We’ve worked very hard to produce a SL craft that is high performance, easy to use, and efficient, while consuming as little SIM resources as possible so you can have more ships and more people in play without lagging your SIM. While each ship has unique in performance specs they all share the same simple to use control system.
Basic Operation
There are NO chat commands to learn. NO gestures to activate. NO HUDs to attach. Operation is smooth and easy, just sit and fly.
Hover Mode
Power On – Simply sit
Power Off – Stand up
W – forward
S – Back
A – Turn left
D – Turn right
E – Up
C – Down
Shift+A – Slide Left
Shift+D – Slide Right[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Flight/Combat Mode
W – increase throttle
S– decrease throttle
Hold A+D – throttle to zero
Hold A+D then press S – triggers landing assist
A – Roll left
D – Roll right
E – Evade up
C – Evade down
Left Mouse Button – Fire weapons (if the ship is armed)
Hold C then Press E (quickly) – cycle weapons (NOTE: this feature only available on select ships)
Tip: Use CTRL-8 & CTRL-9 to increase and decrease FoVSwitching flight modes – flight modes switch automatically when you enter or exit mouselook.
The BUD
On the back of every ship you will find the BUD (Butts Up Display). The BUD makes it easy to access common features as well as track yours and other players damage during combat.
- Damage indicator/status button – Click it to find out your remaining armor. It will turn from yellow to red as your armor is damaged
- Menu Button – Click access the ship menu for more features and configuration settings
- Hangar Remote Transponder – Can be used to remotely open the hangar bays on Quandry Industries space stations
- Touchdown Assist (TDA) – Puts the ship in landing mode for smooth controlled touchdowns (see below for details)
- Cycle Weapons – Each click steps through available weapons (on certain ships only)
Ship Menu
Use the BUD to open the ship menu. See the Key Features section below for a detailed description of all ship features.
- Start/Shutdown – turn the ship on/off
- Docking – built in docking/hangar bay remote transponder for Quandry Space Stations
- TDA – Touchdown Assist will help you land
- Lock/Unlock – Turn public mode on or off
- Skin– Lets you select a paint job for your ship.
- Help – Online manual
- Config – Gives you the config menu
- Damage On/Off – When disabled the ship will not take damage. Good for training or preventing griefers from blowing your ship up when parked. NOTE: if damage is disabled your guns will not do damage to other ships either. Also scoring is disabled. Fair is fair.
- Pilot Adjust – Adjust the pilot seat (and targeting reticle in ships with weapons) to your avatar
- Public/Group – Sets who can access the ship when unlocked
Cockpit Displays
In mouse look you will see the cockpit display. Each ship may have a slightly different display design, but all have the same general features.
- Armor Status – Top is 100% armor
- % of Max Velocity – Shows your speed
- Relative Position – the little icon is your position relative to the SIM coordinates
- Relative Direction – the outer circle is basically a compass with big arrow North
- Reactor Online – This indicates the engines are on
- Alert Indicator – Triggers when you need to pay attention
- TDA Indicator – Lets you know if the landing assist is active
- Targeting Reticle – Only in ships with weapons
Some ships have advanced targeting systems with additional features on the targeting reticle. On the right side of the reticle you will see three indicators light up.
- The top most indicator is target lock. It will light up with a tone to let you know when you are in optimal firing range of your target.
- The second light indicates a friendly or enemy target. Red is always enemy, friendly targets will show as green or yellow.
- The third indicator shoes your targets damage level.
- On the left side of the reticle is the is the incoming missile warning light.
- And near the bottom left of the reticle on some ship is the current selected weapon indicator.
Adjusting The Targeting Reticle
In the ships menu you will find a Pilot adjust button. Here you can adjust the pilot seat and targeting reticle to match our avatar height and ensure accurate aim in combat.
Cockpit Hatch
On ships that have a cockpit hatch or canopy it is mostly automatic like the landing gear.
- The Owner or Pilot can touch the hatch (within 5 meters) to open and close
- Hatch closes automatically on take off (IF landing gear are down)
- Hatch opens automatically when the pilot stands (IF landing gear are down)
Role Play Features
Space & Atmo Flight
Quandry Industries and Stellars Systems products establish the standard:
- 1024 meters and above is space
- Below 1024 meters is atmosphere
Many features will behave differently in space than they do in atmo…
- In space your ship will show an electrical discharge when damaged and smoke In atmo
- Powering off (or power failure from damage) while in atmo will result in you falling to your death
- Entering atmo from space triggers the re-entry effects
- Debris from destroyed ships will float in space
Water Landing (Secret Sub Mode)
Under normal operation your ship will shutdown if you fly under water. However, if you disable damage from the menu, your ship can double as a submarine.
Takeoff & Landing
Ships automatically raise the landing gear after takeoff. Ships are also equipped with Touchdown Assist (TDA). The TDA will lower the gear and slow the ship to make it easier to maneuver in tight spaces and help you land softly.
- You can trigger the TDA by:
- clicking the TDA button on the BUD or in the menu
- Pressing A+S+D while in mouse look
- TDA will not activate if you are more than 8 meters away from a landing surface
- TDA will disable if you stand up or power down the ship.
Damage System & Repair
Ships all use standard SL damage and combat functions so that it is compatible with most SL ships/weapons that fire physical bullets. See Weapon/Damage System Compatibility for more details.
NOTE that if you fly into the debris from destroyed ships it will cause damage to your ship.
Your damage is indicated on the BUD or on the cockpit HUD display.
- When first hit you will get a warning that you are taking damage
- At 50% armor the ship will start to show damage (smoke or electrical discharge)
- At 20% armor you will get another warning that the ship system is close to failure
- At 10% armor the ship systems will fail and the ship loses power (this is on purpose)
As you take damage your weapons will begin to fail, as well there is a built in power failure feature for combat role play.
Ships can be repaired with the Automated Nano-machine Task System (ANTS) or you can wait for rescue. You can purchase various models of ANTS devices and tools from the Stellar Systems store.
Other Features
Pilot Adjust
You can adjust the pilot seat position to your specific avatar. Use the ship menu and go to Config > Pilot Adjust. From here you can move the pilot seat position. On ships with weapons you can also adjust the targeting reticle so line up to your eye level for more accurate targeting.
Unlock Public/Group
Before sitting, the OWNER can click on the ship and toggle lock/unlock. You can also toggle unlock from the ship menu. You can set the unlock mode under the Config menu. In Public mode anyone can fly the ship when unlocked. In Group mode only people in the same group as the ship can fly it when unlocked.
Guest pilots ONLY have access to flight controls, weapons and minor features. ONLY the OWNER can set configuration options for the ship.
Skinner (On Select Ships)
Some ships have a custom skin option. You can also commission a custom skin for an additional fee or create your own using a template provided on the ships info page. Each ship skin tool is slightly different so read the on-screen chat instructions.