Basic training

=
Create a Universe, give it a name, and take note of the seed word combination if you would want to share it or restart it.

=====

=
Use WSAD. Q and E give you lateral thrust. Little blue arrows around you indicate objects just outside your visible range. Aim in between the arrows if you are trying to go fast through an asteroid field. Try not to crash into stuff. {as of alpha 5.1 crash damage is off so feel free to bounce off of everything.} Engines in reverse provide %5O of their maximum thrust

=====

{this section is moot until repair mechanics is brought back into the game. instead, see the Building Section}
You crashed into stuff, didn't you? Move some repair kits to the action bar at the bottom of the screen, (it will stick to your cursor afterwards so put it back in your inventory), close inventory, equip the repair kits, right click to enter repair mode, left click in the desired area when the repair blob is green. Right-click again to exit repair mode

=
Mining Head over to an asteroid or planetoid, equip your laser, and right click on or past the target. Tiles will start to look shattered and eventually break, releasing their ore.

Collecting Fly over the objects in space to collect them. You need to have open slots in your inventory, of course!

Transferring Cargo Pull up another craft's inventory by left-clicking it. Then hit I to bring up your ship's inventory alongside the craft you just selected. Left click grabs the whole stack of an item, left clicking again drops the whole stack. Right clicking allows you to grab half of a stack. Shift-left clicking on a stack when two vessel inventories are open transfers the whole stack between vessels. You can drop items into emtpy space, or click and hold on the trash if you want to get rid of them.

Crafting Pull up the crafting menu by hitting C or one of the buttons with the hammer that comes up beside the inventory in vessels with at least one lab installed. Crafting recipes and times are shown by hovering over items and the ones you cannot craft due to insufficient materials will have a little red exclamation point on them. Click an item to add it to a lab's queue or shift-click to add a stack of ten to the queue, and it will begin manufacturing. You can click or shift-click on items in the queue to remove one or all of a stack.===== If you have more labs available, you can put them to work as well and produce more goods in a given time. When an item in the queue cannot be manufactured due to insufficient materials, it will show a triangle caution emblem and stop production until you either remove it from the queue or put or make the proper materials in the lab vessel's cargo hold.

=
Towing {This section is moot until tractor beams are reintroduced. You will have to push or ram into any object you want to move for the time being.}

Put a tractor beam into one of your weapon slots and it will automatically equip and be ready to go when you hit T. Train the beam on an object with your mouse and once you have captured it you can tow it to a new location within the region and hit T again to release it. You can beam any object, but don't expect to be able to tow a large planetoid or vessel anywhere with a tiny 2-engine ship.

Exploring Enter the greater star system beyond your humble station region by pressing the WARP button at the bottom of the screen. You will then find yourself in a black expanse with concentric circles containing asteroids and planets, most of which have either a moon or a station or asteroid region in their orbit. Circles will be brighter near the planets whose orbits they indicate to help you find planets nearby. All the regions that you can visit will show some info when hovered over. Flying into a region will pull you out of warp and drop you in the region. At the center you will find a star region that can be visited also but the blinding light will make even a simple operation quite difficult. The angle at which you enter a region determines which side of the region you warp into, and you will be facing the center of the region when you leave warp. Likewise, your position relative to the center of the region determines which side of the region you will appear on in the star system when warping out. {Alpha 5.1 has some issues with leaving tightly clustered regions causing you to drop back out of warp into the same or adjacent region repeatedly. If this happens, fly to another corner of the region and try warping again.}

You will also see some other objects in space, which are opportunities for so-called dynamic encounters. These include other ships that fly about on preset paths and distress beacons, indicated by the circle/exclamation point icons. To encounter a ship, fly near it and click to target the ship, which will give it a blue circle. You may then need to fly even closer until the ENGAGE button comes up, at which point you can click it or hit the spacebar. Once out of warp, go forward at the same heading until you see the navarrow. Distress beacons you can fly into and find a disabled ship at the center, yours for the taking.

All the way out at the edge of your star system is a dotted line, which if crossed, takes you to the adjacent star system. You start out in system 10,10 and can access adjacent systems in eight directions.

Northwest/315 degrees/system 9,11===== North/0 degrees/system 10,11

Northeast/45 degrees/system 11,11

West/270 degrees/system 9,10

ORIGIN/system 10,10

East/90 degrees/system 11,10

Southwest/225 degrees/system 9,9

South/180 degrees/system 10,9

Southeast/135 degrees/system 11,9

As you head out into the universe, you will notice several types of stars of different sizes. Commonly seen stars are the M, G, and K types, but you may also find A,B, and O type stars. The size of the star determines the expanse of the star region, and there are dwarf, regular, giant, and super-giant varieties of every type of star.

{as of 5.1 there is no level progression implemented so no matter how far you travel from your origin you will still see mostly the same types of asteroid metals, but each star system will have a dominant faction throughout most regions and all ship encounters, with the remaining regions being either pirates, lawless space, or uninhabited.}