How to upgrade your airship in Solarpunk
Overview & Key Takeaways
Solarpunk teases you with an airship upgrade without giving any indication how you go about getting it. It's one of the first potential progress blockers in the game, though even once you've figured it out, it takes a lot of time and intensive material grinding to obtain the upgrade components. There are a few steps you can take to move things along faster, though.
In this guide, we'll show you how to get an airship upgrade in Solarpunk and the most efficient ways to gather the necessary materials.
Solarpunk teases you with an airship upgrade without giving any indication how you go about getting it. It's one of the first potential progress blockers in the game, though even once you've figured it out, it takes a lot of time and intensive material grinding to obtain the upgrade components. There are a few steps you can take to move things along faster, though.
In this guide, we'll show you how to get an airship upgrade in Solarpunk and the most efficient ways to gather the necessary materials.
How to upgrade your airship in Solarpunk
Plan ahead so you can start gathering the necessary materials ahead of time. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Cyberwave, Metaroot
The airship upgrade component comes from the merchant. When you interact with them for a trade, you'll see a line of items at the bottom of the trade menu, with icons indicating rewards and text showing what the merchant wants for them. The upgrade component is the fifth trade in the sequence.
You'll need:
- 4 Watermelon
- 12 Cotton
- 20 Beeswax
- 10 more Watermelon (so that's a total of 14 Watermelon)
- 32 Copper (refined, not ore)
That's a lot of Copper, so make sure to start collecting it while you're waiting for the other materials to grow or be deposited.
You'll find Watermelon growing on the island where the Copper nodes are, west of the merchant's shop. Once you've explored that island, and assuming you've thoroughly explored all of the starting island, you'll have all the cotton you can obtain so far. If you haven't already, it's worth taking the time to unlock the Energy Table at the merchant's shop (by exchanging a blueprint at the research table to the right of the entrance). Then, you can build a sprinkler and a generator to automate watering, so your crops stay hydrated while you're out gathering other materials.
A well-ordered farm makes raising and gathering large quantities of crops less of a chore. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Cyberwave, Metaroot
For Beeswax, it's a good idea to build at least five apiaries. Otherwise, it'll take ages to get all the wax you need. If you've been regularly harvesting crops after they're ripe, you should have the 10 Watermelon by the time the merchant asks for them.
Getting enough Copper is one of the longest parts of this process. If you set up a drill to farm Copper before you start trading with the merchant, and keep the generator powered on constantly, you should manage to have a decent amount of ore gathered by the time you need it. You can mine the Copper vein manually with a pickaxe (we recommend using the iron pickaxe, since it's more durable) to get more alongside your drill.
Once you get the upgrade component, head back to your airship dock and interact with the console next to the manual. You'll see the option to upgrade is no longer greyed out, and all you need to do is select the "upgrade" button to get the job done — no other materials or time required.
Your upgraded airship can access a handful of new islands with plenty of fresh materials to gather, including Wheat and the Quartz you need to make Silicon. Advanced energy projects are finally within reach, and you can start researching basic animal care, too.
