Plane Tickets and Flights (Breakdown and Techniques)

Here's everything I have figured out about sending characters on trips.

Basics:

• A maximum of 3 plane tickets are generated every hour.
  
• 1 plane tickets takes a maximum of 20 minutes to generate, though it could be less.
  
• Most characters can be sent on a trip, except for a few, mostly the animals and some of the less well-programmed ones such as The Parson.
  
• Every character earns 34 pins, even premium characters, except for Sailor Kumiko who earns double, 68 pins.
  
• Each trip takes 4 hours to complete.
  
• One "correct" trip will complete Norbert's Adventure task. The rest are not needed for that.
  

Less Basic:

• 3 to 5 characters are listed as available to go on trips, but more than that number can be sent.
  
• After the 3 plane tickets have been generated, you can send 3 characters on their trips. The 4th plane ticket should generate in under 5 minutes. After that you're looking at a 20 minute wait per ticket.
  
• Characters are only available in the flight list if they are not on a task and are not stored. Example: If you only have 1 character free when you open the flight list then only 1 character will be listed.
  
• More than 5 characters can be sent on trips if the final character is sent on a task or is stored and other characters are roaming free.
  
• As long as at least 1 character is always free then the flight list can be changed. Let's term this a flight list loop.
  
• When storing that final character, you have to make sure that there are at least up to 5 characters roaming free. Once that character is stored or sent on a task then those 5 will show up on the list.
  
• If you store your final character with no other character free then the flight list is now locked down. The loop will be closed. No other changes can be made until all the flights have finished or the Norbert's task (the "correct" trip) has finished.
  

Here's my technique. I send 3 of the 5 on flights, then wait, hopefully, just 5 minutes to send the 4th. If it's not a problem, the 5th can be sent out just 20 minutes after that. Any after that is bordering on tediousness, but if you're that kind of person, go for it. ;) *ahem*

For the evening (or whatever time period you can sacrifice for the game) do the same thing up to the 4th character. Then store that 5th character while having 5 other characters free. Once you store that character (or send them on a job) the other 5 will show up on the list. So, wait 1 hour, come back, and send out 3 of those characters. Again, have like 5 characters free, store the 1 or 2 characters waiting to fly and you'll have another set of 5 listed. Do this for up to 3 hours and you'll have a maximum of 14 characters on flight tasks.

It's not a great situation having to wait an hour for 3 tickets, but it's something people can do right before they go to bed when they won't be collecting after 4 hours anyways.

Keeping those 5 characters free might be the hardest part of this. I store all the buildingless characters that I plan to use for flights, but keeping one character roaming free is the hard part. I found that Sophie's missing 4h task was a blessing in disguise. I can send all the other characters on task using the Unemployment Office for 4 hours and she'll just stand there patiently waiting for me. :) Then I can pull out 5 characters and go back to working on the flights. Or if you're a 24h assignment type person, use Gummy Joe and his missing 24h task. lol.

An additional technique is to use characters that have active questlines, as they won't be sent by the Unemployment Office either. Use as appropriate.

I hope this helps, or take a pill for your headache, sorry. :tongue:

Edit: Thanks to @Linkwick, for bringing this to light. Added some good points from @someonewashere.