Pilot

One requires brains and reflexes to be nicknamed Will Smith.

Intro

Pilot allows you to operate any air-based vehicle in HellMOO, from simple ultralights to heavily armed gunships. It is an excellent skill for those seeking to explore HellMOO, with some areas being exclusive to those who can traverse the skies.

Getting started

• Piloting is a fairly dangerous activity. With low pilot skill, it's easy to spiral out of control with a very likely chance of you slamming into the ground with a fiery explosion. But fear not, there are a couple ways to raise your pilot skill relatively safely. Your first few levels in pilot should be gained from learning from a corpmate or other such helpful player. If you're the anti-social type, the npc Bryce at the Slagtown airstrip is available teach you (for a fee of course). If you're feeling adventurous, you could grind with any easily found respawning aircraft, like the enteman bomber in New Clearwater, though it's highly unadvised. Once you get around 15 or so total pilot skill you might be ready to purchase your first flyer (with an insurance policy, of course).
• Alternatively you could gain pilot from "piloting" a boat. If you have a friend or corpmate with a boat, or have the ability to buy or steal one - This is the safest way to earn pilot as you can't currently crash a boat and also requires less xp investment than learning the skill from a player or npc. See: Boating.
• On top of that remember to purchase aviator goggles at Simon & Simon Aircraft for a +1 to pilot.

Ownable aircraft

Currently, there are five types of ownable aircraft implemented.

• Prion Gyrocopters, which are incredibly cheap and easy to craft, but are a bit "unresponsive".
• Patton Supaliftas, a type of cargo helicopter.
• Mosquito ultralights, which have low armor and fuel but are fairly cheap.
• Cessna tiltrotors, which have improved armor and fuel, although they cost more than ultralights.
• Dragoon microzeppelins, craft-only flyers with multiple rooms. Vastly superior to both ultralights and tiltrotors.

Ownable aircraft get the benefit of being able to be modified. They can be purchased from Simon & Simon Aircraft (SS on the map) in northwestern Corpclave. It's HIGHLY advised that you buy an insurance module from the Insurance Office below Simon & Simon Aircraft and install it in the cockpit to guard your investment. In the event of the destruction of your aircraft, you get reimbursed for slightly less than what your flyer originally cost, and around half of what the installed mods cost.

Prices

Simon & Simon Aircraft (Corpclave)

a mosquito ultralight                   $ 11,000 (3 in stock)  
a cessna tiltrotor                      $ 55,000 (3 in stock)

Insurance Office (Corpclave)

an ultralight insurance policy module   $    150 (3 in stock) 
a cessna insurance policy module        $  1,000 (2 in stock)
a patton insurance policy               $  4,000 (1 in stock)
a microzep insurance policy module      $  5,000 (1 in stack)

Inside the Lonely Hut (Kakuri Island)

a stereo module                         $  3,750 (1 in stock)       
a detonator module                      $  5,250 (1 in stock)       
a groundscan module                     $  9,300 (1 in stock)       
a FoF module                            $  9,750 (1 in stock)       
a dumper module                         $ 12,000 (1 in stock)       
a rangefinder module                    $ 15,000 (1 in stock)       
an eject module                         $ 15,000 (1 in stock)       
a sharpshooter module                   $ 18,750 (1 in stock)

Flying

Before you can even takeoff, you need to fuel your flyer. If you're in the same room as a gas pump, use fuel <craftname> with pump. The only aircraft that doesn't take normal gasoline is the UFO. To start flying, enter the cockpit of your craft of choice and type takeoff. You'll go into a hover. Type ascend and you'll enter free flight. Each room while on the flyer map is one area. For instance, one room while in the flyer map could be the entirety of Freedom City. From here you're free to move about with fly <direction>. If you begin to lose control (I usually correct my plane if I dip below 8 control), level your plane. Be warned that there are flak guns that automatically attack you if you enter certain areas. These are located at Skydock which is towards the east of the flyer map, and all of the Necropolis maps, which are at the far west of the flyer map. Additionally, you have to be wary of adverse conditions such as bad weather and flying at night. Once you're ready to land, type descend to bring up a list of landing sites. Not all areas on the flyer map have landing sites. Once you've chosen a landing area, do descend <roomname> to break into a hover over that landing zone. While hovering, type land to stop hovering and bring your plane to a stop.

Commands and other info

When you're in a flyer, it gives you an information readout like:

 ARMOR [ 3/3 ]  FUEL [ 75/75 ]  LOAD [ 77/150 ]
 CTRL  [ 10/10 ]  ALT [ 20/5000 ]

• ARMOR is your plane's health
• FUEL is how much gas you have. If it hits zero while in the air, you're fucked.
• CTRL is how well the plane is stabilized. If it hits zero you go into a death spiral.
• ALT is how high you are. The higher you are, the longer it takes to hit the ground if you go into a death spiral.
• LOAD is the combined weight of all characters and items in the flyer, including held/stashed items. If the load is too heavy, you will either have trouble trying to fly, or not be able to takeoff at all.

Commands

This is a list of commands compatible with most flyers. Some commands require mods, while some mod-only commands are integrated into special aircraft.

 land - Lands the aircraft if you're hovering.
 
 takeoff - Takeoff into a hover.
 
 ascend - Ascend from a hover into full flight.
 
 descend <something> - Descend from full flight and hover over your targeted landing zone.
 
 fly <something> - Move in a given direction if you're in full flight.
   
 target <something> - Train your weapons on something.
   
 fire - Unleash your weapons on your designated target.
 
 gscan - With a groundscan module installed, scan for living creatures.
   
 evade - Take evasive action, making you harder to hit.
   
 level - Attempt to level and regain control.
   
 dock with <something> - Docking with structures like the skydock.
 
 sf - Shows aircraft modules.
   
 insurance - Checks the insurance status (if any) of the aircraft.

Sky map

You can find a detailed map of the skies here.