Airheart Beginner Tips

READ THIS BEFORE YOU START A NEW GAME, or if you get stuck in the tutorial mission, or to answer a few basic questions that the game doesn't explain very well.

Before you start!

This game has literally no in-game help or explanations of any kind. So before you start playing, or before you continue with my little guide and asking me questions in the comments below... please in the name of everything holy...
READ THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL HERE FIRST! <--Click it. You know you want to. Or, you should have a PDF copy saved in your Airheart game directory, too.

"But... I hate reading manuals!"

No, trust me, it will help this time. So go ahead and read it. Seriously. I'll wait for you to finish that.

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Alrighty then, moving on.

The tutorial mission

I've seen several Youtube videos where people got confused about what to do during the tutorial mission (where the instructor tests you to give you your fishing/flying license). So here is a brief description to help you out.

The tutorial mission has a few tasks that you have to complete one after the other.

1. Northwest from your starting position you see a bunch of junk floating around. This is "scrap" which you will use in your crafting bench later to build new stuff, so "crash" into it to pick it all up.
   
2. There are five "golden" trees in the area, fly through them to complete this objective. If you are too far away to see them, there will be small gold star icons at the edge of the screen indicating which direction you need to go to find them.
   
3. Fly through the middle of the stone arches, there are three sets of arches and they are all close together.
   
4. Collect three fish by "crashing" into them. Each fish is worth a small amount of oil, which converts to cash money if you survive and land back home later.
   
5. There are two targets posted on the side of rocks. Shoot them.
   
6. There are three drone enemies flying around now. They will not shoot at you though. Shoot all three. They won't die, they just continue to float around like idiots.
   
7. Two more drones need to be shot to unlock the lift platform... but you can't use the elevator yet.
   
8. To the southeast is a little tower with weird little walls on three sides. Use your harpoon and then reel it in to pull the shield walls off of the tower.
   
9. Go home and land in one piece.

This, as far as I know, is the only "mission-based" part of the game. After this, your goals are simple: collect oil and scraps from fishing or killing pirates, keep moving up to new levels in the sky, and eventually defeat/capture the sky whale. And don't die trying to get things done because you lose your current cargo (and possibly your plane) if you crash and burn.

Tips for flying, fishing, and fighting

The top of your screen shows your HP, your equipped gun, and the amount of oil currently in your cargo (not your total money). If your HP goes to zero, you crash and burn.

When you first enter a level, you see the bottom of the screen has a white/grey bar and a star with a number after it. The white bar is the current "good" fish population, the grey bar is the population of "worthless" fish. If the fish population drops too far, they don't grow back. You want a lot of white bar and much less grey bar if you're fishing for profit. The stars are how many "secrets" you found on that level already. Secrets are usually things like gold trees (usually have health kit hiding in the branches), treasure chests you find on islands, oil tanks you find by shooting big black rocks, etc.

After you clean out most of the fish that are worth oil/money, new types of fish start to appear that are TOTALLY WORTHLESS and just waste your time. Once you become familiar with which fish are worthless, SHOOT THEM ON SIGHT to reduce their population in order to make more room for the good fish to repopulate. Fish typically have very low HP so don't shoot at them unless you want them dead. Dead fish don't give you any oil. In this picture, the blue jellyfish are worthless and the yellow fish are cheap but still good.

When you return home, you will need to descend through all the previous levels to get there. Make sure you steer your plane to avoid hitting any of the islands on the way down, and aim for the white circle on your home island's landing strip. You can still die on your way down if you hit an island!

Different fish are worth different amounts of oil.
Oil converts directly to cash money 1 oil = 1 coin after you land at home.
If you crash and burn, you lose all the oil in your cargo, but keep whatever you previously stored at home or on a zeppelin.

The zeppelins come in three varieties:
- "GP" mark: fly close and hit "interact" button to trade in your oil cargo for cash, so that you don't lose it in case you crash and burn before going home.
- "geometric" mark: fly close and hit "interact" button to buy a temporary new gun that lasts until next time you land.
- "X" mark: pirate mini-boss that will try to kill you. Blow this guy out of the sky for nice loot. He usually is found blocking the lift platform, so you can't go further up until he dies.

If there are enemies nearby, the lift platform will be CLOSED, and will have a bunch of red "X" marks around it. If this is the case, you can only go higher after killing all the enemies in the area. This picture shows what it looks like when the lift platform is open for business. Notice the HP bar around that other plane is GREEN because it is just another fisherman, not a violent pirate.


There are two "health kits" in the game:
- one is an actual health kit, it does not move on its own and does not have a tail and fins. It restores a bit of HP when you fly through it.
- one is actually a "big fish" in disguise, it moves on its own and has a tail and fins. Shoot it with a harpoon and then tow it home to collect something (a weapon, airplane part, or scrap) from it.

Occasionally you will see crates, usually on the little islands. Fly into them to expose their loot, then collect the loot - it won't just automatically add the loot to your cargo!

Sometimes blasting a pirate will drop a weapon box that changes your equipped gun. Notice this weapon icon at the top/center of your screen has a timer bar under it. Think of it as a trial version of the weapon. Buy or craft the parts at home and you can build all of these weapons to get "permanent" versions later.

"Big fish" can't be collected just by flying through them. You have to hit them with the harpoon and then land safely at home to collect their oil.

Whales can't be harpooned immediately, you have to shoot them a few times to weaken them first. When they start to glow, you can harpoon them.

You can only have one thing harpooned at a time. Some things (small fish and real health kits) you can collect by swinging the harpoon around until it hits your plane. Other things (loot crates, big fish, etc.) you can only collect by landing at home while it is still harpooned to you. You can even harpoon other planes! It helps to hold them still so you can shoot them and they can't dodge or shoot. Bringing home a plane or turret will win you some scrap that is needed to build whatever weapon it had equipped.

Usually the police will chase/attack pirates. If you attack a regular fisherman or a friendly zeppelin, the police will come after YOU. Zeppelins will also shoot at you if you shoot them first, but you can harpoon them to keep them from shooting and they drop a TON of loot if you kill one.

Remember that tutorial mission where you had to pull the walls off of a little tower? Well, some enemy turrets and even some of the pirate planes have those walls, too, and you have to remove or destroy them before your bullets can penetrate through to do damage. You don't need to remove ALL of them, just the ones blocking the angle you intend to shoot through. You can also pull turrets off of a tower with the harpoon, if you can hit get the armor plates out of the way first.

Tips for the shop and workbench

The shop should be self-explanatory. Spend money to buy parts and guns for your planes. It's expensive, and everything you can buy can also be built if you have the right supplies. However, some of the things you can build cannot be bought in the shop.

The workbench is a little strange at first glance. There are two main menus here. The first is Ideas, which is basically where you get hints about new recipes but only if you have enough supplies to build one. Then there is the inventions menu where it shows items you've previously built.

When you are trying to build something, you can do it in two ways. If it is your first time building that particular thing, you must use the first method. If you previously made one, you can do that or use the second method.

1. Input the entire recipe one ingredient at a time from the "Ideas" menu.
If you look at the "ideas" tab it will give you a hint to what recipes you can build with your current supplies. Supplies from the different categories are shown by different colored dots below the icon for the expected result, and the color of the expected result icon will tell you what TYPE of item you will make. Basic scrap is grey, metal works are yellow, pyrotechnics are red, ammo cases are purple, etc. Resources that are only used to build other components are square icons. Parts and weapons that you can equip onto a plane have different corners, they are octagons.

2. Go to the appropriate section in the "inventions" menu where it shows the item that you already built. Click the icon to build it again without the hassle of inputting the whole recipe.

Pay attention to the cash cost associated with each recipe. Crafting costs a little money in addition to the required supplies. If you punch in an incorrect recipe and the crafting FAILS, you keep the supplies but you still lose the money for the attempt.

Once you have purchased or built parts or weapons, remember to equip them on your plane in the hangar if you want to use them. Word of advice: don't equip any new parts until you reach the Autumn Forest (which is level 5 or 6, takes roughly 45 minutes to reach it if you're in a hurry) AND the Snow Crest Altitudes (which is level 10 I think) if you want to earn the two achievements for getting there using only your default plane. After that, leave the hangar in a plane built of parts from three different sets to earn another achievement. After that, fly your favorite/best plane or test different parts combinations your way.

Various parts have special abilities. Make sure to read the description before you decide what to buy or equip for your plane. These abilities are described in the instruction manual, but here it is again in case you forgot:


Someone else already posted a decent Workshop Recipe Guide, so I'll say no more about the crafting process.

How to collect loot

Scrap

Pieces of scrap can be returned home in order to become useful materials for your crafting workbench. Find them by:

• destroying enemy aircraft/drones
  
• destroying the gun upgrade zeppelin with the geometry emblem on its back
  
• destroying turrets/towers
  
• pulling shield walls off of various enemies
  
• opening "secret" chests
  
• harpooning enemy aircraft/drones and towing them home
  
• harpooning turrets and towing them home

Oil

Oil can be converted to coins when you return home, coins can be spent in the shop to buy new weapons and plane parts, or in the workbench to build new stuff. Get oil by:

• shooting the big black "secret" rocks (up to five times)
  
• catch a fish by flying directly into it, different fish are worth different values
  
• destroy the zeppelin that trades your oil for cash, with the "GP" icon on its back
  
• harpooning and destroying an explosive barrel sometimes drops an oil barrel pickup
  
• harpoon a fish and tow it home
  
• harpoon a whale and tow it home

Weapopns and Parts

On rare occasions you might find a complete weapon or plane part.

• tow an enemy aircraft home on your harpoon
  
• open a "secret" chest

Temporary weapons

These weapon pickups give you a different gun, but they only last about half a minute. Health kits restore a bit of HP (I think it's 10 in normal mode and 5 in hard mode).

• Destroy an enemy aircraft, drone, or turret/tower
  
• Open a "secret" chest
  
• Fly through a "secret" golden tree

Some of the more advanced and rarer scrap items can only be found on the higher levels.

Happy sky-fishing!