Ship Operations

### Flying

The 3D flight system is simplified, not a full 3-axis simulation. Space flight behaves exactly the same as aerial flight.

There are definite "up" and "down" directions, even in space, and the screen remains locked to that orientation (or for mobile devices using the accelerometer to steer, up and down remain locked to the directions defined by gravity). This provides much better situational awareness when involved in dogfights and the like. The flight zone has upper and lower limits, and your ship will be forced into level flight when reaching one of those limits. For aerial flight, the lower limit is the surface of the ground, but in space it's not visible. The upper limit isn't visible in either space or aerial flight. There are also lateral limits to the flight zone, where your ship will be forcibly turned back into the zone.

It's impossible to roll or loop your ship. The roll angle is a visual indicator of how fast you're turning, and the maximum turn rate is one of the upgradeable stats for the ship.

When you're locked onto a target, your ship will adjust its speed to try to close to within 150 meters or so of the target (energy weapon range). Otherwise, your ship has only two speeds: normal and boost. There's no way to slow it down.

Be careful when fighting in asteroid fields or in the vicinity of large ships or stations. When you're locked onto a target, don't let yourself get dragged into a position where you smash into an asteroid, ship, or station. Be prepared to unlock very quickly and jink away if it looks like that's going to happen. There's an option "auto avoid collisions" that can reduce the hazard by jerking the nose of your ship upward if it thinks you're going to hit something, but it's not infallible. That option also will prevent you from smashing into the ground or terrain features while in aerial flight, but it's not 100% reliable at that, either.

### Squadron management

You're probably bringing multiple ships on most flights, especially into combat. The squadron management panel is an important tool for managing the squadron. Each ship is listed and if you click on the ship's type, you switch to controlling that ship. Each ship has a number of buttons that give general orders for when you aren't flying it. The first button, next to the ship's type, is the Retreat button that will send that ship away and out of danger until either you dock or you travel somewhere else. On the right side are two or three buttons. The one farthest right determines if that ship should engage into combat with enemy fighting ships, and by default it's turned on. Next to that is a similar button that determines if that ship should engage into combat with capital ships, and by default it's turned off. Some ships will have one more button that determines if they should use expendable ammunition or not, and by default it's turned off.

When going into combat, your first action should probably be to open your squadron command list. First, put yourself into the ship you want to be flying at the beginning of the battle. Then check the assignments of all of your ships. Most of the time, you'll want to have bombers and transporters not attempting to engage with enemy fighters, because they're not well-equipped for it. Unless you need to keep the bomber or transporter around to use later, you should order it to retreat so that it can't get damaged in the battle.

For many battles, you're able to withdraw from the battle and land at a base to repair, reload, and refuel, then rejoin the battle. The enemy ships you've destroyed will still be gone, but any damage to the ones you didn't fully destroy will probably be repaired. In a few cases toward the end of the main campaign, a destroyer might show up to accompany the ship(s) you'd left behind. When you return to battle, you'll need to reopen the squadron management panel and set the ships' orders once again.

If the ship you're flying gets totally destroyed, the battle will reset and start over. The reset goes all the way back to the beginning of the battle, not just to the most recent foray after repairs, reloading, and refueling. If your ship is very heavily damaged, consider switching to another ship in your squadron so that you can avoid the reset. Ships that you aren't flying are never fully destroyed; they'll automatically retreat instead.

### Energy distribution

Then check your energy distribution. If you're in atmosphere, there's no point in having energy routed to your shields, because the shields don't work in atmosphere. If you're flying a ship without energy weapons, or you aren't planning to use its energy weapons at the moment, there's no point in routing energy to the weapons. Be prepared to change energy routing throughout the battle unless it's an easy one.