You can catch ships and aircraft before you sign in
Until today a visitor without an account could fly anywhere, lock onto a container ship or an A350, press the shutter and get a card that stayed face down with a padlock on it. Then a window asked them to sign in. Four out of five closed that window, and the catch was gone.
We counted. Over the last two weeks about 370 browsers took off without an account, and only 23 of them ever pressed the shutter on a target. The first catch is where Skydex starts to make sense, and we were putting a wall right in front of it.
What changes
- A guest's catch is real. Same lock, same rules as for an account: a ship
within 6 km, an aircraft within 120 km, each one once per day, aircraft one a minute. The card turns over with its rarity, its photo and its flag.
- Under the card it says "Not saved yet · sign in to keep it". There is no
XP on it yet, because there is no account to pay it into.
- Catches wait 30 days, up to 30 of them on one browser. A small pill in
flight and a line on the start screen show how many are waiting.
- Sign in with Google and they move into your collection, oldest first,
through the same code that saves every other catch. XP, rarity, achievements and the starter missions of your first day are all paid at that moment. If you already caught the same ship or aircraft on your account that day, the guest copy is skipped, so one day never counts twice.
- The sign-in window shows up once, on your second catch. The first one is
yours to enjoy without being asked for anything.
The radar, for guests
The sky radar on the map now scans for visitors too, with one difference. Signed in, the radar asks our own receivers first and a paid data source when they hear nothing. Without an account it asks only the Skydex receiver network and a recent scan of the same area. Where none of our receivers covers your spot, the radar says so plainly and offers the full radar with an account. Aircraft caught from the radar go into the same waiting collection and get the "caught overhead" badge once they move.
Limits
World firsts, records and the live feed only count once a catch is on an account, at the moment it moves. An incognito window or cleared site data starts a new, empty guest collection. If you catch as a guest on your laptop and sign in on your phone, the laptop catches move only when you sign in on the laptop.
Already have an account? Nothing changes for you. If you know someone who bounced off the sign-in box, send them to the sky and let them catch something first. The earlier post on your first catch explains the lock and the shutter.