Scoring, waves and how a run ends
Six rules, and each one changes how you should play.
The rules
| Event | Effect |
|---|---|
| Aircraft leaves through its assigned edge | +1 point, success counter up |
| Aircraft leaves through any other edge | −1 point and a miss |
| Three misses | Run over |
| Score drops below zero | Run over |
| Two aircraft collide | Run over |
| Every 10 points | Next wave |
A wrong exit costs two points
You lose the point you had and forfeit the one you were about to earn, plus a third of your miss budget. A plane drifting towards the wrong edge therefore outranks a conflict that is not yet imminent: the conflict may cost one altitude drag, the wrong exit is a guaranteed two-point swing on a timer.
If a plane will not turn in time, turn it parallel to the wrong edge instead. It clutters your sector, but it has not scored against you.
What a wave changes
A wave arrives every 10 points and changes two things at once.
Arrivals speed up. The spawn interval starts at 5 seconds and drops half a second per wave, with a floor of 1.5:
| Wave | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seconds between arrivals | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 2.0 | 1.5 |
Wave 8 is the real wall: survive it and traffic never arrives faster again.
Aircraft also fly faster. They spawn between 60 and 110, multiplied by 8% per wave above the first, so by wave 10 the multiplier is 1.72 and a fast plane crosses the sector at nearly 190. The warning band stays 75 pixels wide all game, so speed eats your reaction window.
Use the speed slider
Selected aircraft have a speed slider running 50 to 250, and most players never move it.
Slowing a plane widens your reaction window, spaces two aircraft heading for the same exit without turning either, and parks one you have set up but cannot watch. The cost is clutter. Speeding up does the reverse: a plane lined up with clear air ahead goes to 250 and leaves your sector, and your attention, sooner.
Misses are a budget
Spending one deliberately is sometimes right. If fixing a wrong-exit plane means turning it through two others at the same level, take the miss: it costs two points, a collision costs the run.
Early on the score floor tightens this. At a score of 1, one wrong exit puts you at zero and the next ends the run.
Where leaderboard scores come from
Every finished run is stored with its score, wave, successes and misses, split by singleplayer and multiplayer and by game mode. Guest accounts play the full game but stay off the public leaderboard, so register an account if you want your runs to count.