Support the dev

Tailwinds is free, it has no paid upgrades, and it is going to stay that way. If you have got some hours out of it and want to put something back, this is where.

Where it goes

Tailwinds and its multiplayer companion Headwinds are built and paid for by one person. The bills are the unglamorous kind: servers, the database behind the multiplayer worlds, domains, and the map tiles under the route map. Headwinds worlds in particular run a simulated week every hour or two, around the clock, whether anyone is logged in or not — that is the part that actually costs money.

There are ads on the site, and they cover a slice of it. Chipping in covers more, and it is the difference between the project paying for itself and not.

What you get

What supporting will never buy

Nothing inside the simulation. No starting cash, no head start, no cheaper aircraft, no faster weeks — not here and not in Headwinds, where you would be playing against real people. The ads do not come off either — they stay on for everyone, supporters included, because they are part of what pays for this. A management game where the standings can be bought is a different and much worse game, and the badge is deliberately the whole of it.

Other ways to help, all free

• Tell someone who likes this kind of game. Word of mouth is how nearly everyone arrives.
• Report bugs with enough detail to reproduce them, on the contact form or in Discord.
• Argue with the balance in Discord. A lot of what is in the game now started as someone saying a number felt wrong.
• Leave the ads on. That is a real contribution and it costs nothing.

The small print

Ko-fi handles the payment; it takes cards and PayPal, and you can give once or monthly and cancel a monthly tip yourself at any time. A tip is a tip, not a purchase or a subscription to a service — nothing about the game is gated behind it, and nothing you can already do stops working if you do not. No refunds are promised, though if something goes wrong, say so and it will get sorted out.