How to Play

To get into a game and look around, just press the "Load Level" button, then the "Start Game" button in the "Levels" window. This will drop you into the level called Alektra. You're now in control of a lethal bipedal machine called a Hostile Environment Combat and Tactical Operations Remote (HECTOR), equipped with homing missiles, high-explosive contact grenades, and reactive plasma cannons! The controls shown below are the defaults. To change them, see the Configuring your Controls section.

• The movement controls are WSAD, with A and D rotating you left/right and W and S to move forward and backward respectively. The head and legs are controlled independently, reminiscent of MechWarrior.
• Use your mouse to rotate your HECTOR's head. Note the V shape at the top of the screen, this indicates the direction of your legs (and the direction you will move when you press forward).
• You can click to fire your HECTOR's plasma cannons, press E to fire grenades.
• You can load a missile with Q and then press the mouse button to fire it.
• The meters on the bottom of the screen show your current energy levels:
  • Blue 🛡️ is the energy shield level--when this is gone, your HECTOR is toast!💥
  • Green ⚡ is the reactor's energy reserve--this source recharges both the energy shield and the plasma cannons. When it empty, you are very vulnerable.
  • Red 🔫 shows your HECTOR's plasma cannon energy level, which directly corresponds to the damage an enemy will take when they are hit by the plasma if it is fired at that moment.
• Press Left Shift to use a booster 🚀. This puts your reactor into hyperdrive and quickly recharges energy shields and cannons. The standard Light recon HECTOR carries only three of these reactor boosters, so use them wisely!
• Weight 🏋️ has a large effect on your speed 💨--Try moving from one spot to another before and after firing all your ordnance!
• Tab will deploy your "Scout" camera drone 🚁, enabling an external view of your HECTOR. Press an arrow key once to set a homing position for the Scout. It will always try to move and stay in this spot relative to the HECTOR. The Scout is a physical object within the game, can get stuck on level geometry, can be destroyed, and alerts enemies to your position--so be careful!
• Press and hold Space to crouch, release it to jump. To get full jump height, you must hold space until you stop crouching. Jump wisely, as you are very slow when crouching, and airbourne movement is quite predictable.
• You can jump a little higher (AKA "superjump") if you have 2 keys assigned to "jump" in your config file. To pull off the superjump you first press down 2 "jump" keys at the same time then release 1 of those keys at a time. The game detects whether one "jump" key is being held down while another "jump" key is released. This can be a tricky maneuver to master but can come in handy when you need to reach a ledge that seems almost out of reach.
• To quit playing, press Escape once to self-destruct, then again quickly to abort the game.

To join a network game use the "Network" window and enter the server's address. You should be able to copy an IP from somewhere else and paste it in. Then you can hit connect to join the server.

You can host a game by clicking the "Start Hosting" button. Other users can connect to you after you see the button change to "Stop Hosting".

Press Enter during gameplay to start text input mode and type messages to other players at the bottom of the screen. You can press Enter again to exit this mode.