iOS/Android Upgrade Screen
The Loadout is a section which players access from the main menu in the Sky Force games. It is where they apply upgrades to different parts and features of their Plane as well as make a few kinds of in-app purchases if playing in the mobile versions.
Description[]
By collecting Stars littered throughout Stages, the player can access the Loadout area by navigating through the main menu to view and upgrade various aspects of their Plane. On the mobile version, the screen also gives access to offers that can be acquired using in-app purchases or by watching advertisements.
Each Plane's loadout consists of eight key armaments of different strengths and peak performance. Depending on how high its maximum strength is, the armament has a variable number of tiers, in which the higher the tier level, the stronger the armament. Each tier has ten blocks, which progressively light up with each upgrade. Once every block in a tier is cleared, the next upgrade refurbishes the armament for the next tier. All nine Planes share the same upgrades applied.
In the mobile version of the game, the upgrades are slowly applied over a period of time, and to finish them instantly, extra Stars need to be paid. As for the Steam/console versions, the upgrades are ironically completed instantly for free.
PC Upgrade Screen
Upgrades Overview[]
Stars are the currency used in upgrading (and speeding up on the mobile version). Upgrading the Plane's armaments is the primary function of the Loadout screen. Doing so helps in taking on later Stages and in higher Difficulty levels.
Passive or automatic armaments[]
Health[]
- The Plane's health and ability to defend against enemies during a Stage. Health is lost if the Plane collides with projectiles and some enemies themselves. Once the Plane's health bar depletes to zero, it explodes and the Stage will end immediately.
- With the help of "hull memory" fibers, lost health will be regenerated gradually over time upon the acquisition of Card 19.
- Upgrades improve the health degree especially by increasing its level of resistance to attacks and its maximum health. Note that the Health Restore items will recover less health when the degree has received more upgrades. Skilled players need not care about this upgrade, given their confidence in dodging enemies.
PC Upgrade Screen (scrolled to the right)
Main Cannon[]
- The habitual source of firepower from your Plane that tears down enemies in a Stage. The Main Cannon is a rapid-fire armament that normally shoots in a shotgun-spread pattern, resulting in concentrated firepower at point-blank range.
- The ninth Card in the deck installs the Main Weapon Supercharge (MWS) module that allows a charge of accumulated firepower to be delivered momentarily. In battle, the fire rate can be increased by collecting Weapon Upgrade items dropped from the destruction of glowing enemies.
- Some of the Planes, particularly Ambulance, Gladius and Swift Justice, shoot their gunfire in unique patterns. For The Classic Plane, after collecting all the Bonus Cards, its standard Main Cannon is removed and the special Laser Whip weapon is retrofitted in place of it.
- Upgrades improve the damage dealt by this cannon and visually increase the size of the projectiles. After every ten blocks in a tier, the next tier significantly improves the cannon's firepower with more projectiles added.
Wing Cannons[]
- Located by the side of the Main Cannon are two caliber cannons, referred to as the Wing Cannons for they are mounted on the wings of the Plane. These cannons add on to the base firepower generated by the Plane, firing a pair of large projectiles for each discharge. Despite a fire rate of low frequency, they are noticeably capable of tearing through chains of enemies similar to the Laser power-up, or delivering great damage to ones that they cannot penetrate. Similar to the Main Cannon, their firing frequency can be improved by collecting Weapon Upgrades items. Players may practice their timing skill to land successful Wing Cannon shots on enemies.
- The Wing Cannons are not pre-installed at the start of the game, meaning that the player has to buy their first upgrade manually.
- Upgrades largen the projectiles and they deal more damage. Throughout upgrading, the color of the projectiles modulates from yellow to green. Although players may not set upgrading the Wing Cannons as their first priority out of belief that their strength is insignificant and their effects eventually wear out due to the superior strength of other powerful Planes, it is still important as they save Medal-seeking runs from the brink of losing an Enemy Chain Bonus.
Magnet[]
- As simple as it means, it attracts dropped items including Stars, Health Restores, Weapon Upgrades, Power-ups, Bonus Cards and Aircraft Parts to the Plane, but it does not pull in other items like Wingman Cubes. Its magnetizing power is inversely correlated with the distance from the Plane to the item. It also attracts the green crate that rarely appears, which is to be delivered to the otherwise blank mystery Dispenser for Cards.
- Like the Wing Cannons, the Magnet is not pre-installed, which means the player has to manually add it by buying its first upgrade. Its strength and attraction radius are increased with every upgrade.
Missiles[]
- Two missile housings are mounted on the back of your Plane. If there is an enemy in view, they each periodically fire a guided missile accurately on targeted enemies and prioritize enemies based on their strength; for instance, they will target the more threatening Radial Cannons even if there are AA Cannons nearby which are less powerful.
- During flight, missiles will target other enemies if the original target is destroyed. The missiles deal high damage once colliding with those enemies, even if they are not the intended target. These missiles are important for targeting enemies that are missed by the spread of the Main and Wing Cannons.
- The Octopus Plane has a unique missile system where it releases a long salvo of mini homing rockets instead. These rockets deal overall slightly weaker damage but can be helpful against powerful and defensive enemies.
- Similar to the Wing Cannons and Magnet, the missiles can only be activated once the first upgrade is bought. Upgrading them shortens the intervals of which they are released as well as their damage, speed and range. At later upgrade tiers, the Plane begins launching two missiles simultaneously.
Manual armaments (Power-ups)[]
Power-ups can be activated by the player at any time they wish. On PC/Console, a charge of any of the three Power-ups can be released by pushing a certain key. On the mobile version, the player has to lift off their finger to bring up the sub menu, and tap on the icon representing the desired power-up to unleash.
All Power-ups must be unlocked by buying the first upgrade. Once unlocked, power-ups can be charged at the start of Stages using Stars or collected throughout them by destroying crates, random enemies, destructible towers, a few Boss armaments or by charging from Dispensers when the respective Cards that activate those operations are collected. There are also Cards which will give you one free charge of each power-ups once they are collected. The Plane can carried up to five charges of Lasers and Energy Shields each, and three charges of Mega Bombs.
When the Power-up stock is at the maximum for each type, collecting an extra charge will cause it to immediately activate (contrary to Sky Force Anniversary, in which it is discarded). This can act like another slot by leading around the item itself.
Random power-ups can also be activated by the Burton Panic Technician, though the charges on board the Plane are not consumed.
Laser[]
- Mounted at the nose of the Plane, which releases a short but sweet burst of a laser beam penetrating through enemies and delivering great damage to them. The beam is always discharged straight ahead and reaches a very long range, beyond the edge of the screen.
- The Laser is perhaps the highest damaging weapon on board the Plane, plus its penetrating ability helps dealing with armaments arranged vertically, usually those on Bosses. Its button or respective key can be held down to release a continuous discharge, though not advised in the early sections of the Stage as that is best to be saved for strong Bosses. It is similar to the Laser Whip of The Classic after collecting Card 24.
- Upgrades increase the beam's damage, but not the duration of which the laser is discharged.
Energy Shield[]
- Generates a blue force field around the Plane that blocks out and absorbs almost every form of enemy projectiles and collisions with aircraft enemies (I.e. Prop Planes, Drones or Gunships), granting temporary invulnerability. Like the Laser, the button or key that activates the Energy Shield can be held down to release more than one charge back-to-back, for the case of the latter being that it will consume charges one after another similarly, extending the active duration and hence blocking out damage longer.
- The Shield's duration is indicated by a curved green bar that is displayed above the plane, and soft beeping noises are played when it is about to run out.
- In the later parts of the game, new powerful enemy rolling stocks appear, many of which fire blasts and projectiles that are capable of instantly piercing the Shield and ending its duration prematurely, though obviously still keeping the Plane safe from damage at least once.
- Card 3 can be collected that installs an "Emergency Discharge" feature which grants a low chance of activating a brief Shield that protects the Plane from a lethal projectile. Energy Shields do not prevent the EMP Missile of Stage 5 from striking the Plane and disarming it.
- Below are the enemies/situations that can cause the Energy Shield to shatter.
- Energized Railgun shells
- Heavy Cannonballs (including those from Lewiatan's portside cannons)
- Lightspeed blue lasers such as those from Laser Drones, The Scarlet Heart's main laser cannon, and Lewiatan's omnidirectional laser cannon
- Light red lasers from Omega's laser cannons
- Collisions with Balloons and Laser Fences
- While active, the Shield can instantly destroy enemy units that interact with collision upon contact, the two exceptions being Nuclear Ballistic Missiles from Stage B2 and Balloons from Stage B3, the latter by which the Shield gets shattered instead.
- With each upgrade, the duration of which the Shield is active is increased.
Some projectiles, such as the Energized Railgun from a type of Spider Railgun walker tanks have the capability of shattering an Energy Shield.
Mega Bomb[]
- A generator on the back of the Plane that unleashes a spectacular shockwave around it, blasting away streaks of projectiles and bullets and casting out nearly every enemy within the circular range of the detonation. Enemies which are closer to the Plane upon detonation will receive more damage.
- Mega Bombs can act as a substitution for Energy Shields, being used to clear out bullet hell on the screen as well as the enemies responsible for it. However, it is deemed slightly ineffective when it comes to heavy duty enemies, especially Bosses. Mega Bombs are best used after flying the Plane to the middle of the screen, as otherwise most of the potential damage is wasted off-screen. Mega Bombs do not clear the EMP Missile from Stage 5 or the AA Mines seen on Stage 9.
- Each upgrade for the Mega Bomb increases its damage and the width of the detonation range, allowing more enemies on the screen to be blown down. Mega Bomb is the most expensive Power-up to buy charges for at the start.
Shop (iOS/Android)[]
The Shop can be accessed by tapping on the shopping pushcart icon at the upper left corner of the screen.
Gift Shop[]
Every few hours, a free gift is available to be claimed by watching an advertisement. As reward, players are given three chests, one of which they can choose to claim. The chest contains a single type of reward, being a sum of Stars, Plane Parts, Bonus Cards (Usually Temporal) or more.
Precious Cargo[]
Gives players 15000 Stars upon purchase.
SX2-Star Doubler[]
Doubles the number of Stars a player has collected at the end of a Stage.
Ads Removal[]
Disables the occasional popping up of ads, making it a useful deal for active players who want to spend maximum gaming time by consuming minimum data.
Planes Generator[]
Genuinely gives mobile players of the game almost infinite units of Planes, as greatly-improved industrial technology drastically shortens production time to mere minutes which then makes the unit tally inexhaustible after playing a Stage.
Cards with additional Loadout enhancements[]
Some Bonus Cards have special tweaks that install additional upgrades to different elements of your Plane's loadout, such as the Main Cannons and missiles.
Card 1: Hangar is expanded to allow 3 additional Planes to be stored.
Card 3: Energy Shield is retrofitted with Emergency Discharge Module, occasionally activating it to save a Plane from otherwise being destroyed.
Card 4: Slightly decreases the time taken to build a Plane.
Card 7: Decreases the time taken to install upgrades (With robots taking over part of the hangar crew) and the price of Stars to be paid to finish it in advance.
Card 10: Main Cannon firerate starts off with one level.
Card 13: Missile damage increases.
Card 14, 15 & 16: Turns on the Power-up Dispensers, respectively Laser, Mega Bomb and Energy Shield.
Card 18: 10% discount is applied to upgrade prices.
Card 20, 21 & 22: Gives a free charge of the three Power-ups at the start of a Stage, respectively Energy Shield, Laser and Mega Bomb.
Temporal Card 2: Maxes out Magnet Power for fifteen minutes.
Temporal Card 3: Planes start off with full fire rate for fifteen minutes.
Temporal Card 4: Production time of Planes become almost instant (Mobile)/Mega Bomb damage increases (PC) for fifteen minutes.
Temporal Card 5: Instantly finishes upgrades using powerful cordless tools (Mobile)/Increases Laser damage (PC) for fifteen minutes.
Temporal Card 6: Random free charge of Power-ups at start for fifteen minutes.