Ox Upgrades

[super_edd84]

Just bought the ox and attempted the passenger mission but ran out of fuel. I have checked the hanger for upgrades but its still showing the scarab upgrades and nothing for the Ox. Is this a bug or am i missing a key or tab I should be clicking on?

[machinech]

Things to keep in mind... several factors affect your actual flight range (which is shown dynamically at the top of the hud)... Current throttle setting, altitude, environmental conditions. I'll assume you switched to using flight mode after takeoff with hover and gaining some forward speed. The big one here is the throttle setting. Using full burn will chew through your fuel/charge very quickly. Monkey around a bit and find your optimal cruise speed. Setting the thrust to "locked" and adjusting makes that MUCH easier as manual throttle will be erratic. Find the smoothest air you can, watch for warnings, and good luck.

[super_edd84]

Thanks for the reply. I will try again and see if I can make it this time. Are the upgrades locked behind this mission? If it is a bug I dont want to carry on if I need to start a new game.

[DancingDuck]

You'll need to learn to use flight mode to get to Raglor. The first time I tried it I decided to take water and it was too heavy for my in-experience... boom! Then I started trying it empty for practise and it took three screw-ups before I got flight mode to work. Then I got lost in clouds, got just plain lost, got irradiated, got lost again... I'm a slow learner, but it was fun. :) ... ... In the garage on the island at Astlan-1 there is only one upgrade offered for the Ox and that is the Colossus Wing. In the garage on Raglor-Transit they offer L-Barbarian Engines. (I wish these add-ons had more realistic names, most of these sound like they've been stolen from Toy Story*... well, ok, this IS a kind of toy story, but for the sake of my immersion, I'd like better pretend names.) Anyway: If you go to the map and hover over the bases that have a gear/wrench icon, you can see a list of the names (no specs) for each add-on they offer. You'll see you need to make it to Concord, CargoSpaceway (wherever the frack that is), etc. to get a decent choice. And good luck figuring out which ones to get, the specs aren't listed until you're at the garage (unless someone knows where an up-to-date list is, I don't). And they're still confusing. Maybe a more experienced F-Pilot could offer us some advice? Load-outs that have worked for them or a link to where somebody has said all this over again for the eleventh time. Hope this helps more than confuses. May good weather be your blessing.

*Though I guess I'm glad they didn't go all bureaucratic on us and list something like:
"Assembly OX-W-ZA-734128-revB"

[super_edd84]

Thanks for the info about that the other island having upgrades I thought I was missing something.. Ive just tried again to get there in the ox but the winds is against me the entire time, no fuel and crashed 3 times using flight mode and still having 10k to go. I think I will take a break and play something else and come back in the future after another update. I like a challenge but all im doing is losing credits respawning.

[DancingDuck]

My solution for that money problem from crashing so much was to buy two containers of B2 Rations when you re-spawn at Astlan-1 and go sell them at Astlan-Central before going to Estel to crash again trying to get to Raglor. After insurance expenses, fuel ect. (and provided you don't buy any cargo for your practice runs to Raglor), you'll earn more than 3,000 each time you crash. I crashed so many times that I was almost rich by the time I got to Raglor. I kept expecting Astlan-1 to run out of B2 or Astlan-Central not to need any anymore, but it never happened to me. If that's a bug I hope they don't fix it as it's a good way for us newbies to afford to keep spawning and crashing.

But there is some kind of bug [or I don't know how to do it correctly] at Aslan-1 where it would only let me buy one container of B2 at a time. But if you exit trading, roll off the pad, and then roll back on and enter the trading place again, it will let you buy a second container of B2 and happily load it into your OX. You don't have to roll off when you sell them at Astlan-Central, but you do have to exit trading and enter it again. Hope that helps.

P.S. A long time ago I was in the Civil Air Patrol Cadets and got to fly our Piper J-3 around. I wasn't a great pilot, but one reason I kept crashing the OX (my excuse) was that I kept trying to fly the OX like a plane. As a plane it sucks (I've NEVER been able to land it like a plane). I wish the developers would do something about that.

[Solid Snack]

Upgrades are location specific, not ship specific. You've got to fly to different places to find what those stations sell in terms of upgrades for whatever ship you want.

But yeah you should be able to get to Raglor with default Ox no problem - providing you use plane mode. I don't remember whether default Ox configuration is more efficient at low or high speeds - but you could experiment, throw down your flaps all the way and see whether cruising there at minimal thrust at low altitude is more efficient than burning max speed at high altitude.