A hangar is one of the best investments you can make playing HardWar. You can make money just by making the hangar public and turning on your repair drones and selling repair services in the manner of a Breaker Maker. You also get free repairs and a place to store booty you want to keep.

Locating A Hangar

Getting a hangar is easy. Just go to any real estate dealer found at the bottom of your Local Services Menu and select and purchase one. Hangars cost $16-17,000.

Before buying a hangar you should try to pick one in a good location for money making. The best spots are around Light Wells and away from other Moth repair shops. Find a likely area and with good traffic and look at the names of the 'Vacant' buildings there. Now go to the nearest real estate dealer and buy a hangar in the area.

The most profitable locations I've found are: Downtown 5, which is a vacant building near Light Well 1; and Vacant 006, Downtown near Light Well 3. This was the first hangar I ever bought. If you know of other good hangar locations, please e-mail me. I'll be adding some more locations on this page soon.

Using Your Hangar

The real estate dealer will put the hangar in your Buildings Menu. You should lock it there so it won't be overwritten by subsequent targeting. Now go to your new hangar and use the Owner Controls Menu to open your hangar to the public, and toggle on your sales system and drones. Now just go about your business and return from time to time to pick up your cash using the 'Get Cash' button in Owner Controls.

You get free repairs from your hangar by accessing your hangar's computer and clicking the 'Repairs' button. The subsequent menu is similiar to those found in other garages. The big difference is that you don't have to pay for repairs. A big advantage in Misplaced Optimism.

You can also strip a Moth down to prepare to trade it in for a better Moth. Use the 'Remove' button and menu to take off any pod, drone, and cannons you have fitted. Missiles and software will stay with the Moth. If you are wanting to salvage the engine or cell, you will have to buy and stock a cell and engine to replace them with. I've often purchased a Cell #3 early in the game and switch it out with my initial Silver-Y's Cell #1. When I trade in my Silver-Y, I switch the cells back and have the Cell #3 to fit to my new Moth.

Storing and Selling Items

You can take any cargo you'd like to keep to your hangar and unload it. If the 'Sales System' is toggled on, others can buy your goods. Turn this system off if you want to keep your goods, but still want to offer repairs. I tend to hoard missiles for use later.

A note about selling goods. Your default price for items is well below market value. In the original, unpatched game it takes hundreds of mouseclicks to raise the price. For this reason, most pilots sell items at other business to make more money and only keep what they intend to use or sell later in their hangar. In the patched game, you can raise prices by 10 or 100 units instead of one-unit-per-click. This makes operating a sales hangar in the patched game very profitable. In the unpatched game, it's tedious to make a profit this way.

Darklord and others have reported that there are great profits to be had selling Bodyparts in hangars along the gang transports' trade route with the aliens. Darklord has made a fortune selling Bodyparts for over $2000 from Gamma H3. Selling Bodyparts in Downtown05 has worked for me. It seems there's a desperate need for Bodyparts anywhere between Skinner and Scrubber HQs and the Port Tunnel in Downtown.

A Second Hangar

A second hangar can have the advantage of giving you a private place to duck into. Remember that if your hangar is open to the public, you may have to wait for the air lock to clear just like in any other public hangar. This can be deadly if you are being chased by a pirate. With a private hangar, the door is always open and you can duck in with your cargo without frear of interruption.

Some players like to invest in several hangars to make easy cash. Most hangars will at least pay for themselves during the course of the game. They can also come in handy for ducking pirates and faction enemies.