Guide:Controls

=Controls=

Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are both very complex games and will support a wide variety of input devices. This guide will attempt to list all the controls for standard input devices in an organized fashion, making it easy to find answers to common questions.

Mouse & Keyboard
The standard of PC gaming. Star Citizen has a huge amount of actions you can do and the game uses almost every key on your keyboard multiple times. There are 3 different control modes: Flight, On Foot, and EVA, that you will transition between when playing the game. Your movement and look controls will stay mostly the same between modes but the rest of the key layout may be drastically different.

Game Controller
Any modern USB game controller should work with Star Citizen. The FPS and flight controls may feel familiar to gamers who use controllers but the sheer number of controls may make this unweildy for anything other than walking around or basic flight.

Joysticks & Throttles
There are three main joystick setups:
 * Joystick with integrated throttle
 * HOTAS - Joystick with a separate throttle
 * HOSAS - Two joysticks, one used as a throttle.

Which you use will depend on your budget and personal preference.

Gaming Pads
There are a couple of different USB devices that give you half of a keyboard or so to use assign custom keys to. Some even have an integrated thumbstick!

Pedals
Foot pedals for rudder control etc.

Headtracking
Using a webcam or a specialized IR tracker to track your head movement and link it to your in game camera.

Voice Attack
Voice recognition software that fires macros.

=Explanation of terms=

IFCS
Intelligent Flight Control System. Your ship has a computer controlled flight system that helps you fly and helps keep you safe while flying. There are several modes that you can cycle through to balance how much you want to fly the ship directly and how much you want the computer to fly the ship for you.

Coupled Mode
Coupled and Decoupled flight are two main IFCS modes. When coupled your ship will fly much more like an airplane while in space. When decoupled your ship will continue moving in any direction you thrust until you thrust in a different direction.

ESP
Enhanced Stick Precision. ESP will dampen your inputs when your targeting reticle is above the target. This is designed to keep you from overshooting.

Boost
Boost mode puts more power into your maneuvering thrusters and instructs the IFCS to put your prograde vector in front of your ship, if it isn't already. While in boost mode you are more maneuverable but G-Safe is also disabled, so be careful.

Target Pips
=Default Keybindings=