# Foundation Three: how to play (alpha)

This page ships inside every release zip. The full reference is `README.txt` next to it.

## Start
1. Unzip the release anywhere. Keep the `data` folder next to `f3_client.exe`.
2. Run `f3_client.exe`. It opens on the main menu: Quick Fight, practice against the bot, find or create a server, settings, quit.
3. Needs a GPU with Vulkan or DirectX 12. Windows 10 or 11.

## Controls (keyboard and mouse)
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Capture the mouse | click in the window (Esc pauses) |
| Pitch and yaw | move the mouse |
| Pitch / yaw / roll | W S / A D / Q E |
| Throttle up / down | R / F |
| Boost | Left Shift |
| Shield balance | Z doubles the shield forward, X doubles it aft, the same key again goes back to even; gamepad View button cycles even, forward, aft |
| Power split (weapons / shields / engines) | arrow keys: up weapons, left shields, right engines, down resets to even. Quick keys: 1 full power to engines, 2 shields, 3 weapons (four pips there, one each elsewhere) |
| Fire | Left Control or left mouse button |
| Drift (hold, at boost speed) | Space |
| Concussion missile (Fighter) | G or middle mouse switches guns and missiles, then fire as normal (gamepad B, stick button 2) |
| Reflective chaff (Fighter) | H (gamepad d-pad down, stick button 3) |
| Look around the cockpit | hold Right Mouse |
| Scoreboard | hold Tab |
| Next target / nearest target / target under crosshair | Y / T / V |
| Arming screen (choose laser, missile, shield cell, engine) | L, or Arming on the Esc menu |
| Cockpit / chase view | C |
| Pause | Esc |

Power split: every pip is felt. Engines 4 pips is 10% faster and recharges the boost twice as fast (0 pips is 10% slower and recharges at half speed), weapons 3 pips hits about 15% harder, shields 4 pips recovers twice as fast and starts after 3 seconds instead of 5; 0 pips on shields means no recovery at all. Six pips total, four at most in one system.

Shield hemispheres: the shield is two halves, forward and aft, sharing one pool (100 on the Fighter). Even holds 50 in each. A shot hits the half it arrives on, and if that half is empty it goes straight through to the hull, so doubling the side the enemy is shooting at is the whole point. Switching moves the charge across in about 2 seconds. The SHD bar reads forward charge from the left in blue and aft charge from the right in pale blue, and SHD FRONT or SHD AFT shows under the sight while it is not even. Hitting a rock or ship uses the half facing it.

Weapon energy: the NRG bar is your gun energy, about five seconds of fire from full. Holding the trigger drains it, and it does not refill while you fire. When it runs dry the bar goes red, RECHARGE shows under the sight and the guns stay locked until the bar is full again; let go of the trigger and it refills in about 5 seconds with 2 weapon pips, 2.5 seconds with 4, and 10 with none. Fire in bursts so you are never caught empty.

Missiles: the Fighter carries four per life. Press G to switch to missiles (G again for the guns), keep the target near the nose and a diamond closes on it while the lock tone beeps; when it turns red and reads LOCK, press fire. A missile takes about a third off a shield but nearly kills a fighter with its shield down, so save them for a stripped target. When MISSILE flashes at the top of the view one is homing on you: turn hard across its path early and break again as it arrives. Press H for reflective chaff: it breaks every lock on you, and a missile still more than 150 m away loses you and bursts in the cloud. A closer one is too close to fool, so turn as well. You carry three bursts per life (CHF on the HUD), with a short wait between them.

Loadouts: a Fighter picks one part for each of four slots (laser, missile, shield cell, engine) on the arming screen: in the lobby before the match, while waiting to respawn, and while clamped on your barge. A pick made in the match applies on your next life. The missile slot also holds a bomb (unguided, damages everything near where it hits) and a vapour cloud generator (a cloud in which nothing can be picked or locked; see `LOADOUTS.md`). Laser bolts have a fixed colour and shape per laser type, not your team colour.

Collisions: with shields up you bounce off for about a fifth of your shield; with shields down you lose most of your hull. Brush a rock at a shallow angle with shields up and you ski along its surface unhurt.

Turning is best at half throttle. Boost gives a burst of speed but turns wide. A gamepad, joystick or HOTAS works too; check Settings, Controls. If your stick's buttons or axes are wrong, run `f3_client.exe --input-debug` from a command prompt and see `README.txt`.

## Playing online
- Host: run `f3_server.exe --bind 0.0.0.0` (port 27015, open it in your firewall and router). By default two pilots; a `server.json` sets the player count, teams, map and mode (see `README.txt`).
- Join: main menu, Find a server (or Quick Fight), pick a ship class, Take a seat. The lobby lists who is seated and their class.
- Both sides must run the same build. A game or server on another version is refused with a message saying which one is out of date.
- If you sit idle (no stick, throttle, boost or fire input) for 100 seconds the game asks "Still there?"; at 120 seconds the server makes room and sends you back to the lobby. Move or fire to stay.
- A round plays to 25 kills unless the server sets another limit. Hold **Tab** to see everyone's kills, deaths and ping. The round restarts with every score at zero a few seconds after someone (or a team) reaches the limit.

## Practice and bots
Practice from the main menu fights bots: choose their rank (Cadet, Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander, Wing Commander) and how many. Servers made with Create a server can also seat bots. Higher ranks react faster and aim better; a Wing Commander can kill in five to ten seconds.

## Maps
The dogfight map is the arena. The Seam is a deep map of two grinding stars with moons; its Titans variant has hollow moons you can fly into, with a barge for each team. Maps always run two teams.

## Quick Fight and Create a server
- **Quick Fight** joins the best listed server for you: one with pilots already seated (busiest first), then lowest ping, within the ping ceiling you set (30 to 400 ms, or Any; Settings, Match). If none suits and the match service is reachable, it queues you and starts a new server for you (one pilot is enough); anyone who arrives while it runs joins the same server.
- **Create a server** starts a server of your own on demand (name, size, teams, public or private, bots and more). Your seat is held for you for 2 minutes. Servers stop on their own after 10 minutes empty, or 3 hours at most. There is a limit on how many you can create per hour.
- If a join fails the message starts with a four-digit code such as F3-4003 (server full) or F3-4101 (no answer); see `ERROR_CODES.md` and `JOIN_PATH.md`. The game keeps a log in `%APPDATA%\FoundationThree\logs\client.log`, and F5 bug reports include its last part.

## The target LCD
The cockpit LCD page for a locked target is tinted by who it is: green for a friendly, red for an enemy, blue for a neutral (`hud.rs`, `lcd_palette`). A locked capital ship gets its own page (top view, four facing bars, hull, engines, turrets, bridge).

## Landing on a barge
In the dogfight map each end has an indestructible refuelling barge. Fly a line of square gates astern of it (600 m, a gate every 50 m, white until the hold starts and green while held) at 60 to 90 m/s with your nose on the lane for 5 seconds: `HOLD n` counts down, then the ship lands itself (`LANDING`, `SERVICE`, `READY`) and is rearmed and repaired. Push the throttle above 90% to launch. Details: `CAPITAL_SHIPS.md`.

## Team matches
When the server runs teams (for example 5 against 5), the server puts you on a team. Teammates show in blue brackets in the cockpit view and the radar marks friend and foe differently (enemies are red blips, with a yellow bracket on your target); there is no friendly fire.
Before each match there is a warm-up: press **Enter** when you are ready. The match starts when everyone is ready, or when the warm-up timer runs out, so a missing pilot cannot hold the server forever.
Stay inside the map: past the edge you get a warning and a countdown, then you are destroyed (an edge death scores nothing for anyone).

## Fleet Battle
A server with mode `fleet_battle` puts two teams around their capital ships: each team deploys a corvette in front, a dreadnought and a frigate behind it, and a refuelling barge behind each. The match is one phase: destroy every enemy capital ship, barges included. A team that loses its last capital ship loses. If 30 minutes pass first, the team with the larger share of capital hull left wins. Pilot kills still count on the scoreboard but do not decide the match. The older phased rules (open, frigates, flagship) are kept as the `fleet_classic` mode. Fleet Battle is still rough: tell us what you find.

In the dogfight map each end has an indestructible refuelling barge you can land on to rearm and repair.

After a respawn you take no damage for 5 seconds (the server setting `spawn_protection_s`); firing ends it early.

## Known issues
The release notes on the GitHub release page list the open bugs for that build. Please report anything else with the bug report form on GitHub (when the repository is open) or to Phill directly: include the game version, your GPU, and for a hitch a telemetry file (`--telemetry fight.csv`).

## Reporting a bug

Press **F5** at any time. The game keeps the screen as it was at that moment, then asks what went wrong. Send sends that screenshot, your text, the game build and details of your PC (operating system, processor, memory, graphics card and driver, resolution, map and server) to the F3 team. If it cannot be sent, it is saved in a `bug_reports` folder beside the game; attach that folder in Discord.
