How to play guide for Trailmakers

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This page will serve as a basic **How to play guide for Trailmakers**. While there is very little information available at this time, we urge you to check back often, as new information is being added all the time! Feel free to edit this guide with any tips, tricks, and suggestions.

## Basic Gameplay

You can either start by playing the Stranded in Space campaign, or the Rally campaign.

In Stranded in Space, you need to collect salvage from around the map to unlock blocks, in order to build a rocket to escape the planet on which you've crashlanded.

In Rally, you will learn to build various kinds of vehicles, and race them.

## Controls

The Controls are simple. You can use the mainstream, or you can make the keybindings whatever you want to move your vehicle. Currently there is no way of changing the keybindings for build mode, or accessing your vehicle, but that is subject to change. To get into the vehicle you press F, and the same to hop out. To enter build mode you press B, and the same to get out.

## Tips and Tricks

### Building tips

#### Balance

When building, the most common balancing issues (with some solutions), and some general tips are as such:

* Vehicle pitches down
	1. Too much lift in the back
	2. Not enough lift in the front
	3. Thrust over point of lift
	4. Too much weight in the front
	5. Not enough weight in the back
* Vehicle pitches up
	1. Too much lift in the front
	2. Not enough lift in the back
	3. Thrust under point of lift
	4. Too much weight in the back
	5. Not enough weight in the front
* General
	1. Pseudo-weight (downforce, aka spoilers)
	2. Experimenting with the wing types to see how much lift they give is also very important. An intuitive sense for how a wing is going to effect your build is crucial.

#### Stability

Some of the hardest issues to troubleshoot are stability, some general tips are as follows:

* Loss of traction (spinning out)
	1. Spoilers to apply down force increase your traction but reduce control.
	2. The standard wheels and the monster wheels are more grippy than their less traction-based counterparts.
	3. Reduce turning angle, you can modify hinges to lower the maximum angle they can go to, expanding your turn radius, but giving you better control at high speeds.
	4. Lowering speed
* Wobbly aircraft
	1. Currently the best way to reduce wobbly aircraft is with tailfins (vertical and horizontal). This is due to how they are evaluated by the physics engine.
* General
	1. Expand the wheel/hover base, larger surface area especially in land vehicles is one of the easiest ways to make a vehicle more stable and won't fall over.

#### Control

Gaining control of your designs is likely more important then everything above, here's how you can master your creations:

* Turning
	1. Increase the maximum angle of hinges
* General
	1. Use tail fins on rotating servos to force the airflow through another path
	2. Using angular momentum applied from helicopter servos can be used to turn your vehicles although finicky, it works well.
	3. Off center propulsion (pull the back/front of the vehicle left/right/up/down via propellers or something / add jets to one side to push one side of the vehicle in front of the other.)

## See also

* Release date
* System requirements