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Airship
August 26, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Added the airship-only third-person camera and its key, the winter-islands and maximum upgrade tiers, airship colour customisation, and how to respawn a stuck airship
The airship is the primary means of transportation in Solarpunk. Players use it to travel between the floating islands that make up the game world. The airship runs on electricity from an onboard battery that is recharged by its solar panels, and it uses directional propellers to fly.
The airship's solar panels charge an onboard battery during daylight, so flight ties into the same renewable theme as the rest of the game. Because the weather system affects conditions in the sky, players keep an eye on the weather when planning long flights. The energy system is also what determines how long the airship can stay airborne between rests.
Each player builds and customizes their own airship. In co-op sessions, every player has a personal airship rather than sharing a single group vessel, so players can explore separately or fly out together. Exploring distant islands is a core part of progression and opens up new resources to bring home.
The weather system includes wind that affects airship flight. Wind direction and strength change over time and can push the airship off course while the player is steering, so flying between distant islands means accounting for the conditions along the way. An optional simplified flight mode is available in which wind no longer affects the airship.
Solarpunk is played in first person on foot, but there is a third-person camera and it is tied to the airship. While flying, PC players can switch to the third-person view by pressing T. It is the only place in the game where the camera pulls back from the player character, so it is worth using when lining up a landing or simply watching the islands go past.
As Solarpunk players progress, the airship can be upgraded across several axes that together determine how far it can fly, how much it can carry, and how steady it is in bad weather.
Upgrade Track | What It Affects |
|---|---|
Solar panels | How quickly the onboard battery recharges in daylight |
Battery capacity | Total flight range between rests on an island |
Engine performance | Cruise speed and acceleration when correcting course |
Rudder | Manoeuvrability when wind tries to push the ship off course |
Storage | How many resources the player can ferry home in a single trip |
Airship upgrades are not only about speed. Upgrading far enough opens up the winter islands, a distinct part of the world that a starting airship cannot reach, and the upgrade track continues past that to a maximum tier. Both milestones have their own achievements, which is a reliable sign that they are genuine progression gates rather than incremental stat bumps.
The airship can also be repainted. Colour customisation is in the shipped build and is purely cosmetic, so it costs you nothing in range or carrying capacity.
Top up the battery before takeoff. The energy system lets players park the airship near a base battery bank and charge it before a long flight, so the trip starts with a full reserve.
Pick a clear-weather window. The weather system affects both solar charging and the wind that pushes the airship; storms slow recharging and complicate steering.
Plan return capacity. Storage is finite, so trips out to a distant island are constrained by how much the ship can carry back rather than by how much is available out there.
In multiplayer sessions, each player has their own airship, so groups can run two or three trips in parallel rather than queueing on a single shared vessel.
An airship that ends up wedged in terrain can be respawned from the menu, which lifts it upward into open air so it can be flown again. A separate option respawns your character. Both are covered in more detail on Death and Respawn, along with what to do if you end up back on the main island while your airship is parked somewhere else.
