The situation

Near-future scrap-yard aviation. You’re the Operator of a leased drone crew that takes dirty contracts nobody else wants. Dispatch radios the call, you fly the bird, you cash out. The city doesn’t care — until someone calls the cops.

How to fly

• WASD — slide the drone
• Mouse / Q·E — yaw (nose left/right)
• R / F — climb / drop altitude
• 1–5 — arm a rack bay (Market Mart / Stash / Emergency supply)
• Click — drop what’s armed
• J — fire a signal jammer (if you bought charges)

Watch the D-cell next to the radar — that’s pack juice. Green to yellow to red. Career runs: clear the calls, then RTB to the hex base.

Contract types

• Special delivery — pay to drop on Karens (and idiot drivers). After a few hits, someone calls police.
• Market Mart — numbered packages. Match rack bay to porch.
• Stash — weed / alcohol / sniffy bays. Police already patrol these runs.
• Tag & track — magnetic trackers onto moving cars and trucks. Sometimes a diplomat limo with police escort — or a ten-car heist ring for PD.
• Heavy hauler — AC units and roof steel. Hover to load, haul, hover to unload. Hauler bird only. Thin pack. Some days the wind's 20 mph+.
• Emergency supply — numbered kits like groceries. Match bay to pad (water, meds, batteries…). Wrong kit or a miss: RTB for another. Tight clock. Small pads. Always a hard gale.
• Recovery — hover-grab lost crates, bags, phones, crashed birds. Bring them home.
• Photo recon — hold over pins, snap shots, leave before police cook you.
• Signal relay — hover in the rings until the comms link locks. Wind will try to shove you out.
• Power restore — seat a module at a rooftop utility box (made-up substations).
• Advertisement drop — paper a marked block with flyers. Illegal. Cops already know.
• Trash run — sanitation interrupted; grab the bags, then hover-dump at the bright yellow/red city dumpster (street in the brief).

Fleet birds

• Runner — everyday workhorse. Six deliveries per sortie. Starter bird for porch work (Mart, special, stash, most gigs). Fast enough for city loops; not a heavy lifter.
• Hauler — heavy lift only. AC units, steel, roof gear. Zero porch rack — you hover to load and dump. Required for Heavy hauler contracts. Slow and loaded when the cargo’s on the hook.
• Sprite — paid upgrade. Quicker pack, snappier yaw, three deliveries per sortie. Great for speed runs; bigger boards mean more RTB reloads.

Hull write-offs. Crash a bird on a career run (tower, crane, police microwave) and that airframe is gone. Dispatch bills a replacement out of your career bank — Runner about $2,800, Hauler about $4,500, Sprite $6,000. If you’re broke, you still get a pity loaner so you can keep flying — and dispatch will roast you for it. The Fleet bay tracks how many you’ve destroyed and how much hull money you’ve burned.

Bay upgrades

• Motors — accelerate / top speed (edge past police).
• Battery — more pack storage.
• Gimbal — snappier lean in the view.
• Stabilizer — four kits: 10%, 25%, 50%, then 80% less wind on the bird and the falling load. Vane still shows the real gale.
• Signal jammer — overload capacitors, blind all police for a few seconds. Hold up to 3. Press J.

Police drones

Lanes

• Free Flight — practice bank, pick any job, learn the map.
• Career — real cash, rotating contracts, upgrades that stick.
• Accolades — mission medals in the patch locker. 100 Line Runner, 250 Drop Hand, 500 Route Veteran, 1,000 Contract Ace, 1,500 Airspace Ghost, 2,000 Master Operator, 5,000 The Dropper.
• Rank — Cadet / Operator / Flight Specialist: fewer or more stops, fatter or thinner pack.