Pulsar Lost Colony Playing Pilot in 30 Seconds

Pilot In 30 Seconds

You just loaded into a new game as pilot. Hit tab, choose talents. Buy all of Special Inertia Training, spend whatever is left on Racing School.

If you have points left over, Hit Points and Pistoleer are a good bet.

Find your pilot station. It's typically way far forward on the bridge, and looks something like this.

Walk up to it until you see the prompt

[R] Pilot the ship

and push R.

You should now be looking at an exterior view of the ship.

W and S pitch up and down. A and D turn left and right. Q and E roll.

There are alternate, terrible controls where you move the mouse to pitch/turn that you can toggle with the X key. Don't use them. Try tapping X now to see the two control schemes.

Left click for forward thrust. Left ctrl for reverse.

30 seconds are up! You are now a bare minimum functional pilot.

Pilot In 60 Seconds

Got a little more time? Let's talk about what exactly you need to do

Non-combat FlyingTap the K key while flying to try all the different camera modes. I prefer the chase cam where the camera rotates WITH the ship. See which one you prefer.

Your ship is floating in a sector of space, and will stay there until you warp out. Your job is to aim the ship at the destination sector. Tap the spacebar to toggle the display of nearby sector numbers. One of them will have this handy blue guide ring. This represents where your captain wants to go next.

No ring? Maybe the captain forgot to set a course. Ask him about it when he's not busy.

Once you are lined up with that blue ring, verbally announce to your team that you are "Lined up". Captain will give final authorization for jump, and Engineer will jump the ship.

This is scrap. You'll find it in wreckage of ships you killed, or ancient stations from long ago.

This is a proximity mine. They explode if you touch them. Don't touch them.

Combat FlyingTake a moment to visually locate the big tank cannon on the rear upper part of your ship. Now think about what it can, and can't, point at.

In this example, targets A B and C are all valid targets that your gunner can hit. D E and F are all in his blindspot, he cannot hit those targets until you turn the ship!

Flying Ace

Ready to go from adequate to outstanding? Read on.

Hold Right Click and try your WASD+QE keys. They do completely different things now. Rather than rotate the ship, they translate (slide) the ship. If you've played FPS games, you know this as strafing. Your ship can strafe left-right, up-down, or any combination including front-back. If you use a combination of strafe and thrust to perfectly match an enemy craft's movement, he'll appear to 'hover' motionlessly in front of your gunner's eyes, making for easy kills.

Dig into the keybindings to set keys to strafe that do not require holding right mouse.

When engaging multiple targets, take a moment to look in the upper right corner of the screen.

See that red box around one of the enemies? The captain has designated (B) as the priority target right now. Your job is to get the gunner lined up on (B). If there's a reason that's a bad idea (asteroid blocking B, clear shot on A) this is something to tell your captain. But until he says otherwise, the target is B.

As the pilot, you have the widest, clearest, least obstructed view of surrounding space. You are the lookout, and in many ways while the captain is the coach, you are the quarterback. Speak up about what you're seeing.

"Science, incoming fire is mostly beams. Recommend anti-energy shield frequency."

"Weapons, this guy's speed just dropped. In two seconds we'll be right behind him for an easy shot."

"Engineer, this drone has a giant buzzsaw head. I need more speed or we're going to get mangled."

Remember that picture from before about gun turret angles? This one?

Think about it again, but now consider that every enemy ship you face has the exact same problem. Most ships have a blind spot where they CANNOT hit you, and every ship has a spot where turret coverage is minimal. Stay in blind spots and you won't get shot! Coordinate with science to destroy or infect enemy engines. If they can't move, getting in that blindspot is a snap.

Remember that tiny computer next to your pilot station, the one that says "Binary" or "Precise" flight modes?

Binary mode means that when you left click, you get max forward thrust right now, and when you release it, total shutoff. You get medium speed by tapping.

Precise means that your engines slowly ramp up to full speed as you hold down the button.

Slow ramping is bad. Sudden jerky motion is how you dodge enemy fire. Use Binary mode.

Other Class Guides

Science in 30 Seconds

Weapons in 30 Seconds

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2269423428

Playing Pilot in 30 Seconds

Pilot In 30 Seconds

Pilot In 60 Seconds

Flying Ace

Other Class Guides

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