Skyrates Flight ManualContents
1. The World of Skyrates
2. Technical Information 3. Dashboard 4. Your Character Avatar Page Skill Tree 5. Your Plane Aircraft Page Upgrade Page 6. Log Screen and Options 7. Skyland Screen 8. Trading Post 9. Hangar Services Buying a new Plane Buying Upgrades Patrolling the Skyland 10. Tavern Missions Switching Faction 11. Traveling Action Queue Travel Screen 12. Combat 13. AIM Bot In this game, you'll control a privateer of the sky as you fight, trade, and explore your way to fame and fortune in a fantasy world of floating islands where zeppelins rule the skies! These instructions will guide you through the various features in Skyrates and give you a quick overview of how to start playing the game. In Skyrates, you trade goods and fight pirates in order to make money, upgrade your aircraft, and level-up your character. This game experiments with the concept of sporadic play, which fills the gaps in your day with short play sessions, rather than forcing you to play in one large chunk of time. Playing Skyrates should feel a little like checking your email, if checking your email were fun. Skyrates strives to create meaningful game play for busy people. Many casual games have been played sporadically, but bringing a persistent world to people with only minutes to play is a new challenge. Skyrates is a multiplayer online game that has you taking on the role of an ace pilot trying to conquer the skies. The purchases and choices you make will affect every other player in the world, so whether you're a peaceful trader, a careful diplomat, or a bold fighter, the sky's the limit! "Skytopia is a distant land inhabited by many animal species, some more noble than others. Hundreds of years ago, at the height of a great world war, an unknown force lifted the lands into the sky, nearly annihilating civilization in the process. Many years of darkness passed, and eventually the survivors rebuilt and revived their once great nations. Free of a single, organized government, Skytopia is now plagued by crime and piracy. It's now in your hands, noble Skyrate, to defend the skylands from these ruffians and to provide trade goods and aid to the citizens of Skytopia." Skyrates requires Flash 9 to work correctly, that can be gotten here. Skyrates currently works best running on Windows machines under Mozilla, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Apple machines can play, but occasionally run into troubles in seeing some of the text and seeing upgrades. We are working to fix this error. Additionally, due to how some networks handle cookies and connections, some places have trouble correctly logging in and playing. If something similar happens to you, send us an e-mail and we'd be happy to try and help work out the problem to ensure that everyone can play. 
This is your Skyrates dashboard. Get friendly with it, as it'll be your long time friend in Skyrates! Clicking on the portrait will take you to your character avatar page, where more information can be found about your character's statistics. Clicking on the picture of your aircraft will take you to your plane page, giving information on your plane stats and upgrades. The The radio button will bring up your chat, where you can talk to whatever players are currently playing Skyrates.  The missions button will allow you to see what missions you are currently on, and a log of the missions you have performed. The logs button will display your combat logs (the battles you've fought), your trade logs (the transactions you've made), and your flight logs (where you've flown). The options button will bring up information on different things you can enable/disable in Skyrates. The cargo tab will enable you to see what cargo you are currently carrying.
 The quick nav bar in the upper right of the screen can be used to toggle between the map view and either the skyland view or the travel view.
By clicking on your portait on the dashboard, you can see your character screen. There we can see our character's picture, name, and stats. A character is defined by three key characteristics, flight, trade, and combat. These characteristics display the major traits that define them (flight time, profit, and kills), and the points you've earned by doing these activites. These points can be used to purchase skills on the skill tree. The page displays the current faction you are in on the bottom. When you start off, you'll be in Flight School until you've flown a certain number of hours. At that point, you can apply to join one of the three major factions of Skyrates. Also on this page, you'll be able to see the amount of money that you currently have. The character above has $10000, and that money pouch is looking awfully empty!
The skill tree is where you can purchase abilities in Skyrates. The skills are divided up between combat, flight, and trade.  The bottom navigation bar can be used to navigate the skill tree. Either click on an area to have the scroll move directly to it, or click and drag to pan the scroll yourself. You can also click and drag the skill scroll itself.
You'll notice on the skill page how some skills are completely grayed out. That is because they are dependent on the skills above them. Before you can purchase them, the skills that connect above them must be a greater level. To buy a skill, click on it. The message box at the top will display more information about the skill, and give you the option to buy it if you can. The box to the left of that shows your current skill points.
Clicking on the craft icon will bring up your aircraft page. Here, you can see your aircraft's name, picture, and its stats. A plane is defined primarily by performance, trading, combat, and upgradability. While you can delve into the nitty gritty of your stats, in general you can look at the star rating of your plane. Planes range from 1 to 5 stars, although it's said some upgrades can actually cause it to even surpass the 5 star rating!  Performance - The flightworthiness of the plane. It's maximum speed, minimum speed, and how quickly it can change speeds. Trading - The cargo capacity of the plane and how far it can fly. Combat - How hard the plane hits in combat, how much damage it can take, and how well it can avoid fire. Upgradeability - How customizable your plane is. The upgrades shows how many slots you have available in the order of Engine, Guns, Wings, and Hull. The upgrade weight shows the maximum weight of upgrades you can add.
The upgrade page is designed so that you can see what upgrades your plane currently has installed. The column on the right will show you how your upgrades are actually affecting your plane. Red numbers mean detrimental effects, green means beneficial effects. The upgrade system can be used to craft the plane of your dreams, but just remember that strapping on that extra cargo hold may just slow your plane down a bit! White boxes represent an area where an upgrade is installed, blank boxes show a free upgrade slot. Not all your areas will have an upgrade slot. In the above example, we only have two wing mount slots, and 1 wing upgrade installed. Clicking on an installed upgrade will display information about it in the bottom box. Log Screen
The log screen is where you can track your Skyrate's recent activities. The trade log displays your Skyrate's transactions in goods, ships, and upgrades. The combat log displays your Skyrate's recent combat record. The flight log displays where your Skyrate has flown recently. Options
The options displays a number of the toggleable items of Skyrates. The text notification section enables/disables the AIM client who will IM you when your Skyrate encounters pirates in the air, or when it has landed. Main Sounds Enabled enables/disables some of the notification and button clicks of the interface. It defaults to off. Combat Sounds Enabled enables/disables the sound effects in combat. These sounds can also be enabled/disabled when actually involved in combat. It defaults to off. Pop-up Help Enabled will make it so that whenever you visit a screen, a little pop up notification will appear that tells you a little bit about that page. It defaults to on. Auto-Service is used for when queueing up flights with the action queue. It defaults to Never. Never means you will always have to manually set your Skyrate to service the plane. This lets you determine exactly when your Skyrate needs to refuel. Always means your Skyrate will always service the plane right before he leaves a Skyland. This ensures your bases are covered all the time, but may waste a little bit of time, as servicing takes time on a Skyland, and isn't always needed. Only When Fuel Needed means your Skyrate will automatically refuel the plane whenever they need to have maximum fuel range to get to the next Skyland.
This is the Skyland Screen. Here you can interact with the various business on a Skyland.    The Hangar is where you can get your plane serviced, can purchase new planes, and patrol the Skyland. The Trader is where you can buy or sell goods. The Tavern is where you can get missions and switch faction. Each of these can be accessed by either clicking their icon, or pressing their appropriate hotkey. The quicknav bar can be clicked on to toggle between the Skyland view and the Map view.
The trader is where you can buy and sell goods throughout the Skylands. The trade circle shows the twelve tradable goods in Skyrates. These range in general rarity from wood The bars on the outside of the trade circle represent the stockpile of the Skyland. Longer bars imply that the Skyland has more of that item. Additionally, the color scheme represents the scarcity on the Skyland.  The inside of the lavender circle marked, "Your Cargo Hold" displays how many items you currently have. In this case, we have 7 bread and 10 fish. Clicking on the Cargo Hold tab on the dashboard will bring up a visual display of your cargo hold.  Clicking on a good on the main trading ring will bring up arrows to determine buying and selling.
You can use the arrows to change the amount of projected goods you will buy, and this will be reflected in the bar on the right of the trading screen. The gray represents goods you have in your cargo bay. The white is empty space. The red arrows represent the projected amount of cargo you will have after a buy or sell.
When finally satisfied with your purchases, click on the Buy or Sell button to commit your transaction.
The services area is where you can refuel your plane, get new loads of ammo, and patch up your armor. You can use the arrows on each of three bars to adjust how much of each you want, or just click Get the Works to fill everything to max. When you're satisfied, click Purchase to commit!
Once you've saved up enough money, maybe it's time to trade in that old Junker and invest in something nice! Each Skyland usually sells one of two planes, that you can access via the top tabs. You'll be able to see the stats and star ratings of each plane, a description, and the firing arcs. The pricetag is the price of the plane you're interested in. The tradein value is 25% of the cost of your current plane. If you've truly found the plane of your dreams, click Buy Craft. For a listing of all the planes, go here.
Here you can see the different kits available for fitting out your plane. Upgrades the skyland has are on the left. Your craft upgrades will be displayed on the right. Blank areas are empty spots where you can fit an upgrade. Click on one of the Skyland upgrades to see how it compares to what you have. When interested, try installing it. Be concious of the weight of the upgrade though, as you can't exceed your maximum capacity (displayed in the upper right of this screen). You can also click on one of the upgrades you currently have to take it off of your plane.
At each Skyland, you will find that pirates are constantly raiding. You can sign up for quick instant combats by clicking on the Pilots Wanted poster. This will take you directly to combat, so be ready!
The tavern is where you try to curry favor with the denizens of the Skyland. There you can talk to the various inhabitants of the tavern to gain missions ranging from simple transportation of goods to attempting to eliminate pirates from the skies! Click on the Factions can win influence on the Skyland by performing missions. The faction with the highest rank will have their flag waving over the Skyland! Be careful about the risk involved! HIGH RISK missions will get you attacked more in the air! Switching Faction
After a new pilot has traveled for a certain number of flight hours, they can join one of the three factions. These three vie for control of the Skylands of the world. You can switch faction, but this will cause all the influence you have gained to be completely negated! The factions don't like traitors!
Clicking on the Map button on the Quickbar should take you to the map.
Here you can see the Skylands of Skytopia, along with the island you're on circled in green. There should also be a white circle around the Skyland to show you your effective range from that Skyland. You can zoom in either with the scroll wheel of your mouse (for Windows machines), or the magnifying glasses in the upper right. Zooming in on your Skyland will show something like the following:
The white circle around a Skyland represents the range of your plane. Here, we have actually pulled up our cargo tab and have clicked on the fish icon. The map is mostly used for plotting trades and exploring. When clicking on a certain item, all Skylands that have that commodity will be colored a shade corresponding to how much of that item they have. You can also mouseover the Skylands now to have their trade ring expand to be more visible. The bar size and their color represents how much the Skyland has of that commodity.
In this way, you can determine what trades to make. A good trade may involve flying something that is plentiful to an area where it is Scarce.
So next we click on Juliet and we get the option to Plot a Flight there from Aleut. We click on that option.
And now on the bottom we can see an action queue forming. Now you can see the green circle has moved around the Skyland itself, as we're projecting where we will be. Note, we won't actually be flying there until we click on Start Flight. When queuing, we can queue up services (refilling fuel), trades (which perform similar to the trading post, except they need to be projected in the future), or you can hunt around a Skyland. Hunting is used when you want to find more combats.
The use waypoint button can also be used to make more complex flight paths. If you click on Show Danger in the upper right...
You can see the black areas that represent dangerous pirate filled areas. Waypoints are handy for when you realize that the straight path may not always be the best one! For the most part though, you should be safe just clicking on the Skyland you want to go to, and clicking Plot Flight there. Remember to click Start Flight when you're ready to start your action queue!
So now that you've started your flight, you're in the air! Skyrates travel in real time, so in the above example, it will take your Skyrate 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to Juliet. You can click on the Map icon in the quick nav to return to the map to edit your Action Queue if you wish. The icon in the lower left marked 'Combat, Click to Fight!' means your Skyrate has encountered a combat while flying. Here, if you click on it, you will be taken to the combat screen where you can fight the battle yourself. If you don't want to deal with the combat, just let it sit there, and your Skyrate will take care of it when the current leg of the action queue finishes. He may not be as good as you are, but he'll certainly try his best!
So now you're in combat! Here you're given a little information on how you and the enemies are squaring off! Learn what words like 'Fleeing' and 'Chasing' mean! You can now either click to fight, or click to bribe. Bribe gives the pirates a little bit of your money and allows you to get the heck out of there.
Once you've clicked to fight, you will find your plane in the center of the screen with a green firing arc. You control it via WASD. W, Up arrow- Speed up S, Down arrow- Slow down A, Left arrow- Turn left D, Right arrow- Turn right Holding space - Fire! You can see your speedometer in the upper left. Over that is an audio symbol you can use to disable/enable combat audio. The top of the screen shows your total bullets (in this case, 988) and your total armor (2/3). In the upper right, if things start getting too hairy, pull the lever to bribe and get the heck out of combat.
Maneuvers are one of the things that separate the good fighter from the great fighter. You gain maneuvers from the skill tree. To perform a maneuver, press the SHIFT button, followed by arrow keys. Each of the maneuvers in the game corresponds to different key presses. Each maneuver costs a certain amount of black out, that is displayed in the bar on the right. As that fills up, gradually your pilot's awareness will drop, and seeing things will get harder. Given a bit of time, their black out will go down and they'll be able to perform another maneuver. Pressing P will pause the game, and enable you to see the controls and the maneuvers available to you. Remember, not all planes can perform all the maneuvers! Try to see a blimp perform a loop. It's not pretty, I assure you.
Winning battle will net you riches and combat points. Careful though, losing combats will cause your ship to be reduced to one shield, and part of your cargo to be stolen! This system is currently under construction. Our free AIM library doesn't work so hot. More to come... including email notification.
Additional Questions? Ask Away! Email beta@skyrates.net |
will prompt your Skyrate to offer you some help about the page that you're currently on.
to unobtainum 
. Most every Skyland will trade in the first ten trade goods, but you'll have to find special vendors to buy and sell the extreme items like diamons and unobtanium!
to talk to a person in the Tavern. 
