Walkthroughs

How to rule the skies: Pocket Planes hints and tips

Casual flight

How to rule the skies: Pocket Planes hints and tips
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| Pocket Planes

NimbleBit, the pocket-sized development studio behind both Pocket Frogs and the equally addictive Tiny Tower, has recently released its brand-new iPhone and iPad title: Pocket Planes.

If you've already played all three titles, you'll know that the most recent game is a darn sight trickier to get to grips with than its predecessors, simply because there are more options to alter, tweak, and fiddle with.

Fear not, though: Pocket Gamer has your back.

The basics

You begin Pocket Planes with a handful of different aircrafts, a few airports, and one mission: create a busting and extremely profitable airline.

This is done, naturally, by gradually increasing the size of your fleet of birds, buying and upgrading airports across some of the worlds most popular tourist locations, and, well, increasing the size of your fleet a little bit more.

Pocket Planes is a free-to-play title, which basically means it's chocked full of in-app purchases that will speed up your progression should you be feeling a little lazy. Thankfully, much like in the company's past attempts at App Store domination, these are far from essential.

So, there are two types of currency to think about in this title. The most common of these, coins, can be earned in large amounts throughout play, and can be spent on a range of different things, such as building airports in new cities.

The game's rarer currency, Bux, can be earned in smaller amounts as you progress, or purchased for real-world cash. These are used to instantly complete a flight, buy new parts for your crafts, and much more.

Your planes

In Pocket Planes, you start with four small aircraft - all of which can carry either passengers or cargo. You earn coins by ferrying these to a variety of different airports.

Naturally, your up-and-coming airline won't get very far with just these, so you'll have to increase the number of planes in your fleet. This is done by clicking the game's menu button and heading into the in-game market.

From here, you can either buy a new plane outright or purchase a plane's separate parts (should they be available) - both of which cost Bux. The latter method, however, is slightly cheaper, so we suggest you take that route whenever you can.

The planes that you own can also be upgraded, increasing the size of their fuel tanks, improving their maximum distance, and decreasing their weight. Although this is beneficial later on in the game, we would suggest that you don't spend too much time (or your hard-earned Bux) doing this until you've established a reasonably sized company.

Don't spend your premium currency to speed-up your flights, either, as it's a waste. Be patient, wait for the flights to end, and focus on increasing the size of your fleet.

Your airports

Airports are similar in that you only start with a handful. You can purchase additional airports by tapping the small map icon next to this game's menu button, and then tapping on one of the locations that are displayed on the map.

These cost coins, not Bux, by the way.

Now, when you first begin to expand your airline, you'll be tempted to build airports in faraway locations and glamourous hotspots. Instead, snap up the locations that surround the airports you already own, as this will ensure your early planes can make the journey and result in shorter flight times.

If any of your planes can simultaneously carry more than one passenger or piece of cargo, always stock them with items that are travelling to a single location. You'll earn a bunch of extra coins, thanks to a tasty 25 per cent bonus, for doing so.

For those really intent on maximising profits (and want a bit more complication to the gameplay), you can also deliberately drop off cargo and passengers at the wrong airport, creating a 'layover'.

These layovers can then be picked up with another passenger/bit of cargo going to the same airport, thereby activating that sweet bonus payment in the process.

Other tips

It's important that you play Pocket Planes around your current lifestyle. For example, if you can afford to visit the game every five minutes, send your planes on small journeys. The more journeys you make, the more money you make, naturally.

If, on the other hand, you can't grab your iPhone every time you get a notification, long trips are the way to go. There are no penalties for not returning quickly enough after one of your flights touches down on the tarmac, so don't worry about that.

Finally, don't send your aircrafts packing and instantly shutdown Pocket Planes. If you watch one of your planes make its journey, you'll be able to collect extra coins (and occasionally even Bux), which float past at random intervals.

Anthony Usher
Anthony Usher
Anthony is a Liverpool, UK-based writer who fell in love with gaming while playing Super Mario World on his SNES back in the early '90s. When he isn't busy grooming his beard, you can find him replaying Resident Evil or Final Fantasy VII for the umpteenth time. Aside from gaming, Anthony likes hiking, MMA, and pretending he’s a Viking.