How SkyCity works
Pictures from the game, and next to them what each thing is for. Everything you see here is decided by the server: it cannot be bypassed, and it cannot be cheated.
01/Account
Account, rules, character
After you connect, Project Sky's own login window greets you. Your account and your characters live in the server's database, not in the game's saves: you play the same ones from any computer.
- Register with a username, an email address and a password, or log in. You can switch the language right here.
- After your first login you read the rules and take a short test about them. If you do not pass, it shows what went wrong, and you can try again.
- For a new character you first pick what they did before coming to SkyCity: unemployed, programmer, office worker, municipality worker or soldier. Some of these come with a small skill bonus.
- Then you give them a name, a look and clothes in the game's character creator.
- Every character starts with a little cash, a bank account and an ID card.
02/Screen
Your screen and the help window
When you join, the help window opens: page by page it explains the server's systems, and F1 brings it back any time. Around it you see:
- 1Cash and bank account: top right, always up to date.
- 2Minimap: banks, ATMs, shops, vehicle shops, garages and gas stations are marked on it, and on the world map too.
- 3F: your faction. D: your dashboard. T: the players online and the staff on duty.
- 4Chat: the Local box at the bottom with what is said around you, OOC above it. Just type, and your character says it.
- 5Help (F1): first steps, chat, money, shops, phones, property, vehicles, factions, the police and more.
- 6Info: where the server talks to you – confirmations, warnings, notices.
- Every name shows that player's id.
/idtells you yours, and/helplists every command you can use. - Need a staff member? The T button shows who is on duty, and
/pmreaches them.
03/Dashboard
Dashboard
The D button on the left is your character's sheet: one look, and you know where you stand.
- Cash and bank account, your character's and your account's play time.
- Your properties and vehicles: whether they are locked and, if for sale, for how much.
- Your warrants: the active one and past ones, with the reason and when they run out.
- Your job in the top right, and whether you have a driver's licence.
- The language switch at the bottom: one click, and the whole interface speaks Hungarian or English.
04/Property
Houses and property
Houses, flats and plots are waiting for owners. Stand in front of one or walk in: its panel shows up top right with the address and the price or the owner.
- Buy it with cash, with the panel's Buy button or
/buy. A property you bought is locked. - Unlock and Lock set every door and window at once; single doors lock with a right-click too.
- Locked doors open for nobody else, and nobody breaks in through a door or a window – except for an authorized police raid.
- Only you move the furniture and build inside. While it is locked, nobody else touches your containers or what you left on the floor.
- Sell it to another player on the panel or with
/sell[price]; the city keeps 20% of the price. - You can hand it to your faction too: from then on the ranks' permissions decide.
05/Vehicles
Vehicles
Every vehicle has a plate and an owner: a player, a faction or the city. There are no keys: you start your own, nobody else does.
- 1The plate over every vehicle, the driver's name above it.
- 2The vehicle's panel: model, plate, owner, locked or open; lock it, sell it, hand it to your faction.
- 3A real dashboard: speedometer, rev counter, fuel and temperature.
- 4A car radio with internet stations: Hungarian radios and a few more, for everyone in the car.
- Cars come from the vehicle shops, paid in cash; fuel is paid by the litre at the pumps.
- Nobody gets into a locked vehicle, and only the owner or their faction starts its engine.
- Smash a window of a locked, parked car, and its alarm goes off.
- Garages repair and paint; with no mechanic online, the garage does the job itself, for more money.
- A driver's licence comes from the exam centre: a theory test first, then a driving test.
06/Shops
Shops
Shops are run by NPC clerks. Right-click the clerk to see what they sell: you pay in cash, and the goods are yours at once.
- The top of the stock window shows how much cash you carry; pick something, set the amount and buy.
- Goods come the way a real shop sells them: the diner's steak is freshly cooked and hot, frozen goods are frozen, batteries are charged.
- Wholesalers only sell in bulk: “min. 32” means you buy at least 32.
- Some shops only serve members of certain factions, the police for one.
- The map shows where the shops are.
07/Factions
Factions
Police, EMS, mechanics, the government, tax and customs – and on the other side, mafias and gangs. Factions are created by the staff, and the leader runs them through ranks.
- Members: hire by id (the invited player has to accept), change ranks, kick. You see who is online, when they were last on and how long they played in the faction.
- Ranks: every rank gets exactly what the leader allows – property, vehicles, the treasury, hiring, and for the police badges, fines, raids and the cells. Nobody hands out what they do not hold themselves.
- Treasury: paying in and taking out happens in a bank. Legal factions set a pay per rank, which the server pays out by itself for the hours played. The ledger shows every move.
- Assets: the faction's properties and vehicles; the ranks decide who drives which car.
- F3 or the F button on the left opens the faction window.
08/Phones
Phones
Two kinds of phone are sold: the button phone and the smartphone. Each has a number of its own, and everything belongs to the phone, not to you: whoever holds it has its number, contacts and texts.
- Calls, texts and contacts on both; the smartphone adds a calculator, notes, the marketplace and a passcode lock.
- A phone only rings while you carry it, and the people around you hear it too.
- 112: police or ambulance. Until you hang up, every officer or medic sees on their map where you are, and reads what you type.
- Marketplace: a title, a description, a price. An ad stays up for two days, three at most per phone, and the seller is one tap away.
- If your phone is taken in a pat-down, the passcode keeps your messages safe.
Button phoneCalls, texts, contacts. SmartphoneThe home screen with its apps. 112Emergency call: police or ambulance. CalculatorFor when a deal needs numbers. AdA new ad: up for two days, three at most per phone.
And much more
No pictures of these yet, but they already work in the city. In the game the help window (F1) explains each of them.
Police
Handcuffs, holding, pat-downs, fines with a badge, warrants in the database, cells and authorized raids.
EMS and hospital
Whoever goes down is out for 15 minutes: a medic can revive them, otherwise they wake up in the hospital.
Bank
Cash and bank account, tellers and ATMs. What is in the bank stays yours after the hospital too.
Jobs
Take a job at the town hall: factory worker, postman or street sweeper. The documents office replaces lost papers.
Driver's licence
A theory test on the highway code, then a driving test in the exam car with the examiner beside you.
Walkie-talkies
Your own frequency, and /r to talk; a better set reaches further.
Trading
Items and cash change hands between two players, only once both of them accept.
Mechanics
Repairs and paint jobs in the garage; the mechanics' faction can take a cut of the parts.
The underworld
Drugs, dealing, bank robberies – and the police, who want to stop all of it.