Solarpunk Airship: How to Build the Dock and Expand Your Flight Range

The Airship is the first real exit from your starting island in Solarpunk, the cozy floating-island survival game from Cyberwave that launched on June 8th, 2026. There is no single blueprint that hands you a flying machine. You build a dock first, then assemble the Airship at that dock using a part scavenged from a wreck on your own island.

Quick answer: Research and build an Airship Dock (5 Wood, 5 Iron, 5 Cloth to research; 40 Wood, 20 Iron, 3 Cloth to build), then build the Airship at the dock with 10 Iron, 3 Cloth, and 1 Crashed Airship Component found on the hill southeast of the lake. To fly farther, unlock the Airship upgrade from the trader and apply it at the dock.

The Airship is the first real exit from your starting island in Solarpunk. Image credit: rokaplay / Metaroot.

Airship materials and total cost in Solarpunk

Getting airborne happens in three stages. You research the dock at a research table, build the dock at a crafting table, then build the Airship itself at the finished dock. Here is what each step costs.

Action	Cost
Research Airship Dock	5 Wood, 5 Iron, 5 Cloth
Build Airship Dock	40 Wood, 20 Iron, 3 Cloth
Build Airship	10 Iron, 3 Cloth, 1 Crashed Airship Component

Added together, plan for roughly 30 Iron, 6 Cloth, a large pile of Wood, and the single Crashed Airship Component before you can launch. Some setups ask for closer to 70 Wood on the dock, so gather extra rather than chopping the bare minimum.

Note: Iron is the bottleneck. You start with raw iron, not bars, so you also need a furnace to smelt it before any of these recipes will accept it.

You need to gather the required materials before you can build your Airship. Image credit: rokaplay / Metaroot.

How to build the Airship Dock in Solarpunk

The dock is the bigger job because of the iron and wood it demands. Work through the gathering and smelting first, then place the structure.

Grow cotton for cloth. Plant cotton seeds, water them, and harvest the cotton once it matures. Take the cotton to a workbench and craft it into Cloth. You need 8 Cloth in total across the research, dock, and Airship steps, so plant a few rows.

Mine raw iron. Walk your first island until you find a dark raw iron node, then mine it until your pickaxe wears out. Early pickaxes break quickly, so craft spares before you head out.

Build a furnace and smelt the iron. A furnace costs 15 Stone, which you collect by hitting rocks with a pickaxe. Load your raw iron into the furnace with a fuel like wood and wait for it to smelt into usable iron.

Chop enough wood. Wood comes from trees, and the dock is the most wood-hungry part of the whole process, so stockpile well past 40 to be safe.

Research and place the dock. Use a research table to unlock the Airship Dock, then build it at the crafting table. Pick a spot at the island’s edge, because half of the dock has to hang out over open air for the Airship to sit there.

Metaroot) — Research and place the dock. Image credit: rokaplay / Metaroot.

Where to find the Crashed Airship Component

The Crashed Airship Component is the one part you cannot craft. It sits at a wreck on your starting island, on the hill southeast of the lake, a spot that looks down over the water.

If you cannot reach it, you probably have not climbed to the island’s higher ground yet. Head to the area just south or southwest of the lake, find the small elevations there, and use the Build Hammer with some wood to lay down stairs as a ramp. Once you reach the wreck, interact with it to scavenge the component.

How to build the Airship at the dock

With the dock standing and the component in hand, the Airship itself is the easy part. Bring 10 Iron, 3 Cloth, and the 1 Crashed Airship Component back to the dock, then press the Build Airship button at the dock’s table. The Airship appears ready to fly.

Building your first Airship also unlocks a repair item, so you can patch the vehicle if something goes wrong mid-journey.

Note: Airships are not shared in multiplayer. Each player flies the one they built, and you cannot ride together with friends.

Bring 10 Iron, 3 Cloth, and the 1 Crashed Airship Component back to the dock, then press the Build Airship button at the dock’s table. Image credit: rokaplay / Metaroot.

How to upgrade the Airship and extend flight range

The white circle drawn on your map marks how far the Airship can currently fly. Upgrading pushes that circle outward so you can reach more floating islands and gather new materials, including silicon.

Unlock the upgrade component at the trader. The Airship upgrade comes up as a trade reward, and you may need to complete several trades before it becomes available.

Apply the upgrade at the dock. Carry the unlocked component back to your Airship Dock and press the upgrade option. You will know it worked when the white circle on your map grows larger and previously unreachable islands and resources fall inside it.

From there it is a loop. Trade for the next upgrade, return to the dock, expand the circle again, and keep opening up the skies of Solarpunk one island at a time.