Hover Vehicle Movement

Basic forward vehicle movement uses the W key. When advancing forward by pressing the W key, use the mouse left and right to turn while moving.

In hover vehicles, use the A key to sidestep left and the D key to sidestep right.

When traveling around the worlds, you will often encounter obstacles such as crates or hills that your vehicle will have difficulty traversing. Use the E key to use your vehicle’s turbo thrusters to jump.

Controlling Tracked and Walking Vehicles

Tracked and walking vehicles are turned by using the strafe keys, A and D, rather than the joystick or the mouse. When a tracked vehicle has a turret or articulated head, the turret or articulated head is controlled by the mouse or joystick.

Unlike hover vehicles, tracked and walking vehicles do not travel over water. Instead they sink into the water. Walking vehicles can go into and come out of the water. If tracked vehicles fall too deeply into the water, they are destroyed.

Basic Shooting and Weapon Controls

Use the left mouse button to fire your weapon. The right mouse button allows you to scroll through the weapons. The T key allows you to target whatever unit you are pointing at that is within radar range. If you press T when you are not pointing toward any unit, targeting is turned off.

On Foot

Press H to hop out of your vehicle with the vehicle remaining intact. Press Ctrl-B to bail out of your vehicle. After bail out, the vehicle will self destruct. When your vehicle is destroyed you will automatically bail out.

When on foot, use the keyboard and the mouse to move in the same way you would for vehicles. Pilots traveling around on foot can command a friendly unit to come and pick them up. Pilots can also commandeer an enemy unit which has been abandoned.

However, pilots are more vulnerable when outside of their vehicles. They can be fired upon by enemies. Pilots are also vulnerable to the native creatures of many worlds, who may view them as a tasty snack. Yet, no pilot is defenseless on foot. Pilots have a variety of weapons.

Weapon control is the same for pilots as it is for vehicles. Left mouse button fires the selected weapon, right mouse button switches between weapons. In addition to hand-held weapons, soldiers often have a special pack weapon. This can be used by pressing the C (deploy) button.

Commandeering Vehicles

When on foot you may sometimes be equipped with a long-range sniper rifle. You can use this sniper rifle to kill enemy pilots, thus making their vehicle available for your use.

Switching to the sniper rifle will cause you to crouch and raise the rifle to your shoulder, activating the thermal sniper scope.

The sniper rifle will show the enemy cockpit area as either a bright red or green target. The target is red if you are aiming at an enemy cockpit. If you hit the cockpit with a sniper round, that vehicle may be commandeered. Don’t shoot green targets, they are your allies.

Not all vehicles are vulnerable to sniper fire. Walkers, assault tanks, rocket tanks, APCs, and Scavengers cannot be hit by sniper fire.

Morphing Units

The following Scion units can morph: Scout, Sentry, Warrior, and Archer. Scion units that morph have two distinct modes: combat mode and assault mode. In each mode, the unit has different weapons and different physical properties such as speed and turning rate.

In general, the combat mode (which is the default mode) is better for fast combat. The assault mode is generally better for attacking hardened targets. AI pilots will automatically switch between these two modes.

To switch the mode of your Scion unit, press the C (deploy) key.

Scion Morphing Units have two commands that'll appear on their selection menu: 7) Force Deployed or Force Undeployed, 8) Unlock Deployed. If a mode is forced for them, they'll go to that mode and stay there no matter what their goto/combat process thinks. Unlock undoes that so that the aiprocess controls their micromanagement.