Maneuvering
You can maneuver your ship one of two ways, via the keyboard (WASD or arrow keys) or point and click on the screen, sidemap (located in the side panel), or radar. You may also follow another unit by clicking on their ship or pressing tab to cycle through the surrounding ships.
Attacking
To ATTACK an enemy, you must choose it as your TARGET and then use a weapon item on that target. Activating a weapon makes that weapon warm up, then fires the weapon towards at the target. The probability of your shot hitting the target is determined by the ACCURACY of the weapon used. You can improve the accuracy of all your weapons by activating a Aim Computer. Targets that are using a Aim Scrambler or other means of camouflage, are harder to hit.
Taking Damage
When the target is hit, it takes certain amount of damage. The amount of damage inflicted, obviously, depends on the DAMAGE of the weapon used. If the target has a SHIELD active, the shield absorbs the damage until it runs out. The damage points inflicted are subtracted from the target's HIT POINTS. When the HP are depleted, the target is destroyed.
Timing
All items have a warm-up time. This means that some items you cannot use immediately; instead there is a delay during which the item is being prepared for use. While this is going on, you cannot use any other items. Likewise, items may have a cool-down time. The effect is that you need to wait before you can use the item again.
Critical Hits
Each hit has a certain probability of being a CRITICAL HIT (ie, increased damage inflicted on the victim). The probability of scoring a critical hit depends whether or not the player has an Aim Computer active, or if the enemy has an Aim Scrambler.
Buffs
BUFFS increase the effectiveness of an item, such as the Speed Actuator, or Attack Charge.
[Stunning:
There are also special weapons that only stun, but cause no damage. While stunned, the victim use items and moves slower. Better ships needs better Stuncharges to get the same effect. This gives the attacker an opportunity to use weapons on the victim that require a long warm-up and that would otherwise be very risky to use. Stunned state lasts for a certain period of time. After the stun time is elapsed the victim goes back to normal.
Repairing
You can restore your ships hit points by activating your Repair Droid. Be aware however that it has a long reloading time. take note that the standard "Repair droid" repairs slower then a Enhanced Repair Droid.
Supporting Others
Sometimes you will want to target your team mates rather than enemy ships, and use items on them that have beneficial effect (e.g. Repair Target, Protector, etc.). Loot If you shoot down an alien, it might drop a item (such as Cryonite, Blueprints, or Astrogation Chips). In order to pick up the dropped item, you must activate your Collector.
Leaving Combat
You cannot go back into orbit when in combat. (You are said to be “in combat” if you have been shot at or have shot [including such things as Stun Domes and Angrobombs] during the last few seconds.) So make sure you stay and fight to the end! Of course you can always be cowardly and (try to) escape using your Afterburner.
Death
When your HIT POINTS are depleted, your ship's hull is breached and your ship explodes. Every player starship is equipped with an emergency escape function. This is automatically activated when your hull is breached and you are taken back into the hangar of a nearby space station after a short while. You will lose a certain amount of Cryonite, depending on ship's rank (rank 1 "New Player(s)" ships don't lose any cryonite). Other players can resurrect you or you can sacrifice substantial energy to "resurrect" yourself.
Navigational computer
You can activate the navigational computer by clicking the icon that looks like a ship headed for a door. Once you click that you have 3 options, Surface, Hanger And starbase. Take note in the hanger or at suface you only have one choice.
