You will need to learn several different facets of ship control to become a successful pilot.
The following commands are used to manoeuvre your ship:
| Binding Name | Keyboard & Mouse | Gamepad |
| YAW LEFT | A | A |
| YAW RIGHT | D | D |
| PITCH UP | Mouse Down | L-Stick Down |
| PITCH DOWN | Mouse Up | L-Stick Up |
| ROLL RIGHT | Mouse Right | L-Stick Right |
| ROLL LEFT | Mouse Left | L-Stick Left |
| THROTTLE UP | W | Right Bumper |
| THROTTLE DOWN | S | Left Bumper |
| THRUST UP | R | R-Stick Up |
| THRUST DOWN | F | R-Stick Down |
| THRUST LEFT | Q | R-Stick Left |
| THRUST RIGHT | E | R-Stick Right |
| ENGINE BOOST | Tab | B Button |
Your ship’s suite of thrusters allows you to move with six degrees of freedom:
Forward/Backward Motion: Use THROTTLE UP and THROTTLE DOWN to move your ship directly forward or backwards (much like a car accelerating forwards/in reverse). Note that it takes time for your ship to accelerate and decelerate. When travelling forwards, you will only begin to move backwards once all forward momentum has stopped, and vice versa. Note that your ship’s retro thrusters, which provide backwards motion, are weaker than your main thrusters, which provide forward motion, resulting in a slower reverse flight acceleration/top reverse speed.
Up/Down Motion: Use THRUST UP and THRUST DOWN to move your ship straight upwards or downwards (much like the movement of an elevator). When moving upwards, you will only begin to move downwards once all upwards momentum has stopped, and vice versa.
Left/Right Motion: Use THRUST LEFT and THRUST RIGHT to move your ship directly to the left or right (much like a soccer goalkeeper sidestepping left and right along the goal line).
When moving left, you will only begin to move right once all lateral momentum has stopped, and vice versa.
Note that in the three degrees of movement described above, your ship never changes its facing or orientation (called its attitude). The following movements available do just this: Pitch Up/Down: Use PITCH UP and PITCH DOWN to rotate your ship in an upwards or downwards motion (much like the movement of your head when you look up and down).
Roll Left/Right: Use ROLL LEFT and ROLL RIGHT to rotate your ship clockwise or counter clock (much like the rotation of a steering wheel).
Yaw Left/Right: Use YAW LEFT and YAW RIGHT to rotate your ship around left or right (much like the rotation of a tank’s turret). Note: Yaw rotation is weaker than pitch and roll.
Default gamepad bindings enable “YAW into ROLL on initial roll”. This means that when you make very slight/short lived roll inputs they are translated into yaw movements.
Note that in the three degrees of movement described above, your ship does not change its position in space.
Sometimes you may need to accelerate extremely quickly, a likely scenario during combat. In such cases, use ENGINE BOOST to trigger an emergency firing of your thrusters. This burn takes a moment to engage and only lasts for a few seconds, but can accelerate your ship to speeds in excess of normal capabilities and increase manoeuvrability. Note that when the boost ends, your ship will slowly decelerate to within normal operating speeds.
Emergency thrust requires energy from your ENG capacitor (see Power Distributer section, below); insufficient ENG power will cause the emergency thrust to fail.
To fly expertly, you will need to use all of these movements in conjunction with each other. For beginner pilots, it’s recommended that you acclimatise yourself with the basic principles of using throttle with pitch and roll:
• Throttle up to the speed you wish to travel at
• Roll so that your destination/target is roughly above the centre-point of your view
• Pitch up until the destination/target is roughly in the centre-point of your view
• Yaw to fine-tune your facing so that the destination/target is directly in the centre point of your view
