Manual

Wave Mode:
To win the game defeat the 13 waves of enemies.
Right click on the space station and select "trade" to refit the ship.
Drag the mouse around to rotate the ship and use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
Click on any slot on the ship (boxes) to mount and unmount components.
Click on the button "Edit Hull" in the top left corner to add turrets.
Click on the turret slots (red circles) to add turrets.
Right click on hull or turrets to modify armor.
Right click on weapons to buy ammo.
Click on the button "Auto fill T. Engines" to auto buy turret engines.
Click on the "Close" button in the top right corner when you have finished refit (!buy ammo before exiting).
Use the keys x,w,a,s,d to control the ship.
Once you have defeated the enemy you will be teleported back to the station and given extra credits to repair and improve the ship.

Sandbox Mode:
Right click on the space station and select "trade".
Refit the ship for combat, right click on a pirate ship and select "warp to". The easiest enemy is named T1w, the hardest T10w.
Or buy some items to sell to other space stations for a profit.
Use x and z to change warp speed.
Increase simulation speed 5x with "." and decrease with ","

Hints:
Increase armor on turrets.
Mount "ammo storage" to increase ammo capacity for cannons.
Mount extra battery, radar and gyroscope as a backup.
Save anti-ship missiles for when the enemy no longer has point-defense weapons.
Gauss cannons need capacitors and high energy output.
Right click on enemy ship and select "battle(auto)" to let the AI pilot the ship
When manually piloting press "c" to stop ship rotation
Game can be paused anytime
Use F9 window to decide armor and weapons.
Unmounted components go in ship's cargo space.
The reward from destroying an enemy is proportional to its value and general condition, so try to not cause too much destruction.
Do not warp too near to planets as warp engines do not work in strong gravity. If you become stuck you need to use thrusters to escape.

Alert Levels:
In the right bottom corner of the screen there are 5 colored buttons corresponding to the alert levels. Clicking on them enable or disable groups of components.
Red Alert: Everything enabled
Yellow Alert: Weapons disabled
Green Alert: Weapons and Defensive systems disabled
Blue Alert: Weapons, Defense and Engines disabled
Black Alert: Everything disabled

Enemy loadout:
Speeder T1 - armor: 2mm titanium , 12.7mm AP gatling and 8 point defense missiles
Speeder T2 - armor: 2mm titanium , 12.7mm AP gatling, 2x 20mm AP cannon and 8 point defense missiles
Speeder T3 - armor: 2mm steel , 20mm AP gatling , 4x 20mm AP cannons , 8 PD missiles , 8 anti ship missiles and 72 rockets
Speeder T4 - armor: 5mm steel hull , 30mm steel turrets , 20mm Sabot gatling , 2x 30mm AP cannons , 2x 30mm HE cannons , 16 PD missiles , 8 anti ship missiles   
Speeder T5 - armor: 5mm steel hull , 30mm steel turrets , 20mm Sabot gatling , 2x 30mm AP cannons , 2x 30mm HE cannons, 40mm HE and Flak cannon, 16 PD missiles , 8 anti ship missiles   
Speeder T6 - armor: 7mm steel hull , 35mm steel turrets , 20mm Sabot gatling , 4x 30mm AP cannons , 40mm HE and Flak cannon, 16 PD missiles , 16 anti ship missiles
Speeder T7 - armor: 10mm steel hull, 35mm steel turrets , 20mm Sabot gatling , 2x 30mm Sabot cannons , 2x 30mm Gauss , 40mm HE and Flak cannon, 16 PD missiles , 16 anti ship missiles   
Speeder T8 - armor: 14mm hardened steel hull, 40mm hardened steel turrets , 20mm Sabot gatling, 2x 30mm Gauss  , 2x 30mm Sabot cannons , 40mm HE and Flak cannon, 50mm AP cannon, 24 PD missiles , 12 anti ship missiles

---Controls---
Mouse:
Central Button - show/hide mouse
drag Left Button - look around
Scroll Wheel - zoom
Right Button - show popup menu

Keys:
ESC - open main menu
F11 - show/hide this help window
f - manual control
c - continuous stop rotation
x,z,arrows - linear acceleration
w,s,a,d,q,e - rotation
r - enable/disable engine RCS
o - enable/disable engine Boost
x - increase warp speed
z - decrease warp speed
SPACE - deploy/undeploy shields
- - center view on nearest enemy ship
p - pause game
. - time 5x faster (between 0.04x and 125x in sandbox mode)
, - time 5x slower  (between 0.04x and 1x in wave mode)
F4 - show/hide ship stats window
F5 - show/hide ship components window
F6 - show/hide tactical window
F7 - show/hide navigation window
F8 - show/hide navigation 2 window
v  - toggle warp engines
b  - toggle warp disruptors
[ - observe previous ship
] - observe next ship
[ + ] - observe your ship
' - select next ship on your side
; - select previous ship on your side
g - standard view
h - show components type
j - show components damage
k - show components status
l - show armor damage
F9 - show/hide armor damage simulator window
F10 - show/hide console window
F1 - external view (cycle fixed/relative)
t - close external view
y - far external view
u - planet system external view
i - solar system external view
F2 - cycle internal views
F3 - cycle turrets views
left ctrl+f - show/hide FPS/stats
left ctrl+g - show/hide HUD
left ctrl+F4 - show/hide buttons
m - select next weapon
n - select previous weapon
left ctrl+j - joystick on\off
CAPS LOCK - shoot current weapon


---Weapons---

Cannons:
These are the standard cannons that use an explosive charge to propel munitions.
Cheap, with high firepower and low power usage, are also versatile with many munitions types.
Their drawbacks are the very short range and limited ammo.
Gatlings are the "high rate of fire" version, they are bigger and use huge amounts of ammo.
Ammo Types:
AP    - Armor Piercing, very good penetration, low damage
HE    - High Explosive, bad penetration, very high damage
Sabot - AKA subcaliber, extreme penetration , very low damage, higher velocity
HE-AP - AP with delayed explosion after armor penetration, good penetration , high damage
Flak  - HE with proximity fuze , bad penetration, high damage
HP    - Hollow Point expand on impact, very bad penetration , medium damage
Frag  - Fragmentation, medium penetration , medium damage

Gaussian Cannons:
Uses electric energy to accelerate a projectile to high velocity.
Have longer ranges and better armor penetration than conventional cannons but uses high amount of energy.
Given the smaller munitions and the low rate of fire ammo shortage is less of a problem.
Railguns have even higher velocities but they get damaged each shot and are less energy efficient.

Lasers:
They never miss and have the longest range but have low firepower.
Are very good as point defense weapon.
EIR (extreme infra-red) have higher power
IR (infra-red)
GR (visible light green)
UV (ultra-violet)
EUV (extreme ultra-violet) have longer ranges.
It is possible to set the dimension of the hit area on the target. This is only the desired size, the real size might be bigger due to diffraction.
Smaller is more penetrating but also less damaging. If it is too big most of the energy will be wasted as heat.
They can operate in 3 modes: Pulse (only this implemented), Blaster and Continuous
Pulse: A rapid series of pulses that have the effect of a drill
Blaster: A single big pulse that have the effect of a small explosion
Continuous: Usually only heat the target

Missile Launchers:
Very destructive if the missile hit but can be disabled before reaching the target or may run out of fuel.
The missiles are expensive.
Best used when the enemy point defense weapons are destroyed, and launched all at once.
Missile types:
MRM 290mm     - Medium Range Anti-Ship missile. Very agile and hard to evade.
SRM 290mm     - Short Range Anti-Ship missile. Very agile and hard to evade.
PDM 290mm  - Point Defense missile, used to intercept enemy missiles.
Rocket    - Do not home on target, follow a straight path but is cheap.


---Components---

Powerplants:
Generate electrical energy, are the first target of the AI.
Nuclear powerplants have low power output but they last forever.
Fuel cells use LOX and LH2 but have better power output.

Battery:
Store electrical energy.
They have limited stored energy but usually last for the entire battle.
Have much higher energy output than powerplants and are used to power energy hungry weapons like gauss and lasers. 
Also used as backup power when the powerplant get damaged.

Capacitors:
Store small amount of energy. Necessary for gauss and lasers.
When charged leak energy.

Gyroscopes:
Rotate the ship using only electrical energy.

Engines:
Accellerates the ship while in battle.
Chemical engines like LH2 and Kerosene have very high thrust but can consume all the fuel in a few seconds.
NTR (Nuclear Thermal Rocket) engines have lower thrust but better efficiency. NTR engines require to be filled with uranium to work.
Some NTR have a boost mode where LOX is used to increase thrust but reduce efficiency.
Fusion engines have higher efficiency but use also electrical power.
In RCS mode thrusters are used to rotate the ship, if possible.

Tanks:
Stores liquids and fuels. If damaged it may start to leak liquids.

Warp Engines:
FTL engines for travels.
Warp speeds are measured using ST:TOS warp factor:
warp 1 = 1 c
warp 1.5 = 3.375 c
warp 2 = 8 c
warp 3 = 27 c

Warp Disruptors:
Prevents all nearby ships (and the ship using it) from using warp engines.

Radiators:
Cools the ship by radiating heat away.
When ship's temperature go over 45° weapons stop working.

Turret Engines:
Allows the turrets to rotate

Shield Generators:
Shields are used for defense, for each ship there is a single spherical shield bubble that protects it from each direction and stop every weapon as long as there is enough charge.
Shields are not meant to replace armor but complement it. Their main purpose is to prevent laser sniping.
They can stop bullets but are very weak against them especially HE and gauss.
Shields can be deployed or undeployed, and are recharged in each state but while deployed a part of the recharge power is used to maintain the shield bubble.
There is also a energy cost to deploy that depends on the shield bubble volume.

Thermal Sensor:
Can detect objects up to light-hours away.
The detection range depends on many factors:
-the hull temperature and the surface the target is exposing to you
-the heat emitted from radiators
-the heat from the cannon flashes
-the heat emitted from the exhaust of the engines, this one can be orders of magnitude higher than all the other source of heat together

Cameras:
Cheap thermal sensor, detect objects nearby.

Warp Sensor:
Detect ships that are traveling using warp engines. The detection range depends from the mass and the speed of the target.
Also detects ships using warp disruptors.

Radar:
Can detect objects up to 1000 Km away.

Crew Quarters,Life Support:
Give the ability to repair warp engines. The ship must be completely shut down and warp engines are repaired only to be barely functional.

Cockpit,Bridge:
Useless (for now), only consumes energy.


---Windows---

Components (F5):
Show all the components in the ship.
If a components is selected details are shown and be disabled using the button.
Some components have attributes that can be modified:
-Cannons and gauss cannons, rate of fire
-Radars, power used
-Lasers, dimension of the hit area on the target.
Icons in the status column explain the reason why a component is not working:
-Gear         damaged
-skull         destroyed
-three dots    out of ammo
-bolt        not powered
-square with x    out of fuel - out of coolant
-atom        out of solid fuel
-2 hammer     manually disabled
-Sun        overheated
-w        can't be used while in warp

Tactical (F6):
From here it is possible to assign specific target to each weapon or disable autofire.
In the left side there is a list of contacts, in the center the list of components of the selected contact and in the right side the list of the ship's weapons. In the last column there is the chance to hit (C2H), this is just an estimation based on the weapon properties and the targets size and agility.
Fire at Will: the AI assigns targets to weapons with autofire enabled and shoot them
Manual Targeting: the AI do not assigns targets but shoots weapons with targets assigned by the player
Hold Fire: The AI does nothing
Shoot: Shoot the selected weapon once. Useful to manually launch missiles
Assign Target: Manually assign the selected target to the selected weapon. Also enemy components can be assigned.
Autofire: Let the AI assign targets to this weapons (only if in Fire at Will mode). The AI will take into consideration the type of target, the arc of fire of the weapon, the chance to hit, the target priority 
No Autofire: Clears the target assigned to this weapon and prevents the AI from assigning targets. Useful to reserve missiles
Set Main Target: The AI will give priority to this target. Usually not needed
1st and 2nd Role: Selects for each weapon the types of targets that can be assigned to this weapon by the AI, and the priority

Navigation (F7)
Used to give orders to the pilot AI.
Manual Control: No help by the AI in controlling the ship. Not suggested.
Stop Rotation: Stop the ship rotation and then set Manual Control.
Continuous Stop Rotation: Always stop the ship rotation unless the player want to rotate the ship.
Battle: The AI try to keep the specified distance to the target while exposing the broadside to the target

Navigation2 (F8)
Some stats about ship performances

Armor Simulation (F9)
This window is used to simulate the effect of weapons against armors. It is possible to select the weapon to test, the metal and thickness of the armor. At the bottom there are the results.


---Dev Mode---
To use dev mode add "dev_mode true" to configuration.txt. In devmode you can take control of every ship and time multiplier is unlocked.

Keys:

left ctrl+k - add 10M credits
ENTER - open console prompt
F12 - show/hide debug window

Console Keys:

ENTER - execute command
ESC - clear line
TAB - autocomplete or hints
UP - rewrite previous executed command