Airframes and building
An Airframe is a hover-bike built from parts. You start on a second-hand frame with a few mods, win parts from races, and eventually build a new frame. The developers have not published part stats, so there is no stat table here.
An Airframe is the hover-bike you race, and it is built rather than chosen. The store description is explicit about the starting point: "with a second hand Airframe, a few custom mods, and a big heavy baseball bat you can become the one thing with freedom in a city of billions". Later, "Win enough parts and you can make a new 'frame."
That is the whole official model: you start on somebody else's worn-out bike, you win parts, and parts become a new frame. No parts list, stat sheet or build calculator has been published, so what follows is the structure rather than numbers.
What an Airframe is made of
The store page and the October devlog together describe three layers:
| Layer | What it is | Where the official text says so |
|---|---|---|
| The frame | The hover-bike itself, built from parts | "Airframe (车体) is made of parts" — store description and launch coverage |
| Mods | Custom modifications fitted to a frame | "a few custom mods" |
| Paint and cosmetics | Helmet, clothing, frame livery | "New helmets, new clothes. Make yourself a statement— a uniform" |
The shop and the garage are part of the same system in the release build. Launch coverage of the 3 November post notes that progression, shops and bike assembly were merged into one connected whole for 1.0 rather than being separate menus.
The upgrade path
| Stage | What you have | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| First circuit | Second-hand frame, no parts | Nothing; you are learning the tracks |
| First wins | Cash and parts from finishes and kills | Mods for the frame you own |
| Enough parts | A parts pool worth building from | A new frame of your own |
| Later | Multiple frames, cosmetics | Choosing a bike per track type |
That last row is inference, not a published feature. What is confirmed is that parts come from winning and that a new frame is the reward; whether you end up with a garage of several frames is something the game will tell you and this wiki will not.
Building for a track, not for a leaderboard
Because there are no published numbers, the useful way to think about a build is by role rather than by tier. Three roles show up repeatedly in how the game plays:
- Sprint builds. Prioritise acceleration and cornering. You are racing for position and pickup money, and you are not trying to win every arena.
- Arena builds. Prioritise durability and the ability to stay in a fight. You are conceding the sprint to dominate the fight.
- Balanced builds. Nothing excels, nothing collapses. The right answer for a first circuit and the wrong answer once you know the tracks.
Which parts produce which of those is not documented anywhere official. A community thread titled "Things the game UI/UX doesn't tell you" exists on the Steam hub precisely because the game does not spell it out, which is consistent with the Mastery Is Discovery pillar.
Why there is no stat table here
Three reasons, all of them the same reason:
- The developers have not published part stats.
- The parts that exist in 1.0 are explicitly a starting point — the 3 November post says 1.0 is deliberately small and content arrives "every quarter or so".
- Any number written down today would be wrong after the next balance pass — the October devlog commits to monthly balance patches.
If you want numbers, the reliable source is your own garage: fit a part, run the same corner, and see what changed. That is more work than reading a wiki table and it is the only way to get a true answer.
Cosmetics and identity
The store description treats appearance as part of the credibility fantasy rather than as decoration: "Make yourself a statement— a uniform." The 31 October devlog's Build Your Cred pillar is the same idea — climbing the Ultra Circuit is meant to look like something.
| Cosmetic slot | Confirmed by |
|---|---|
| Helmet | Store description ("New helmets") |
| Clothing | Store description ("new clothes") |
| Frame livery / paint | Store description and the in-game wardrobe screenshot |
| Character body and face | In-game creator; no published option list |
The ACH_FASHION achievement sits at 97.0% global unlock — the highest of all 21 — which tells you almost everybody touches the customiser in their first session. Whatever the options are, players find them immediately.
What the garage actually gates
Nothing in the official material describes parts as pay-to-win, and the publisher's 3 November post is unusually direct about the monetisation model: "We will never sell individual digital items or anything like that, it'll only be these expansion packs, one at a time." Expansions arrive every few months, and when the next one lands, the previous one is rolled into the base game.
| What you can buy with money | What you cannot |
|---|---|
| Expansion packs, early access to new content | Individual items |
| — | Power that other players cannot earn |
That matters for building: a frame you assemble from parts is earned, not bought, so the build conversation is about time rather than spend.
Practical first build advice
- Do not rebuild early. The starting frame is bad on purpose. Learn the game on it before you spend parts.
- Spend on handling first. Cornering and braking change every track; top speed changes one straight.
- Build for the circuit you are in. If the lobby is full of arena killers, a sprint build banks points they cannot take.
- Keep one frame stock. When a balance patch lands, a stock bike is the control in your own experiment.
The weapons page covers the other half of the build — what you buy inside the arena — and the stars page explains why better builds put you in harder lobbies.