Updated: 1 March 2014 for Patch 0.8.1744
Gliders are a unique mode of transportation and once you master their use, they’re fun and very effective. You’ll find gliders placed all over New Eden, and you can even get portable gliders to use out in the wilderness.
You can start gliding using the permanent gliders placed at Accord facilities across New Eden. Every watchtower has at least one, often two, and many towns will have glider pads at points of high elevation. Look on the map for this icon to see nearby glider pads. (You may need to zoom the map right in for them to appear.)
How to Glide
Check out our How to Glide Guide
To use a glider pad, simply stand on it, or run across it. Holographic wings will appear from your character’s back, and you’ll be thrown up in the air. You’ll immediately start gliding forward, so be prepared!
You steer by using the mouse, but you don’t need to press any buttons. You’ll need to angle slightly downwards – if you stay level or point upwards, you’ll start to stall. When you stall, you’ll dip downwards and then level out. This will repeat indefinitely, costing you a lot of altitude, until you lower your angle enough to stop stalling. Steady careful adjustments are best rather than rapid movement. Swooping downwards while gliding helps you pick up speed fast, at the expense of gliding time due to loss of altitude.
Occasionally something goes wrong and you’ll plunge straight downwards; adjusting your angle won’t help you level out of this dive, but you can sometimes salvage the glide by tapping shift to reset your glider wings. If you use spacebar it will deactivate your glider wings and activate your jumpjets, allowing you to smoothly gain height, although you can’t then restart your glider wings without using another glider pad. Hitting a surface or object turns your glider off. Note that these are new controls; previously gliders were reset by tapping spacebar, and you couldn’t go straight from gliding to jumpjetting. Experienced gliders will have some reflexes to relearn!
You can still use your abilities in flight, including firing your weapons. You just have to be very careful about aiming without crashing.
It’s worth hopping on glider pads at the watchtowers to practise glider movement, because once you’ve got the hang of it, gliding is a very effective way of getting all over New Eden.
Here’s a quick look at the basics of gliding:
Note that this video was taken before the new gliding altitude/angle indicator appeared in the UI; this new UI feature makes it much easier to keep your glide angle correct.
Deployable Glider Pads
In addition to the permanent gliders, you can also get portable glider pads you can carry with you. You can deploy these using your calldowns menu, and place them on any flat surface. They’ll last for a short amount of time, so other people nearby can also use them. See “Types of Glider Pads” below for more information.
Dropships and Gliders
If you exit a dropship in the air, by pressing E, you’ll automatically deploy glider wings as you’re falling. This means you can start your glide very high in the air, and glide a long way – it’s a great way to get to spots where dropships don’t normally go. (See our Dropships Route Map for more information on dropships.)
Movement Abilities and Gliders
Types of Glider Pads
There are a range of glider pads available to players. Here’s a rundown of each type. They all function the same way; they differ only in duration, cooldown and appearance.
(Note that the POI bonus from Trans-Hub, which reduces cooldowns when the town is under Accord control, applies to glider pad cooldowns too. To learn more, check out our POIs Guide.)
Permanent Glider Pads
These gliders can be found all around New Eden (and there are also a few in the Melding Pockets). Each Watchtower has at least one, and you’ll also find them around towns at points of high elevation.
These are the “standard” glider wings, and many of the portable gliders look the same.
Adventurers’ Glider Pad
Cost: Free
Source: Turn On The Lights! achievement (visit and activate each SIN tower in New Eden).
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 1 hour, resets on death
This looks the same as standard glider wings.
Rechargable Glider Pad
Cost: 50
Source: Luau Larry (Red Bean vendor) or Red Bean Store
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This looks the same as standard glider wings.
1-Use Glider Pad
Cost: 200 Crystite
Source: Crafted
Duration: 20 seconds
Cooldown: 1 minute
This looks the same as standard glider wings.
The recipe for this item is found in the printer, under Build > Consumables > Deployable Glider Pad. You can print batches of up to 10 at a time.
Cherub Glider Pad
Cost: 50
Source: Red Bean store
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad is available from 10-14 February 2014, for Valentine’s Day. It does not currently share a cooldown with any other glider pads, although this may change.
Sunset Glider Pad
Cost: Free with any purchase of Red Beans during August/September 2013.
Source: Automatically given on next login after purchasing Red Beans.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad shares a cooldown with the Sunrise, Dusk, Emerald and Topaz glider pads. It is no longer available.
Sunrise Glider Pad
Cost: Free with $20+ purchases of Red Beans during October 2013.
Source: Automatically given on next login after purchasing Red Beans.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad shares a cooldown with the Sunset, Dusk, Emerald and Topaz glider pads. It is no longer available.
Dusk Glider Pad
Cost: Free with $20+ purchases of Red Beans during November/December 2013.
Source: Automatically given on next login after purchasing Red Beans.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad shares a cooldown with the Sunset, Sunrise, Emerald and Topaz glider pads. It is no longer available.
Topaz Glider Pad
Cost: Free with $20+ purchases of Red Beans during January/February 2014.
Source: Automatically given on next login after purchasing Red Beans.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad shares a cooldown with the Sunset, Sunrise, Emerald and Dusk glider pads.
Emerald Glider Pad
Cost: Free with $20+ purchases of Red Beans during March 2014 – available for limited duration.
Source: Automatically given on next login after purchasing Red Beans.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes
This glider pad shares a cooldown with the Sunset, Sunrise, Topaz and Dusk glider pads.
Crystalwing Glider Pad
Cost: 20,000 Beta Crystite
Source: Ratchet (Beta Crystite vendor)
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes (shared with other Beta Crystite glider pads)
Diamondwing Glider Pad
Cost: 100,000 Beta Crystite
Source: Ratchet (Beta Crystite vendor)
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes (shared with other Beta Crystite glider pads)
Angel Wing Glider Pad
Cost: 300,000 Beta Crystite
Source: Ratchet (Beta Crystite vendor)
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 2 minutes (shared with other Beta Crystite glider pads)
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Great guide, didnt know that tapping space resets it.
Some other points.
Engineer – (Bastion which I main): You can set some turrets down near a thumper then activate/use a Glider and this will initiate the ‘Bomber’ achievement when your turrets start killing tangos.
There is also a addon called GliderHelper. I use this and since I installed it I purchased the 50 RB Glider as Gliding is so much fun and easy now. It shows a small UI feature with arrows which indicates the perfect levelling for maximum glide.
Thankyou for the reminder about GliderHelper! I’d actually meant to discuss addons in the guide – I’ll amend it as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks for the guide! I didn’t know abut using Assault abilities to jet yourself higher.
Is there any performance difference at all between the various different gliders? I have the Adventurer’s and the Crystal Wing, and I feel like I can’t get as far with them as with standard wings.
No, they’re all the same as far as I know – they’re just reskins of the standard pad, the way all the bikes have the same mechanics too.
Assaults can also use Burn Jets to gain altitude for several seconds. The screen will shake like you are about to stall but it keeps you going up until the jets run out. You can then activate Afterburner or Inferno Dash to negate the stall and glide normally. Pretty sweet :D
Nifty! Thanks for the tip. :)
There is a new glider with red bean purchase for some time!
Yep; it was introduced a couple of days ago. We’ll be updating the guide shortly!
This glider looks like Angel Wing now.
The Sunset glider does, yes. I suspect it’s a bug, though.
if you fly underneath something (Like mushroom rock) you can use Teleport shot to teleport up to the bottom of the rock and continue gliding : >
If you have 2 “Rechargeable Glider Pad”s will they
1. share the same cooldown rendering it inneffective to get more than one?
Or will they
2. have separate cooldowns like the Tigerclaw “Trailblaze” ability?
Also, my friend uses “Evacuate” -> (Recluse) to glide forever. He has Tier III or IV and he looks up 80 degrees and presses it to gain major height. He really can glide forever. (unless the wings shut off after 2 minutes)
That’s a clever trick with teleport shot – I hadn’t thought of using it that way!
Regarding duplicate glider pads, I am fairly sure they’ll share the same cooldown, but I don’t have any duplicates so I can’t say definitively.
As for Evacuate, you can indeed use it to extend a glide if you are careful; we added a caveat in the guide as it’s easy to cause yourself problems with camera reversal.
We cannot keep duplicate glider pads in our inventory.. The cooldown time is shared only between gliders purchased with beta crystite all other gliders have their own cool down… ;)
That’s not correct; the Red Bean glider pads share a cooldown as well. This is confirmed by FadedPez’s post here.
I also find that if you look up when you first step onto the glider pad and then look down after your wing appear, you will increase the initial altitude of the start of the glide. I have found that I can get a lot further doing this than if I don’t. It takes a little practice because if you don’t look back down quick enough you will loose your wings and fall to the ground.
Yeah – that’s actually easier with the new glider-launch camera, I think, though I don’t like that camera much for other reasons.
New Dusk Glider pad!
Yep! We don’t have a shot of it yet because it’s apparently using Diamondwing artwork – that should be fixed shortly, hopefully!
it has a separate cooldown?
Celestial Wings have been added as well!
Would love some basic info + anything on drop chances to go along with it.
Arsenal Rocket Jump ability is very usefull to keep altitude. I made Fortaleza/Northern Shores/Fortaleza/Sunken Harbor/Copa/O Cogumelo without landing without this ability.
With* this ability.