NAVIGATOR - Flyable Ship

Salvage a downed hull, rebuild it as your own ship, and fly. NAVIGATOR gives you a hand-piloted spacecraft with weighty, camera-relative controls, a full aviation-style flight HUD, working ship lights and beacon, and an optional cockpit mini-map powered by MAP (Field Terminal).

If NAVIGATOR earns a spot in your load order, a quick endorsement genuinely helps it reach other pilots. Thank you.

WHAT IT DOES

• Direct piloting — you fly the ship yourself. Steering turns the nose in place, thrust drives you along it, and SmoothDamp inertia gives the whole thing real weight and momentum.

• Full flight HUD — two styles: Full (glass-cockpit tapes, artificial horizon, thrust bar) and Compact (needle dial, mini attitude ball, altitude tape). Cycle Off / Full / Compact with G. Your choice persists between sessions.

• Ship lighting — nav lights, strobes, landing lights, spotlight, dome light, and a beacon, all separately toggleable. Parked ships keep their lights lit.

• Locator beacon — a map beacon with a configurable icon and colour so you can always find your ship. Only the nearest ship shows its beacon, to keep the map clean.

• Engine glow and trails — emissive engine trails that pull their colour from the live reactor vents. Modes: Off / Always On / Boost Only.

• Cabin oxygen — the cockpit is a breathable pocket, so long flights don't drain your tank.

• Altitude ceiling — a soft AGL ceiling (default 400 m) eases you off the top rather than hard-stopping.

• Safe by design — the game autosaves cleanly around flight, the pause menu still works mid-air, and dying while flying returns your ship to your backpack (or a recovery chest if it's full) and redirects your loot to the respawn point.

HOW TO GET YOUR SHIP

1. Find the wreck. A salvage hull sits in a large hangar within a portal wreck. You have probably seen it before as scenery. RNG can suck.

2. Salvage it. Deconstruct the wreck to recover its materials plus a blueprint chip.

3. Learn and craft. The chip unlocks the flyable ship. Build it at a Advanced Crafting Station.

4. Deploy and board. Place the ship from your backpack, aim at it, and interact to board. Right-click a landed ship to stow it again.

Recipe: Super Alloy, Pulsar Quartz, Fusion Energy Cell, Circuit Board, Rocket Reactor, Iridium, Osmium, Zeolite, Solar Quartz.

As per my usual pattern, if you want it right away: Activate the config option JustGiveItToMe and load a save. One will be placed in your backpack.

CONTROLS

NAVIGATOR has two flight modes, and the controls change between them. Toggle any time with R (keyboard) or Y (controller). A "Controls" drawer in the corner always shows the live bindings for your current mode — pop it open with Q / A.

Cruise mode (default) — hover flight. Camera-relative, easy to place precisely, best for low-altitude work and landing.

• Move — W / A / S / D  •  Left Stick

• Up / Down — Space / Ctrl  •  RT / LT

• Look — Mouse  •  Right Stick (heading follows the camera)

Throttle mode — airplane / fighter flight. A held throttle drives continuous forward speed (it never stalls), and you climb or dive by pointing the nose. Full pitch, roll, and yaw — you can roll all the way over and fly inverted. Best for fast travel.

• Throttle — W / S  •  RT / LT

• Rudder — A / D  •  Left Stick

• Aim (pitch + roll) — Mouse  •  Right Stick

Both modes

• Boost — Shift  •  LB

• Zoom camera — Mouse Wheel  •  R3

• Cycle HUD — G  •  D-pad

• Land — C  •  B

• Settings menu — hold the Map button

While On Foot 

Press L key or hold B button to toggle Beacon

Full controller support (Xbox tested). Keybinds and pad bindings are remappable in the config file and the in-flight settings menu.

FIELD TERMINAL (M. A. P.) INTEGRATION — optional, recommended

NAVIGATOR is fully standalone, but if you also run MAP (Field Terminal) it unlocks a proper cockpit mini-map and matching visuals. The two mods talk to each other through an optional, reflection-only bridge: install one, both, or neither, and nothing breaks either way.

What you get with both installed:

• Helm-screen map