RedM fast travel: how to let players cross the map without teleporting

RedM fast travel does not exist for players out of the box: a RedM server has to add it with a script. The three common ways are a teleport menu, trains or stagecoaches on set routes, and a taxi that carries players to where they want to go. On a roleplay server the best choice is usually a ride that keeps the player in the world, costs a little, and still takes some time, so that horses and wagons stay worth owning. This guide compares the options and shows how a hot air balloon taxi does it.

Why fast travel is a hard choice on a RedM server

The map is large. A ride from Tumbleweed to Annesburg on horseback takes long enough that a player with an hour to spare may not bother. New players feel it most: their friends are across the map and they have no good horse yet.

But travel is also where a lot of roleplay happens. A robbery on the road, a stranger at a camp, a lawman who recognises a wanted face: none of that happens to a player who blinks from one town to the next. Every travel option is a trade between those two things.

• Too slow, and players log off instead of travelling, or stay in one town all night.
• Too fast, and the roads empty, stables lose their point, and outlaws have nobody to rob.
• Too cheap, and nobody rides anywhere. Too dear, and nobody uses it.

The ways to add fast travel to RedM

There are free scripts for most of these. Teleport and train scripts are easy to find, and if you only want players to steer a balloon they already have, the free open-source balloon controls credited in Balloon Taxi's README do that. What the free options tend not to include is a paid service with NPC operators, stations on the map and a pilot who flies to any waypoint on its own.

Many servers mix two: trains between the big towns, and something that reaches the places trains do not.

How a RedM balloon taxi works

Poggy's Balloon Taxi ($8.99) puts a balloon operator at eight stations: Strawberry, Rhodes, Valentine, Annesburg, Saint Denis, Blackwater, Armadillo and Tumbleweed. Each has a map blip. A ride goes like this:

1. The player sets a waypoint on the map.
2. They walk up to an operator and press Talk (G by default), then pick Take a Ride. The fare comes out of their cash.
3. They board within 60 seconds and press Take Off (B by default) when ready.
4. The NPC pilot climbs to about 80 metres above the ground, flies over hills and mountains, slows on approach and lands on its own.
5. After landing the pilot waits 30 seconds for them to get out, then rises and flies away.

In flight, prompts on screen let the passenger Stop Here, Change Destination, Step On It! (from 22 to 30 metres a second by default), Change Seat or Disembark. Friends can ride along: up to four passengers sit in the basket, with sitting animations and an invisible floor so nobody ragdolls, and everyone sees the same seats.

Why a balloon suits roleplay

• The player stays in the world. A balloon over Valentine can be seen from the street, and it has to land somewhere.
• It takes time. A cross-map ride is quicker than a horse but not instant, so the journey still counts.
• It reaches anywhere. A waypoint can be a ranch, a camp or a hilltop, not only a station.
• It is a scene of its own. Four people in a basket at sunset is roleplay nobody had to plan.

Balloon rentals: letting players fly

At any station where rentals are on, a player can pick Rent a Balloon and fly it themselves for 60 minutes by default. They are warned 5 minutes before it ends, and then the balloon is taken back.

Rentals give players things to do, not just a way to get somewhere: a sightseeing tour with a player as guide, a balloon race between stations, or an outlaw scouting a ranch from above. RedM server event ideas has a balloon race you can run with rentals alone.

Setting fares and speeds for your server

Every setting is in game under /poggy → Poggy Balloon, or in config.lua. The ones to decide first:

• Taxi fare, Config.BalloonTaxi.Price: 3 by default, taken from cash. 0 makes rides free.
• Rental price, Config.BalloonRental.Price: 50 by default.
• Rental length, Config.BalloonRental.RentalDurationMinutes: 60 by default.
• Travel speed, TravelSpeed and TravelSpeedFast: 22 and 30 metres a second.
• Cruising altitude, CruisingAltitude: 80 metres. Raise it if balloons clip hills.
• Taxi or rentals only: each has its own on and off switch, and rentals can be switched off per station.

A useful test for the fare: it should cost about what a short job pays, so a ride is something a player chooses, not the default. Fares and rentals are also a small money sink, which helps keep prices steady. How to balance a RedM server economy covers sinks in more detail.

New stations take a few minutes. In /poggy → Poggy Balloon → Locations → Balloon stations, add a station, stand where the operator should be and press Use my position, then do the same on open, flat ground for the balloon. The script's help page walks through it, and warns to pick a spot with no trees, roofs or wires overhead.

Installing it

• Balloon Taxi runs on VORP Core, RSG Core and QBCore RedM through the free Poggy Core (Free), version 0.14.0 or newer.
• No menu resource, no prompt library and no database: there is no SQL to import.
• Add ensure poggy_balloon to server.cfg after ensure poggy_core, and restart.
• config.lua and translations.lua are open to edit. English, French, Spanish and German are included.
• Updates install through poggy_core, and your settings are kept.

New to adding scripts? How to install a RedM script covers the steps, and the best RedM scripts for a new server shows what else is worth adding early.