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Headcount (Instant Crew)
"New citizens on deck the moment you need them."
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How do I install Headcount (Instant Crew)?
Download the free ProjectMods desktop app, then install Headcount (Instant Crew) for Airborne Empire in one click.
</>What does Headcount (Instant Crew) do?
Growing your population in Airborne Empire means flying to a settlement, paying for recruits, and flying back, over and over, while the buildings you just put up sit empty. Headcount removes the round trip. Set how many people you want and press Recruit Now - they arrive on deck immediately, ready for work. Turn on Free Recruits and every normal recruitment stops costing coin as well, so the trips you do make are pure profit. Great if you like the building and the exploring but not the shuttle run in between.
</>What is Headcount (Instant Crew)?
Growing your population in Airborne Empire means flying to a settlement, paying for recruits and flying home while your new buildings sit empty. Headcount removes the round trip: set a number, press Recruit Now, and citizens arrive on deck ready for work. Free Recruits makes normal recruiting cost nothing too. Free from ProjectMods, the community-first PC mod manager for 400+ games.
</>Common questions about Headcount (Instant Crew)
What does Headcount do in Airborne Empire?
Headcount puts new citizens straight onto your city's deck in Airborne Empire, ready to be assigned work, instead of making you fly to a settlement and pay for them. Normally population only grows on those round trips: fly out, spend coin, fly home, and hope the buildings you put up last hour have not been standing empty the whole time. Headcount cuts that loop out. You choose how many people you want, press Recruit Now, and they appear on deck. There is a second switch that makes ordinary recruiting at settlements cost no coin, so the trips you still choose to make are pure profit.
Do citizens brought in by Headcount behave like normal recruits?
Yes - they are ordinary Airborne Empire citizens in every way that matters. They need food, water, shelter and a job, they can be assigned to workstations like anyone else, and they count towards your population for everything the game measures. Headcount does not create a special class of worker that lives on air; it just changes where they came from. That is worth planning for, because bringing forty people aboard at once means forty more mouths at the next meal. If your food and water production is not ready, a big instant intake will strain the city exactly the way a big normal intake would.
How many citizens does Recruit Now bring aboard?
Exactly as many as the How Many value is set to - anywhere from one citizen up to fifty in a single press. It is a number you choose rather than a fixed batch, so you can bring in one person to fill a single empty workstation or a whole shift's worth at once, and each press of Recruit Now delivers that many again, so presses stack if you want more than fifty. The useful number is whatever your current food, water and housing can carry rather than the highest number the mod will take, because a deck full of unhoused, unfed citizens is a worse problem in Airborne Empire than an empty workshop.
What does the Free Recruits switch change?
Headcount's Free Recruits switch makes normal recruiting at Airborne Empire settlements cost no coin. It is separate from the Recruit Now button, so you can use either on its own: instant citizens without the discount, the discount without the instant citizens, or both together. With it on, you still fly out and still pick up people the ordinary way - the price is simply gone, which turns a recruiting run into something you do on the way past rather than something you budget for. Turning it off restores the normal price straight away, so a mid-run change of heart costs you nothing at all.
Why use Headcount instead of flying out for recruits?
Because the shuttle run is the least interesting part of growing a city. Airborne Empire is at its best when you are shaping the thing in the sky or exploring what is under it, and the recruit loop asks you to stop doing both, fly a known route, pay, and fly back. Headcount is for players who like the building and the exploring but not the errand in between. It also helps when you have just finished a big expansion and have six empty workshops staring at you - rather than pausing construction for a round trip, you staff them now and keep the momentum going.
What options does Headcount (Instant Crew) include?
Recruit Now
Brings that many new citizens onto your deck immediately, ready to be put to work.
Diagnose
Quick status check - whether the mod is awake and how many citizens you have.
Free Recruits
Recruiting from settlements stops costing coin.
How Many
How many new citizens the Recruit Now button brings aboard.
Headcount drops new citizens straight onto your deck in Airborne Empire, as many as you ask for and ready for work, and can make settlement recruiting cost no coin - a free mod from ProjectMods.
System Requirements
What features does Headcount (Instant Crew) include?
- Brings as many new citizens onto the deck as you ask for, ready to be put to work immediately
- Skips the fly-out, pay-up, fly-back round trip that growing your population normally costs you
- Makes ordinary recruiting free as well, so the trips you do choose to make are pure profit
- Treats new arrivals like any other citizen: they eat, drink, need shelter and take jobs
- Lets you set the number yourself, from a handful for one workshop to a crowd for a whole shift
Best For
- Buildings standing empty because you finished building faster than your population could grow into it
- Setting up a busy, fully staffed sky city for a screenshot, video, or stream without filming the recruiting trips first
- Recovering after a rough stretch that emptied the deck and left half your jobs unclaimed
- Pushing toward a big population goal without a dozen identical recruiting trips in the way
- Testing whether a new housing layout actually shelters everyone before you commit to it
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