. Skim the top for your best ranges.

Small warning: There is no artificial horizon yet. Major HUD update soon? Be careful at transition or if trying to bank and yank in the clouds! Don't lose it trying to overcorrect or panic maneuver. Ouch. The wings will level if you let go of the stick. The pitch only somewhat but mostly; you need to control it, but it depends where you are on the wing lift curve, on the lower right of the HUD; how much back pressure is needed to maintain a little AOA. Again: left and right turns with wing lift between the orange dots are more coordinated if you just move the stick a little to the side and hold it there. At higher speed, just use yaw. Teeny moves on the stick in perfect x plane will just yaw without you using explcit yaw. Yaw doesn't break cargo. Banking turns can and probably will. It's probably best to line up for your destination in VTOL, then switch to fixed and roar away.

But it is much easier to be gentle on cargo in VTOL. It's a transformer. Slow down and transform a little if you are pointed the wrong way too far. It's also probably less fuel in the end.

When you are 10 to 20km from your from your target, more or less depending on how fast you got going and what altitude, lower the throttle. Save fuel. Reverse throttle to extend speed brakes if you need to. Still gliding, maybe a little throttle to maintain your speed, start descending. Control you rate of climb as your speed drops. Slow to below 200 or more and flip back to hover mode. You can flip at higher speeds but be gentle until you slow down. Full throttle to arrest descent (or not for a few moments if you didn't descend nearly enough). Start controlling you speed and begin maneuvering. Land it.

If you overshoot, go VTOL and maneuver gently to avoid breaking cargo; don't try to fixed wing around. Just be gentle; watch the g meters.

I do not see cargo breaking from the transition itself, although I read some discussion on that. I expect there's some heavy g's somewhere else in their approach, but idk. You can break cargo right after trans if you pull enough g's. It helps to slow down as much as you can before you switch to VTOL, and is the most fuel efficient. Get control of climb rate and do eveything else gently.

You'll get good at this. Just watch your rate of climb and altitude.

Flaps are for slow speed fixed wing flight, really just for taking off heavy. There are runways out there, but I can't imagine landing it like that. Maybe. You never need to; fuel is heavy. You can launch from them though.

Now you can go anywhere! Enjoy! You have graduated.

Look at the map to see what's where and what's wanted and how much. Go nuts. Be careful with fragile stuff. The wineglasses denote fragility. Each cargo has a meter, too. It's not just your landing that damages cargo, violent maneuvering will do it too.

As in life, in general avoid the business end of volcanoes.

It doesn't seem to say it, but gamepad Y cancels a waypoint in the map screen.

When you buy a new ship you can sell your old ship or not. If not, it gets stored. You can change again at a hanger.

Be a little careful with your upgrades, you can only buy some upgrades at some places, and you might not be able to switch back without going somewhere else. I'm looking at you flash wing.

You can't lift everything it says right away. You can't gain altitude if you're too heavy. Just be conservative. Maximum ratings are for fixed wing or upgraded VTOL; just because you can load it doesn't mean you can lift it.

On Ox, I first sold the fuel tanks and bought the better lift wing when I got somewhere I could, and that could lift a heavier load with the red engines I bought at Raglor. This way I lifted a 7500kg load and flew it away without trouble in VTOL. With the bigger tanks, full, I couldn't properly. Maybe I could have kept the tanks with less fuel, idk; I put them back on when I got the really good engines anyway. You can always burn off or dump some of your fuel if you are close.

Mostly, if you can only climb with ground effect, you'll never make it without less fuel.
Learn to read the gauge on the left side of the HUD that shows you whether your lift meets or exceeds the load. As fuel burns, it improves. Read the how to fly section again about lift and weight if needed.

Barely making it? Turn into the wind to get that advantage. Get up to fixed flight mode speed and don't lose altitude on the transition. Or, there are runways out there. Use them to take off. After some fuel is burnt the landing will be easier, but remember that you are heavy. Learn how to use constant thrust mode all the way in, it will save you from dropping too fast if you do it right.

Again:
Not well presented command default mapped to the gamepad: left shoulder (FLIGHT 1 mode) plus X button: DUMP SOME FUEL.
Fuel weighs a lot. Watch the dot move. Money on the ground though.

Cargo can be salvaged, but it can also be worthless because of damage. Usually worthwhile, though, especially if you were almost there where it was worth a lot. Little bit of a challenge; clean up the mess, etc. Change ships if you need to and can. There's at least one piece of free cargo just lying around, and also the samples, on the first island, and later there is some ore lying around.

If the cargo controls aren't mapped to anything else, use the keyboard: T Y U.

Land first then get close before you open your hatch is best practice. Maneuver the ship so the cargo is in the circle; or where it will be when you open the hatch. If the cargo can be loaded the circle will turn green. If it doesn't turn green, you are trying to exceed the hold capacity in weight or units.

If it's a crash recovery and you know it should turn green but it doesn't you can try shoving the cargo around to somewhere that looks a little better; that can work but you need to repair after the ship absue first. There seems to be some touchiness if the chassis is too damaged. Repair your ship then fly back and try to load it again.

You can pick up the ore only with Ballena, it seems, because it's heavy. (Update: Ox with the right upgrades will too, magically, but it doesn't fit graphically.) Unfortunately or humorously it looks a lot like, well:

It's even more evocative when it's unloading, no pun intended. Hey, it pays well. Someone should make a video. I am understandably concerned that this is, like, the cumulative end mission of the Alpha. (jk, mostly)

P.S. There's several more ore at least lying around with the new update. Like lots, it seems so far. Around 3 or 4 km out I see them. I doubt they respawn or anything, but I hope they eventually get scattered far and wide at the least. (OOOOH! Blown out of volcanoes as you go by... jk, mostly)

When you get a new ship, you can exchange or buy.
If you exchange, your ship is stored where you left it.

Pretty much the first set of engines you get are underpowered.

Each base with a hangar indicates which ships you can buy there in the map view.

When you are in the hangar you can see all the upgrades offered at that base; in the map view you can only see the ones that apply to the ship you are flying.

Some upgrades can be sold back and some can't. Some seem like red herrings. If you buy an upgrade and don't like it you may have to go to another base to switch back.

The engines that add power are good; essential even.

Fuel tanks are good, but you should probably have upgraded the engines before adding all that fuel weight for takeoff.

For Ox: first engine upgrade is available at Raglor and fuel tanks are available at Astlan-1 among other places.
I like to buy Ballena at Deep Crater because the first engines, +30% wing, and chasis upgrade is there. (It's a lot.)

Wings that add lift are good; it seems a little superfluous at first but a practical aspect is that it lowers the airspeed at which you can switch to and get control in fixed wing.

And of course you may prefer the third engines and the magic cargo squeezers which makes it possible to pick up ore and other heavy things like construction materials in Ox. Even though ore doesn't fit the door.

Fuel, it seems, is more of a constant flow when the engines are on VTOL, but it flows faster when they are on full. If you give no inputs and shut off the hover throttle no fuel is burned, but that's hard to do for very long unless you want to crash. Every second the engines are on the juice ticks away.

And it IS fuel, because it has weight, which is ok.

In fixed wing, throttling back saves fuel, and I think it slows the rate of engine damage. You can glide for a while, but without any thrust everything eventually goes to hell. No power water landing? I don't think so, but maybe.

But it takes a fair bit of fuel to come in smooth and slick in VTOL, and you'll soon see why taxiing is worth your while. Even if you are good it takes a couple or more hundred juice to move over a small distance. Save that for your flight. Use the taxi motors; they're in your wheels.

Long range I figured to start out, for safety, about 500 to 1k on either end and about 100 fuel, maybe as low as 75, per km. Super conservative, but I also don't dawdle. I get up, I point my nose in the right direction and get going.

A rule of thumb to start with is x00 fuel gets you easily x km, so at 8000 with the first engines you have no problem going 63.5k to Raglor with the basic engines and having plenty to land. 5000 fuel will not generally make it first flights, but your recovery drone will go there if you get close enough. You can also land in the water and call a repair drone. Do it before you completely run out.

It actually is possible on 5k juice to get from Raglor to the 'home' spaceport. If you get good at flight mode and get it up to speed (altitude!), throttle down some, and also glide for a bit at the end, you can get pretty far on a tank. However, be conservative at first when planning. My ranges are getting pretty good this way. I do have the upgraded engines.

Get up to the highest altitude you can and get moving as fast as you can. Start slowing down the engines at 20k away in Ox, less in Ballena.

Mileage will vary... land fast, but do it slow and easy. Tiny moves.
Learn to use constant thrust mode and come in nice and controlled, but sometimes you need to just get down. I will just come in by feel if I'm in a hurry. Watch the guages a bit, but don't chase them. Watch the ground.

Again, if you want to save a mission or cargo, you can land in the water and call a drone even from far away. Keep hitting map until it comes up; the ship has to settle. Having trouble getting it to settle? Switch to fixed wing and/or open the hatch. Floating behaviour has been implemeted; you may have to sink to the bottom.

Get out of the water quickly to avoid more damage when the drone is done.

It may be expensive to call for mobile repair, but it's really not that hard to make a lot of money once you can land the thing reliably.

You don't die, but your passengers do, and your cargo rolls out and gets damaged.

In general, get repaired at a hangar or wreck it. If you wreck where you can reach it; you may be able to get the cargo. If you land it and push the cargo out and then self destruct you may be able to get the cargo. The cargo will litter the landscape if you don't learn to fly.

If you can, switch to a small ship to retrieve cargo in weird places. You can set it on the pad and pick it up with the bigger ship when you switch back.

Calling a drone is expensive, kind of ridiculously so at first. You have to land without wrecking to call in a drone. You can do this in the water if you need to. This has it's own problems though.

I did bang up the ship with passengers on board, and called in a drone then, to, you know, play the game, but otherwise probably roll with it early on. But if you just carried a cargo half way across the map and didn't damage it landing in the water, it might be worth it.

It's the only place to get credit in the game! Repair charges will put you in debt if you are broke, and then you can't buy freight.

You can always start over and/or go back to the small ship for a while. You might have to if you lose enough money.

Watch your rate of climb/descent. Arrest it. If you get in trouble: flick full throttle and regain control. Don't get too happy on your forward speed unless you have air in front of you. Use your eyes on the terrain. Watch the guages. Good luck. Have fun.

Just a few words (when I started!) to let you know that the game is completely playable, it's possible to fly and land, and that it's a lot of fun. A very large lot of fun.

Is the story fleshed out? Not really. There are some "missions", but you have to be able to fly that far, literally, and they are annoyingly cryptic and not many at all, really.

Is there active development? Holy crap, there's (sort of) active development. Things have improved visibly with the newest Alpha update. (pretty) They promise a lot and deliver a little bit at a time with no update logs, but updates occur.

Is their English tragic? A little. Yes. Do you know how many languages Czechs have to work with?

So what. Who cares. Have you flown this thing?

WHO'S GOING TO BUY A GAME WITH NO GUIDE? IDK, because here's a guide.

There's no night and day yet that I've seen. I might just have to wait long enough.Their PR says it's coming. I think the sun might actually move though, not sure either yet.
But the weather does change, and it's kind of awesome sometimes. Some of it is mission triggered, but I think some general variability has been unlocked from progesion. (some nice changes to this behaviour as of 11/30) Storms come and go. Transitions were a little abrubt, but again some updates to this behaviour seen. Wind is blocked by the terrain, so that your landing can be in a wind protected area, or not. The bases are varied and distinct with distinct terrain. You get to know them. The new updates to changing weather and the hard ceiling are a great step forward, a lot of challenge! There are mountains and other things now much higher than the ceiling sometimes. (Cargo Spaceways! confirmed! Just had to wait it out.) I don't find it immersion breaking, as one reviewer complained. I actually find it (mostly) immersion making.

Let's not forget that the (apparent) plan was for Cargo Spaceways to move around eventually, too.

There's a lot here, not a whole lot of actual story yet, but a fair bit. You have to be able to 1. fly the ship (Ox!), and 2. do some of the stuff to get the weather to unlock and trigger the game events that there are which require 3. buying the third ship (it seems; idk if the Ox upgrades will unlock the last bit..) to trigger the events. It takes a lot of flying around and if you crash at the end of a long run that one was all for nothing! And so it is possible to spend pleasant hours trying. Landing well is rewarding, period. I hope that there is vast improvement to come in the story and/or missions (still exploring updates, but this is still a little disjointed so far; started new game(s!) so takes a moment yet), but I'm enjoying this game very much.

Just one more run. I won't crash.