Ostranauts PASS Ferry Guide

PASS — Pacific Airlines Space Service — is the official ferry network that moves captains and crew between OKLG stations, owned ships, and nearby flotilla berths. It is the standard answer when your reactor dies, your RCS bladder is empty, or the tutorial left your coffin drifting while you stand broke on Port Azikiwe. After v0.15.1.20, every ferry ride advances the in-game clock for the trip duration, so PASS is logistics — not a free teleport cheat for gigs.

This page explains how to open the PASS app, read pickup ETA, pay fees, recover a dead ship, coordinate multi-crew ferries, and plan around the rebalance. Cross-read Rescue When Stranded for nav Rescue channels and Getting Started for the first-hour context.

Opening PASS

Two entry points:

1. PDA Menu — Home → PASS icons open the ferry app. A Renbao PDA item is not required to book.
2. PASS kiosks — striped white/red/yellow/blue terminals at Port Azikiwe and related OKLG spaces.

The list shows reachable stations and owned ships. Pickup ETA grows the farther you are from OKLG ferry basing — deep boneyard or outer-system characters may see empty destination lists until they return to local OKLG space.

Select a destination to lock ETA. Canceling after booking usually costs a cancel fee (community docs cite around $400). Passage fees themselves often land on the Funds screen as shift-end payees rather than an instant cash snatch — open Funds before shift close so ferry debt does not surprise your mortgage line.

What PASS is for

Good uses:

• Reach a ship that still has a battery while you stand on OKLG with empty pockets.
• Haul a replacement Compact Ship Battery from Supplies, then ferry back and install power.
• Move a crew member to a second owned hull while you stay on the captain ship.
• Recover after arrest, fine, or tutorial confusion when the hull is no longer beside you.

Bad uses after the rebalance:

• Spamming ferries to finish Gig Nexus timers with near-zero calendar cost.
• Treating PASS as interplanetary torch travel — local OKLG service dominates; outer maps may refuse destinations.

When fuel remains and COMMS works, flying yourself is often cheaper in shift time than a long ETA ferry. Compare against How to Fly and Dock margins.

Time advance and the gigs exploit fix

Blue Bottle Games documented that PASS plus courier gigs created exploits, and some couriers failed to verify delivery. The PASS and Gigs Rebalance update made ferries consume real calendar time and retuned gig durations so slow ferry spam rarely wins. Full captain notes: PASS and Gigs Rebalance.

Practical consequences:

• A ferry that takes “hours” of sim time can burn a mortgage shift buffer.
• Crew booked on a different ferry may arrive elsewhere — watch alerts when you run multi-crew logistics.
• Tutorial prompts now teach ferry flow more clearly for stranded starters.

Dead ship recovery workflow

Classic battery-death loop:

1. Confirm you are in OKLG local space with PASS destinations visible.
2. Book ferry to Port Azikiwe or the Flotilla if a spare battery exists there.
3. Buy or uninstall a charged battery.
4. Book ferry back to the owned ship destination.
5. Install battery, restore power bus, verify nav and COMMS before undock fantasies.

If destinations are missing, you are outside ferry coverage — restore avionics on-site, drift carefully, or use nav Rescue contacts described in Rescue When Stranded.

Fund the first ferry with Gig Nexus courier cash when you have zero credits.

Multi-crew and roster notes

Only the character who booked the ferry rides it. Captains with hired hands must track who is in transit. Post-rebalance alerts fire when another crew ferry arrives while you control someone else. Keep roster helmet and EVA bottle policies sane so arriving crew are not hypoxic — see Hire Crew and crew AI.

PASS versus other recovery tools

Tool	Needs	Cost shape	Best when
PASS ferry	Local coverage, credits	Fee + shift time	Dead power near OKLG
Nav Rescue	Partial COMMS power	Tow / reputation	Drift with signal
Self-fly	Fuel + RCS	Propellant	Hull still alive
Debug	Console	Integrity	Last resort only

Debug remains a last resort that can desync saves — prefer PASS, Rescue, and on-ship triage.

Related pages

• Gigs and Gig Nexus — earn ferry money without undocking
• Rescue When Stranded — broader recovery tree
• Controls hub — PDA and orders workflows
• Map hub — OKLG geography
• Updates — ferry timing patches