Wiki / Your first flight
Your first flight
Nova Protocol is a build-and-fly space shooter. You take a modular ship into a scenario with asteroids, salvage, hostile ships, and planets that provide static gravity wells. Everything moves under real Newtonian physics - momentum persists and nothing dampens you, so you fly the ship, not a cursor. The flight computer can fly for you through real thrusters, but a fresh manual burn press or RCS input hands control back to you. This page is the whole first flight: how to launch, the core gestures, Basic Training beat by beat, and where to go next.
Launch and start
The game boots into a main menu. On a first launch a card in the bottom-left corner offers you Basic Training straight away, with Open lessons beside it and Not now to put the card away for good. Start Basic Training puts you on the Fleet gunnery range in a ready-made armed trainer, so there is nothing to build first. The other doors can wait.
The card is a one-time offer, not the entrance: the menu's Lessons row always opens the handbook, whose first row is Basic Training, and Settings > Interface > Training prompt switches the corner back on if you want it.
Under it sits a field note - one short fact taken from the handbook, with Open lesson to read the page it came from and Don't show again to stop the notes appearing on the menu. It changes each time you come back to the menu, and the same notes fill the slot at the bottom of every loading screen, which that switch does not touch. While a practice range loads, the note is about what that range teaches. Settings > Interface > Field notes switches the menu card back on.
Show the full menu rundown
- Continue - desktop build only, once a save stands: heads the menu, names the newest saved world and how long ago it was saved, and opens it as Load would.
- New Game - opens the world setup in two steps. The first step takes a name for the world (desktop build only) and a seed (a fresh one each time, or type your own), with Randomize, Next and Cancel. Under the seed a 3D chart shows the seed's sectors round your starting station before the world exists: right-drag turns it, the wheel zooms. The second step lists the start roles: select one to see how it plays, its hull turning in 3D, its hull's card (name, length, sections, weapons, drives), its kit of credits and cargo, its milestone (the role's goal) and its story, then press Create, or Back to change the seed. The name opens on New World, or the next free New World 2, New World 3, ... when that world exists. Create puts you in the role's ship, docked at your starting station - the nearest station of a civilization that begins as your Ally - in an open world of sparse asteroid clusters, planetoids and generated ships, generated from the seed and streamed in around you as you fly. Press Tab for the interface: its Jobs tab lists the station's board and its Station tab what the station sells, while you sit there. A fresh world posts one objective, Take a job, with the interface key under it; the chip stays up until your first accepted job clears it, and nothing waits on it. A seed whose nearby civilizations keep no allied station is refused on the seed field, so pick another. The role's charter, one finite milestone and not an ending, stands in the Map's chart view as you play; see the Map. The same seed gives the same world on the same build. On the desktop build the world saves itself as you play, and the pause menu's Retry becomes Load last save; see Saved worlds below. The web build keeps no saved worlds.
- Load - desktop build only: lists your saved world folders and resumes the one you pick, or shows why it cannot. Each row reads the world's name and start role, its play time, how long ago it was saved and how many objectives stand open. The details draw the save's chart in 3D, then its FLEET - the ship you fly, and the owned ships, escorts and owned stations when it has any - and its open objectives: each held job, then your start role's goal with its next unmet milestone only, not every milestone line. Delete removes the one you pick after you confirm.
- Sandbox - opens the Mod Hub. Create or open a mod, build ships and scenarios in it, and test-fly them.
- Lessons - opens the training handbook. Its first row, Basic Training, starts the first-flight course. Under it is one screen per topic, with a demonstration, the actions it uses under your own bindings, a link into this manual, and often a focused range to fly. The handbook keeps track of what you have done: a lesson you open is marked read, and one is marked done only when you win a scenario that teaches it - finishing Basic Training or the topic's own practice range. Both are kept between sessions, in their own file beside your settings.
- Scenarios - opens the complete scenario picker, every scenario your enabled mods ship included.
- Mods - opens the installed-mod and online-catalog browser. A mod whose content will not load or fails its checks is switched off for you and named in one MODS DISABLED notice on the front door; its files stay installed, so you can update, remove or switch it back on from this screen.
- Settings - adjusts volume, graphics quality, window mode and the UI theme, and shows the control reference. The desktop build opens borderless fullscreen; Windowed is one click away. Alt-tab leaves the game running; Settings > Graphics > Pause when unfocused pauses it instead.
- Exit - quits (hidden in the browser build).
In any scenario, Esc pauses the game and gives you Resume / Retry (restart the current scenario) / Settings / Back to Main Menu / Exit.
Saved worlds
On the desktop build, New Game saves what you play; the web build keeps no saved worlds, and the main menu has no Load button.
Each world is a folder named after it, under this system's data folder, inside nova-protocol/worlds (for example ~/.local/share/nova-protocol/worlds on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support/nova-protocol/worlds on macOS, or %APPDATA%\nova-protocol\worlds on Windows).
The name field opens on New World; keep it or type your own. Create takes a name of 1 to 32 letters, digits, spaces, _ or -, the seed field above it and the role you selected. A name already taken, or one this system cannot make a folder for, sends you back to the first step with the reason under the field, and nothing starts. The game takes the world's first save as soon as the world comes up.
The game saves when you cross into a new sector, and again when you leave: Back to Main Menu, Exit and the window's close button each wait on that save before they act. While a save is writing or waiting, a notice at the bottom right says Saving world.... A successful save shows World saved for three seconds; a failure shows SAVE FAILED: <reason> until the next attempt or you leave. The grave/tilde HUD key (~) hides these notices with the rest of the HUD. An existing save is silent when first opened. Leaving shows an overlay while its save runs; a failed leave save offers Try again or Leave without saving, which keeps the last good save and leaves anyway.
Dying ends the run with a DEFEAT panel: "Your ship was destroyed." On the desktop build it offers Load last save and Main Menu, and Enter goes to the menu; the web build offers Main Menu alone. Dying writes nothing - the last good save stays on disk - and a way out after a death writes nothing either. The pause menu's Retry reads Load last save instead of restarting too: it reopens the world from disk rather than the seed.
What a Load brings back
A Load restores your ship (pose, motion, sections, damage, plates, ammo, reloads, hold, credits, key bindings and the chase-camera zoom), your chart of the sectors you entered and the stations and wrecks you found, the jobs you hold and have completed, every frozen off-window sector, and every live sector in the streamed window as it was at the last good save - including a turret round, a torpedo, a rock chunk cut off a rock, a detached hull piece and a shed plate or decor fixture still in flight, each resuming on its own remaining lifetime. A visual-only effect, such as a spark or a muzzle flash, is not saved and does not come back. A Load also restores a dock, a STOP, GOTO or ORBIT order, your travel lock, combat lock and component lock, and your RCS reserve with its idle timer, exactly as they stood at the save: a ship saved docked comes back docked to the same partner and port. A Load that cannot find a saved lock's, order's or dock's target, or whose saved port is now taken, is refused and shows why on its Load row.
A Load also brings the scenario back as it was: your objectives and their markers, the story log, the scenario's variables and readouts, and any timer still running, with the seconds it had left. A one-shot scenario event that already fired before the save does not fire again.
A Load that cannot bring its sectors and transients back within 240 seconds is refused, and the loading screen shows RESTORING SECTORS <live> / <desired> while it waits.
A refused Load
The Load screen lists every world folder, with the start role each world began as, and shows why one cannot be opened, on its row. It checks each saved state in the background: while a check runs, the row reads Checking saved state and Load stays greyed. Load checks the world again before it starts.
| Reason | Shown as |
|---|---|
| Another game has it open | open in another game |
| Saved by another game release or a development build | save format <found>; this build reads <current> |
| Saved with other content | content changed; saved with <mods> |
| The scenario the save names is not in this game's content | its scenario '<id>' is not in the loaded content |
| The start role the save names is not in this game's content | its start role '<id>' is not in the loaded content |
| Save file missing, corrupt or of another generation | unreadable: <reason> |
| The saved state holds an item this game's content does not define | unreadable: state.<n>.ron: unknown item '<id>' held by <owner>, or named by the chart |
| A file operation failed | the raw I/O error |
| The sectors or transients did not come back in time | the world did not come back within 240 s: <reason> |
| A saved reference matches two live bodies, or a saved style is not in this game's content | the reason, at once |
The content check runs first. A world saved with a mod item whose mod is now off or changed shows content changed, not unknown item.
Deleting a world
Select a world on the Load screen and press Delete, then Delete world to confirm or Cancel to keep it. Delete works on a world that cannot load, too. It removes only the files the game writes (world.ron, world.lock, the state.<n>.ron files and the temp files of an interrupted save), then the empty folder. There is no undo.
Delete removes nothing and shows Cannot delete <folder>: <reason> when another game has the world open, when the folder is gone, is a link or has a name no world gives, or when it holds any other file or folder: move that out first. If a removal fails part way, the world lists as unreadable and cannot load; press Delete again to remove the rest.
For your first flight, pick Start Basic Training on the card, the Basic Training row at the top of Lessons, or Basic Training in Scenarios. It teaches one gesture at a time and hands you each verb only when you reach the beat that needs it - so a key that answers with a deny buzz early on just is not unlocked yet. Each beat completes as soon as the range sees the gesture done.
The first two minutes
Distances read in meters and kilometers and speeds in meters per second (m/s); see the glossary.
- Burn. Hold W (or Space) for the main-drive burn and aim with the mouse. You point the hull, then thrust where the nose looks. The velocity sphere beside your ship shows where you are actually going.
- Lock a target. Hold Ctrl to sweep the radar; the hollow box shows what you are about to lock. Settle on it and hold steady for a moment - a short lock-on dwell has to fill (longer the farther the target is) before the lock latches, and sweeping off before then cancels it. A white crosshair is a travel (nav) lock; raise weapons first (see below) and it lands as a red combat lock instead.
- GOTO. With a lock, tap G and the autopilot flies you there - it burns over, flips, and coasts to a stop just off the target. Z, a fresh press of W or G again hands the ship straight back to you; the mouse does not, because while the computer flies your look input only swings the camera.
- Raise weapons and fire. Hold the right mouse button to raise weapons (combat stance); your reticle goes red and the ship is now "hot". Left mouse fires the turrets and launches torpedoes. A torpedo only launches while you hold a red combat lock.
That is the whole core loop: burn, lock, GOTO, shoot. Basic Training covers all of it on an armed trainer, ORBIT included.
Basic Training, beat by beat
You open on the Fleet gunnery range in an exterior shot of Trainer Seven, an armed picket held on the line, while Range Control reads the qualification card: fly the pattern, take the flight computer out to the planetoid and back, put five target hulks on the scrap list, then deal with two live drones. The camera comes back with the helm, each objective arrives as a short amber notification, and one gold marker at a time keeps the current target in view.
Part 1 - The pattern
- Burn to mark ALPHA. Hold W to burn and steer with the mouse. ALPHA sits dead ahead; flying into its ring completes the beat.
- Kill the drift. Press X once and let STOP brake the trainer down. Release the throttle: the next lesson waits for the maneuver to finish, and a fresh burn press or Z takes the ship back before it is done. The mouse is safe - it only moves the camera while STOP flies.
- Slide across to BRAVO. Hold Shift and move the mouse to translate without turning the hull - short taps, not a held push. The velocity ball on your HUD goes violet while the thrusters have the ship, and ten violet pips under the speed chip show how much RCS is left. Let go and they refill.
Part 2 - The flight computer
- Travel-lock the planetoid. Keep weapons down, put the planetoid off the far corner in front of you and hold Ctrl until the white travel lock takes. A red lock means weapons were up: it is the gun's lock, and the computer flies only the white one.
- GOTO. Press G and the autopilot flies the leg: it burns over, flips, and stops 500 m off the rock. Hands off until it is parked; a manual input takes the ship back, and the card waits for you to lock and press G again.
- ORBIT. Parked inside the planetoid's pull, press O. The computer circularises and holds the orbit; the beat completes when it calls the orbit stable.
- Home to CHARLIE. Mark CHARLIE goes up on the line. Travel-lock it - wait for it to come round if the planetoid is in the way - and press G. The computer drops the orbit on its own. Flying home by hand counts too: CHARLIE's ring closes the beat.
Part 3 - The line
- Lock Target 1. Hold the right mouse button to raise weapons, put Target 1 in front of you and hold Ctrl until the red combat lock takes. A white lock means you swept with weapons lowered: it is a travel lock, it feeds no gun, and Range Control asks you to sweep again.
- Put rounds into it. Hold the left mouse button and the gun follows the lock. Keep the rounds on the hulk until it comes apart. A cadet who shoots Target 1 apart before the lock lands skips the lesson; the card moves on either way.
- Clear the line. Four more hulks are marked. Work them in any order; the range tallies each one as it breaks up.
Part 4 - Something that shoots back
- Two range drones go live. They sat neutral through the whole card. Now they turn hostile, come for you, and shoot back. Defeat both - destroyed or disarmed, either counts. A crippled drone that coasts off the range counts too: Range Control calls the recovery tug, and you are not asked to chase it.
- Range is cold. Range Control logs the qualification, welcomes you to the Fleet, and points you at the Scenarios board for your first posting. Breaking the trainer up, or losing its gun, ends the card with a Retry on the same range.
(Tap Ctrl to clear a lock at any time.)
The free-flight range
Sandbox opens the Mod Hub. Press New, name a mod, keep the Free-Flight Range template and press Create. Build a hull, press Play, and you launch into a range with nothing to win and nothing to lose but the ship:
- Rock belts: a shallow one off to starboard, and a deeper wall of bigger rocks straight ahead.
- Target hulks off to port - inert bare-hull wrecks that never shoot back. Practice fire.
- Pickets further out. They sit neutral and ignore you until you paint one with a combat lock or fly too close, and then they fight. There is no way to un-wake one.
- Beacons that swap the sky as you pass through them - one out, one back.
- A planetoid off to port with a real gravity well. It is far enough that you have to go looking for it.
Nothing here ends. The objective on your HUD just names the way out: F1 returns to the editor at any time, and if you die the overlay offers Retry on the same range with the same ship.
Mining and cargo
Every start hull carries a docking port on its port flank and a cargo intake. The mining tug and the salvage hauler also carry a mining beam. The hold is what keeps a ship fighting: a repair spends hull plates, and every idle reload spends ammunition. Press Tab and step to the Inventory pane to see what you carry.
- Take from a wreck. Each generated derelict wreck carries its own mixed goods - it may hold no hull plates at all - and a share of its credits. Travel-lock one, line one of your ports up with one of its ports and press D to dock. In the Inventory pane, click an item and Confirm to take it, or click Take credits to take its whole balance in one click. D again lets go.
- Mine a rock. Point the emitter at a rock inside 100 m and hold V. No travel lock is needed. The mining beam cuts the nearest rock it meets once a second, and the ore drifts off in canisters.
- Pick up a canister. Fly your top-deck cargo intake up onto a canister, door first. Every whole item your hold has room for goes in; the rest stays in the canister.
- Drop cargo. Undocked, click an item in the Inventory pane and Confirm a Jettison. Close the pane and the intake drops it as canisters, which you can pick up again.
Ore sells to a docked ship that trades: a living generated ship carries its own goods and credits, so Buy and Sell work once you dock with a calm one you have not neutralized. Mined ore stays in your hold until you find one.
Where to go next
That is everything you need to get off the launch pad. The rest of the wiki is the full reference:
- Flight & autopilot - how ships move and what GOTO, ORBIT and STOP each do.
- Gravity wells - how static wells on planets and anchors affect mobile asteroids, ships, rounds, and torpedoes.
- Ships & damage - what a hull is made of and how it comes apart.
- Targeting & radar - deliberate locking, stances, and per-section fine-lock.
- Combat - the engagement ladder and the rules every weapon shares.
- Ship sections - what each part of a ship does, one page per part.
- Keybinds - the complete control reference for keyboard and gamepad.
- Glossary - the recurring terms and units in one place.