Aloft: Home Islands, Explained

The map in Aloft is massive, and it won’t be long before you’re hoping for a way to save energy gliding between all the islands. Thankfully, you’re able to claim an island as a home of your own using the Sailing Knowledge that you discover through the skies, allowing you to sail an island like a ship.

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Once you’ve got a home base, not only will you respawn there anytime you run out of HP in combat, but you’ll also have established a proper homestead for yourself. You can stash extra materials, raise animals, cook meals, and so much more.

Unlock Sailing Knowledge And Claim An Island As Your Own

You'll learn how to claim an island as your own fairly early into playing Aloft, which is good because having a home base is critically helpful, especially as you continue on through your exploration of the skies! When you first emerge from the starting cave in Aloft, the tutorial directs you toward a nearby Knowledge Stone. This will give you the recipe for a Home Kite, the first piece you'll need to claim an island as your home. This can be for you alone or opened up for a shared server with friends.

Unfortunately, you can't take the starting island as your home - unfortunately, some islands are simply too big to be home islands. Don't get too down about this, though, since there are about 500 islands for you to sail out and discover in Aloft! This means there's Bound to be one you're ready to call home, so finish the tutorial after learning the Home Kite recipe, craft your glider, and head out to some of the nearby islands to explore.

Once you've found an island you like, you can craft and place a Home Kite to respawn here should you run out of health, or to begin leaving your abundance of collected resources someplace to save space in your Backpack - Wallet and Exchange. As soon as you place a Home Kite on an island to claim it as your own, you'll be able to name your island and then teleport here at anytime and from anywhere whenever you need to get back to base.

There Are A Few Essential Recipes For Sailing A Home Island

This kicks off the Forgotten Legacy quest, which is critical to discovering the most important pieces required for a home island in Aloft. These all-important pieces of Sailing Knowledge can be found at the anchors with colorful orbs around them that you'll find on the islands near the starting island (and on plenty of others as you further explore the skies). The essentials you'll discover on these islands are:

• The recipe for a helm, which allows you to steer your island like a boat and clear bigger distances through the skies. If you have long distances to cover, simply set the island in the right direction and disengage from the helm - you can use the time you're sailing to your next destination to tend to your home island.
• The recipe for simple sails, though you'll eventually discover the recipe for more efficient sails, since you'll find that your sails show wear-and-tear in weather and wind, so be mindful of where and how you're sailing!
• The recipe for rudders, which is what makes a boat able to move left and right.
• The recipe for lifts, the cloths that hang from the side of your island to permit vertical movement as you sail.
• The recipe for a map table, a massive circular table that shows the sectors you've uncovered and the islands in them, with a color scale denoting every island's current ecosystem vitality.
  • While you're always free to explore as you please, if you're trying to uncover the map or get anywhere specific, be sure to consult your map table before you head to the helm to steer the island toward your destination.
  • You can also interact with islands on the map table to set waypoints on far-out islands. These will appear as green beacons in the sky, and as green circles on your map table.

After you've uncovered all four of these recipes during the Forgotten Legacy quest, you're almost ready to sail your home island! Simply craft and place these items on your Home Island, and you'll be ready to sail it across the skies! Just keep in mind that the heavier your island is, the more rudders, lifts, and sails you need to place to accommodate.

Sailing gear on your home island will take damage from item you collide with as you sail, so keep an eye out for a red sail icon on your sails - you'll need to bring some extra of whichever material they're made of and your hammer, and repair sails that have taken damage from debris in the windstream.

You can see all of this information at a glance in the small box in the bottom-right corner of the screen while you're steering an island. You'll see a few meters in this small menu: grayish black to denote your island's weight, the orange icon beside that for the island's lift, the next column is yellow and measures your rudders and turning ability, and finally, green to track your sails for durability and resistance.

Be sure to check this often, since you'll notice yourself sailing more slowly if your island is becoming too heavy. Be sure the lift, rudders, and sails all measure above the dotted line that corresponds to your island's weight on this chart - anything below the dotted line won't respond appropriately, making your island tougher to steer.

You'll find progressively better recipes for these sailing essentials as you explore new sectors and find new Knowledge Stones and Sailing Knowledge. The most common upgrade appears to be sails, with plenty of different resources able to be used in the crafting of better sails. The better material you use on a sail, the better it stands up to the wind over time.

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What Can You Do On Your Home Island?

There are plenty of reasons you'll want to claim a home island before too long as you play Aloft! You don't really want to have to glide all around the massive map in the game made up of about 500 islands, do you? Save your energy and claim a home island, since there are several domestic tasks you can tend to at home.

A big reason to establish a home island sooner than later in Aloft is so you can have a central place to store your materials. As you establish a home island and collect different materials, you'll progressively unlock access to plenty of different storage options to stash your excess goods at home. These include special storage spaces for rocks, wood, wool, leaves, cloth, rope, and plenty of other staple materials you'll need a good amount of as you craft newer recipes.

Your Backpack - Wallet and Exchange might have four tabs, but it's still only so big. It's a good idea to drop off extra materials you've gathered while exploring each time you visit your home island - who knows what you'll find the next time you venture out exploring, and we're sure you'll want to be able to hold it if you find something good!

Another important thing to check off the list of things to do when establishing your home island in Aloft is to make a bed for your adventurer and place it someplace before you venture out again. If you come back tired or hurt, you can rest in bed to recover your HP so you enter your next battle in top shape.

Before long, you'll also begin to see different livestock on the islands as you explore the skies in Aloft, and animal lovers will be happy to know that you can take animals home from islands you've discovered (provided your home island is parked close enough) to raise them as your own. Livestock need to be befriended with hay or pellets before they join you, but you can raise animals on your home island for a constant stream of their all-too-important materials.

Be sure to pick up after them, though, since livestock drop manure around your island. While you can put them into a pen to contain them to a specific location, be sure to pick up the manure - not only do you probably want a clean living space, but livestock manure is essential to farming, which you'll also be able to do on your island once you've found the recipe for the Compost Bin and have crafted some farming plots in which to plant assorted fruit and veg seeds you've been collecting from wild plants.

While you'll find plenty of odd crops out on islands you're exploring, planting a garden on your home island provides constant access to the ingredients you'll need for cooking, which you can do with a Cooking Plate over a Bonfire on any island, but leaving a Bonfire place on your home island is a great way to have a reliable cooking source. The meals you can cook for yourself provide all kinds of buffs, so be sure to experiment and stock up before venturing out and engaging in new fights.

Finally, one of the more amusing aspects of having a home island is being able to fully decorate the island to your liking. You'll unlock plenty of crafting recipes for things like walls, staircases, platforms, fences, and all sorts of materials to make yourself a proper house on the island, so if you've got some time between exploring new islands, check out the construction catalog and experiment with the customization of your home island.

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