Here's MTF's Beginner's Guide to Flight Hacking (until entering F):

1) **Scrapyard:** Get yourself some legs, some guns, some engines, and if you can, a small storage unit. You will be playing combat until F, but you'll want to maximize the ratio of speed to integrity... Legs are the best for this purpose. Once you have more experience you can use wheels for extra speed, but you will take more core damage, which means you have to be more careful with exploration.

2) **-10:** Your goal this floor is to find three (potentially four) things: The storage cache, launcher(s), hacking suites, and (optionally) flight units. The storage cache can be found by just fully exploring the floor (though it is not guaranteed at this depth, it will spawn like 90% of the time)... you want to equip two lrg. storage units now and take two med. storage units for later. Launchers can also be found by exploring, and there's usually at least one somewhere on the floor. Hacking suites can be found by killing operators, and the best way to do so is to put trojan(operator) on a terminal so you know where they all are (shooting terminals before they reach them is a good tactic to keep alert down). Also, kill every hauler you see on the floor... you will often find good launchers or flight units inside. For exiting, if you find a launcher and have good core, you should do the mines. If not, then skip the mines and continue to the next floor. My evolve pattern here is **1/3/3/2**

3) **-9:** Your goal this floor is to continue finding hacking suites and flight units, as well as some armor (for next floor). I like to carry at least one piece of lgt. armor plating (or the best 3 mass armor you can find).  By the time you enter F (and are following my build) you will want to have at least 5 good flight units (imp. flight units or imp. vtol modules) in your inventory, preferably 6. Again, if you have a launcher and good core, exiting to mines is a great option... but if Storage spawns on this floor I might consider doing it instead, as you can find really good items (including amazing flight units and launchers) inside. Also, I like to find another storage cache and equip a third storage unit here (and I'll equip the a med. storage unit in my third util slot until I find the cache), as well as grab another lrg. storage unit for backup. Also, try to find some lgt. nuclear cores (or Lgt. Deuterium Engines), as these engines have the best mass to energy ratio early on. My evolve pattern here is **1/3/5/2**

4) **-8:** Same goal as the previous floor, find more hacking suites and flight units, but also imp sensing and a melee weapon. The watchers on this floor will drop imp sensor arrays and imp signal interpreters, you should try to find both before leaving (entering F without sensing is suicide). I will equip 4 storage units and a piece of armor (can be heavier armor as long as your still combat) for exploration on this floor. The melee weapon is extremely important (as you will need it to dig walls in F), so make sure you find one! I like to use katanas and other early game slashing weapons. My evolve pattern here is **1/3/7/2**.

5) **F** Congratulations, you made it through mats! Time to switch to flight =D Here's an example perfect flight build entering F:

**Power**
Lgt. Nuclear Core

**Prop**
3 Imp. VTOL Modules

**Util**
Med. Storage
Imp. Sensor Array (swapped out with lgt. armor plating whenever you are about to be shot at)
Imp Signal Interpreter
4 Hacking Suites

**Weapon**
1 Katana

I'm a big proponent of the 3 prop flight build... it is the most efficient with its parts, and will make you a hack god faster than 4 props. You will not need to upgrade to 4 props until -5 at the earliest, leaving you free to maximize your hackware early. Keep in mind that this is a slightly more difficult early build than most people are comfortable running... If it's feeling rather rough, you can also try out a **2/4/5/2** build, but your hacking will suffer.