APEX

the line is at 110 km simulated funds
HEAT 1 2:30 8 up METER ON
Live board · real money · prototype

Nobody can buy first place.

Money is fuel here, burned by the second, and your score is how long you stay above the Line. The biggest spender on this board has spent $1,118 and held it for 1.3 seconds. The record is 32.3.

How it works ↓
Watching costs nothing. This is running right now.
1 / 8

Hold W or drag upward.

Your engine only runs while you are paying.

The Program

You do not upgrade the craft. You train the stand-in who flies it while you are not here, and a fully trained stand-in is exactly as capable as a good pair of hands. It can never be more.

0hours banked
0 / 9fitted
idleon the bench

    Hours come from flying heats, and heats cost fuel, so spending gets you more attempts. Nothing on this page is for sale. The bench runs on a real clock and cannot be shortened at any price. Progress is stored in this browser only.

    What it bought Next heat in 0:32

    Sign this heat
    0 h banked
    Heat board

      Nothing is charged between heats. A record here stands until somebody holds the Line longer. It cannot be outspent, it never expires, and you are never asked to defend it.

      W/Sthrottle
      A/Dlane
      shiftredline
      Ppact
      Hrules

      APEX

      Why this is a different game, and not a leaderboard with weather.

      The one-line version. Money buys you seconds, and the best seconds cannot be bought at all. The Line sits above the altitude any amount of spending can reach, so the only way over it is to borrow a rival's thrust, and the only thing worth reporting is how long you lasted up there. A rank says you paid the most. A clock says what you did.

      What changed

      • ›State became event. A flat leaderboard shows you where things stand. This predicts where they are going and puts a countdown on the collision, so there is something to watch rather than something to check.
      • ›A height became a duration. A height is instantaneous and false by the time you post it. A duration is finished, stays true forever, and separates a three second spike from a thirty second hold by 10x, where the whole altitude range only spans 1.5x.
      • ›1v1 became coalition. The ceiling forces cooperation. Towing and pledging are the only routes to a record, so alliances, betrayal and timing enter a game that used to be one number.
      • ›The trophy became unbuyable. The Line is placed above the reach of maximum spend, on purpose. Measured over ten minute sessions, the highest spender on the board has never held it: its best is 1.3 seconds against a 32 second record.
      • ›The camera follows the fight. Not the leader. If the seat were the product, the camera would sit on it.

      Three ladders, three ways to play

      • 01Live hold. Whose clock is running right now. Usually nobody's, which is the point.
      • 02Longest holds. The record, in seconds, and it never decays. The board a whale cannot buy into.
      • 03Uptime. Total time above the deck at 60 km. The ladder every paying player's clock actually runs on, and the one you win by being patient rather than reckless.
      01 · Try to buy it

      Turn the money all the way up.

      This is the same equation the board above is running, not an illustration. Thrust decays as the air thins, so every extra dollar per second buys less height than the last one. Drag it to the top and watch where it stops.

      Burn rate$0.00/s
      At $0.00/s you are on the deck. Money is fuel here, not a price, so nothing holds you up but the burn.
      02 · The number that matters

      The biggest spender has never held the Line.

      1.3s
      MERIDIAN · longest hold, across every run
      StrategyMaximum burn, no allies
      Spent per 10 min~$1,150
      Highest point reached110.2 km
      Longest hold1.3 s
      The record it chases32.3 s
      Uptime rank1st of 8

      MERIDIAN is the whale on the board above, and it plays the old game perfectly: spend the most, hold the most, never cooperate. It wins uptime outright, which is the ladder money is supposed to win. On the Line it peaks at 110.2 km and grazes it for about a second, alone rather than towed. Every craft that actually holds the Line gets there by using another player.

      03 · Why it runs in heats

      On an empty board the Line is unreachable.

      Not harder. Unreachable. Alone you are the leader by definition, so the wind builds to full and drags your ceiling down to 81.5 km, and there is nobody above you to tow off because there is nobody. Measured on the board above, three runs, same build:

      ConditionBest holdPeak
      Alone, unlimited money, perfect play0.0 s99.2 km
      Full board, no steering or timing15.7 s112.0 km
      Full board, flown well27.5 s113.2 km
      Same 600 seconds, ranked by spendTime on screenTime on the Line
      CALODAY · $1,139521 s0.0 s
      ORBIT · $1,136524 s0.0 s
      MERIDIAN · $1,119545 s2.9 s
      UPRANKED · $843513 s16.8 s
      CAREERFLOW · $782522 s18.4 s
      OFFLOOP · $780539 s29.6 s
      LONGHAUL · $449323 s0.0 s

      That table is the answer to "so what does my money buy". Read the middle column and money works exactly as you would expect: spend correlates with time on screen at 0.77, and the craft that spends least is last. Presence is the part you are buying and it is guaranteed. Read the right column and money stops dead: the three biggest spenders took 0.0, 0.0 and 2.9 seconds on the Line, while three cheaper craft took 16.8, 18.4 and 29.6.

      Money buys the floor. Nobody buys the ceiling. That is not a cap on what you get for your money, it is the reason the record is worth holding: a rival cannot take it off you by writing a larger cheque, which is the one thing they can always do on every other paid leaderboard.

      Two things follow, and both are in the build above rather than on a roadmap. The board runs in heats, so the field flies together instead of being spread thin across a day. And the meter does not run below four craft in the air: charging for a board that cannot be won is selling something that does not exist.

      Takes your craft up and empties the sky around it. Watch the burn readout stop charging you, and watch how far you get.

      04 · The whole game

      Three rules, and the rest falls out.

      Gravity

      Stop paying and you sink

      There is no holding still. Every craft above is climbing or falling, always, and position is your spending integrated over time.

      The ceiling

      Money runs out of air

      Sustained maximum burn peaks at 105.2 km and never passes 106. The Line is at 110, placed deliberately above the reach of any budget.

      The tow

      The only way over is a rival

      Sit in someone's wake and your efficiency multiplies by 1.55, which lifts your ceiling to 122.8 km. Pass them and it is gone.

      And no, you cannot sit right on top of them. Inside 1.7 km their exhaust is still a jet and it pushes you down, costing you a quarter of your thrust. The lift only starts further back, where that gas has slowed and turned into a rising column. There is a sweet spot, and finding it is the skill.