So…. You've just finished configuring your brand new starship – or maybe you've just hired onto somebody else's ship as a crew member. How do you make this thing fly?

To see what's outside your spaceship, you have the viewscreen command, also known as: viewer, view, vs, window, win. Any of these aliases will work.

To get a closer look at something outside your ship, you can use the scanner or scan commands.

You can also find your current coordinates in space with the eta command.

Also remember…. To see a list of spaceship commands, you can type look controls anywhere on your ship and see a list of them. Most commands have on-line help available.

First let's try to land and take off. Assuming your ship is in space, you'll want to type landingsites. This scans the sector for places you can land your ship, and lists them. You get a display something like this:

Note that some landingsites have restrictions on the sizes, types or numbers of ships that can land there. For example, if your ship isn't designed to land on a planet, you won't be able to set down on Oceania or Annyrion. If your ship's size class is too big, it won't fit into some space stations or other sites. And a landing site can simply fill up if too many ships land there.

To land, you need to enter the land command and the name of the landing site. A partial name can work for this. For example, let's say you want to land at Epiphyte City Landing Strip. You can enter: land epiphyte.

Taking off is even easier. In most areas you can simply type fly or launch to blast off into orbit. The same commands are used for bringing a small ship into a space station docking bay, or for landing a small ship on board a carrier or mothership, and for launching again back into space.

To move your ship around on the surface when landed, such as to taxi around the spaceport, you can use the pilot or fly commandS. Give it the name of the exit you want in the form of pilot <direction>.

The pilot/fly command is used for landing, launching, taxiing, and also for maneuvering your ship through a hyperspace jumpgate – as we shall see later on.

Every location in space has three coordinates, called X, Y and Z. To find the location of your ship, type eta. It shows where you are – and if your ship is moving, you can also see your destination. To fly to any place, you need to know its coordinates.

Navigation computers are available, and show local coordinates within a 100 sector range by typing 'starmap', which, in Iridia Sector, would display something similar to the following:

So, in order to visit Oceania, while in Iridia System, I would type: nav 639 64 33

There are some limitations. For one, the nav system won't accept any destination over 100 sectors away from where you are. For another, moving on the spacegrid requires fuel. If you run out of fuel during flight, you could be stranded until somebody comes to help you.

You will need to visit a fuel station to tank up your ship. Some stations are located in orbit around moons or planets, while others can be found in spaceports on the planet's surface. Bring your ship near the station – in the same sector, or room – and enter this:

transfer <amount> fuel from station

The amount is not too critical. If you try to transfer more than your fuel tanks can hold, the transfer program will automatically reduce the amount to a level your ship can accept.

You can get your current fuel level in two different ways, by entering fuel status or transfer #inventory. These commands will give you slightly different information, and both can be useful.

Remember that fuel costs money, in the form of credits. The transfer command will inform you how much you will be charged ahead of time, and will give you a chance to abort the procedure.

When navigating, you do not have to memorize the coordiantes for every world, or keep a list of them written down. The navigation has a command to keep track of them for you, called bookmark. Here's an example of how to add a bookmark to your ship:

bookmark #add
Please specify the position to add to memory
Use the X Y Z format
( Or type A to abort )
3 3 3
I read this as 3 3 3 , is this correct? (y/N)
y
Please specify a bookmark name
test zone
I read this as test zone, is this correct? (y/N)
y
Bookmark was added

Now I can set a course there without having to remember or type the coordinates. All I have to do is type nav test zone. I can also get a list of all my bookmarks anytime by typing bookmark #list.

The distance between star systems is far too great to travel in normal space, so we've got a system of hyperspace jumpgates. To use these, just fly to a jumpgate location and enter pilot jumpgate or fly jumpgate. This should drop you into hyperspace. Hyperspace uses a different coordinate system from normal space – there's still three coordinates, but each sector you travel in hyperspace is equivalent to going 30 sectors in normal space! When you arrive at the destination jumpgate just pilot jumpgate or fly jumpgate once again, and it will take you back to normal space.

For example…. Let's imagine I am starting a trip at Luna and plotting a course to Epiphyte on the planet Annyrion. First I would launch my ship, then navigate to Sol Jumpgate. I go through the jumpgate into hyperspace, then fly to the Thinora Jumpgate. There I fly back into normal space, and navigate to the planet Annyrion, and finally land at Epiphyte. The basic commands would be:

fly launch
nav 8 3 7
fly jumpgate
nav 16 7 -1
fly jumpgate
nav 521 236 -28
fly epiphyte

If I have been making clever use of the bookmark system, the same trip might look more like this:

fly launch
nav sol jumpgate
fly jumpgate
nav thinora
fly jumpgate
nav annyrion
fly epiphyte

One important thing you should note when using bookmarks in hyperspace…. The bookmark list is completely different: bookmarks you make while your ship is in hyperspace are only listed and used when you're in hyperspace, and bookmarks made while you are in normal space are only used in normal space. For example, I could have a bookmark in hyperspace called “thinora” which holds the hyperspace coordinates of the Thinora System jumpgate (16 7 -1). In realspace I could have another bookmark, also called “thinora”, with the normal space coordinates of the jumpgate (509 223 -30).

By default, ships navigate at 100% of their rated engine power. This is the highest output you can achieve when your engines are in good repair without risking some damage to the engines. If you are in a hurry and willing to take a chance – if you need to outrun somebody – you can increase engine power beyond its rated limit and make your ship go faster. You can also reduce power if you want to go slower than normal, or if your engines are damaged and can't operate at full capacity.

To set your engine power to 100%, just type engines by itself. To set any other level, type engines <powerlevel>. For example, to set your engine power to 105%, enter this: engines 105.

Generally speaking, a rating of 105% will produce a reasonable speed boost with acceptable risks. A rating of 110% results in high risk, and even higher ratings are probably too unwise to contemplate.

Whenever running your engines beyond their safety limits, you must stay alert and watch for damage. If the engines become damaged, you need to reduce speed immediately. Failure to do this may result in a chain reaction causing even more damage, and if not stopped quickly it could completely disable your ship's engines. (Note: It's particularly unwise to run engines over their rated speed if you have bad network lag, or if you may have to go away from the keyboard for any reason. Think of this before you crank them up.)