Basic Concepts for New Players

This guide will first add additional information to each of the tutorials included in the game, as well as some clarifications for actually completing the tutorials.

1. Joystick, HOTAS and gamepad mapping

The first tutorial describes basic input and device mapping but doesn't deal with the fact that the default keyboard and mouse mapping are very unlike other games. The first section, shows the mappings I'm using and gives a description of what most commands do.

2. Flight Tutorial
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Remaining sections to be written

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For now, a few tips:

• Buy a docking computer for quicker docking. The Mk1 works if you are near the docking area and in the right orientation. Mk2 is super nice - You just have to get near the docking area and can be at any speed or orientation.
  
• Be careful not to upgrade your only ship at a station that doesn't have enough resources. You could end up sitting there for hours.
  
• To get a quick lay of the land, ride a super highway (the strips of blue that look kind of like rivers in space). You just have to fly in to it to get on. It will take you on a giant loop of many sectors. The easiest way I've found to get off is to use stop engines.
  
• Quick Traveling
  --- In order of speed, you are the fastest pilot for getting to a destination, then a ship captain and autopliot. This is because the auotpilot has a tendency to crash into things and ship captains slow down when passing stations.
  --- The fastest way to get to max travel speed is to hold down boost until about 1/3 of your shields are drained, then while still holding boost down, switch to travel mode. Travel mode will automatically disengage boost, at which point you can release boost. This can also be used as a way to kick start the auto pilot to begin travel at max speed.
  
• An easy way to make money at the very beginning is to go to a trader, buy bandages, needles and seditives and use a crafting bench to create first aid kits. The same trader will buy the first aid kits back for a large profit. Going to just a few stations will earn you enough to buy a better ship or upgrade your current one.

The first thing you'll want to do when playing X4: Foundations is to remap your keys. The default keymapping is very akward and doesn't conform to movement in other games. This section only covers Keyboard and Mouse mapping. F6-F8 and F10-F11 aren't used so these can be used for mouse key mapping in your mouse software.

To remap the keys, hit Escape and then go to Settings > Controls then select either General, Platform Movement or Menu Navigation. You have to double click on some of the options.

These apply to flying in a ship and flying in your space suit - These keys aren't needed for keyboard control
Basic Movement
Steering - These keys aren't needed for keyboard control

Strafing/Accelerate/Decelerate
Almost every other game in existence uses the following mapping for movement:

W = forward, S = backward, A = left, D = right, Space = up(jump), Ctrl/C/X = down(crouch)

In space sims, forward is accelerate and backward is decelerate (which also engages reverse thruster in X4 once 0m/s is reached).

You're not allowed to map Ctrl for some reason, so the final movement controls become:
Strafe Up: Space
Strafe Down: Alt/C/X - whichever you are used to using for crouch in other games (C is used for crouching by default but I prefer Alt, so that I can keep three fingers for WASD)
Strafe Left: A
Strafe Right: D
Accelerate: W
Decelerate: S

This makes the game feel very natural.

Other Keys in this section

If you like to use Full Forward and Full Reverse a lot, move them to more accessible keys.
Full Forward: Backspace
Full Reverse: Shift + Backspace

Roll Left/Roll Right/Toggle Flight Assist - You don't need to use the roll keys until you become a more skilled pilot. If you want to start using roll, you need to turn off flight assist, otherwise the flight assist will correct the roll and level you out until you are level with the galactic plane or the orientation of the nearest docking port and sometime other arbitrary planes. Combat engines provide faster pitching than yawing, so rolling perpendicular to the direction of the desired turn and then pitching will provide faster turns (similar to atmospheric flight). Depending on your orientation, flight assist won't automatically level you - for instance, if your ship is aligned to the z-axis.

Stop Engines/Boost
This is full stop and afterburners. Stop Engines doesn't actually turn off your engines. It just makes you come to a complete standstill (very useful for spacesuit flight because you drift in that mode). You'll want these very handy as you'll use them a lot. Unfortunately, you can't map anything to the Shift key, which is what most games use for Afterburners/Boost. If you tap boost, you immediately move past your max throttle speed and then return to max throttle speed, but much more quickly than if you used Full Forward. I prefer using Boost to using Full Forward, but this might be needed if finer control is desired. I used mouse buttons:

Stop Engines: Mouse 4
Boost: Mouse 5

Toggle Mouse Steering
Super important - The left mouse button does not fire weapons in this game (for some awful reason), instead it is used to select obejcts on the screen and move your ship. To yaw or pitch, you hold down the left mouse button and move the cursor in the direction you want to yaw or pitch. Dreadful. This toggle lets you just move the mouse without need to hold down the button. Unfortunately, in order to select targest without tabbing through several targets or using your map, you need to toggle mouse steering off so you can move the mouse without steering your ship. Both ways are very awkward and require a long time to become familiar with. You'll either want to always use toggling or use mouse click to steer. Up to you. If you use toggling bind it to something very close to your fingers.

Toggle Mouse Steering: F

Fire Primary Weapons
Again this is really awkward - neither the left or right mouse button can be used for firing weapons (technically you can use the right mouse button, you'll just end up bringing up the context menu for objects in space which makes it hard to see targets). This seems to work well:

Fire Weapons: Middle Mouse Button
Fire Secondary Weapons: R

For easy weapon group/chafe/ammunition switching:
Next Primary Weapon Group: 1
Previous Primary Weapon Group: 2
Next Secondary Weapon Group: 3
Previous Secondary Weapon Group: 4
Chafe: V
Next Ammunition: B - Used if you have different types of rockets for example.

You may want to use F1 - F4 (which default to camera views) as you wil be switching modes a lot, but I used the default.
Of these, Help, Object Info, Object Comm aren't that useful because you can just right click and access them from the context menu - so these can be used for remapping if desired. Target object in map can be remapped as well, as you can just left click on the target in the map.

Open Quick Action Menu: Enter
Map: M
Missions: Shift + M - Opens Map menu with mission tab selected
Property Owned: Shift + P - Opens Map menu with property tab selected
Player Information: Shift + C - Opens Character menu; I reampped this as a personal preference; C for character
Current Ship Info: Shift + Enter - This only works when you are in control of a ship. This can also be accessed by right clicking you ship and selecting Information (in the map or in space).
Help: H - Tutorial menu
Interaction: Shift+F - Since I'm using F for toggle mouse steering, this is remapped. You don't need this key when using as mouse as you can just click on everything, which feels more natural anyway.
Object Info: I - Brings up information on the currently selected target (same as right clicking and selecting Information)
Object Comm: C - Brings up the comm dialog for the pilot/manager of the selected target (same as right clicking and selecting Comm)
Target object in map: T - same as clicking on something in space or on the map.

Remapped some keys for mouse bining or to prevent accidentally using command

Option Menu: Delete | Escape
Options Menu: Shift + O
Save: Shift + S
Load: Shift + L
Exit: Ctrl+ Q
Quick Save: Shift + F5
Quick Load: Ctrl + F5

Default - You have to press F2 twice to get in camera mode that allows turning the camera. Static camera defaults to behind ship but can be changed by switching to it from anotrher mode.
Tabbing to closest target more closely matches other games.

Target Closest Enemy: Tab
Target Object: T
Next Target: Page Down
Previous Target: Page Up
Next Surface Element: Home
Previous Surface Element: End
Toggle Target Lock: Shift + T - only used for gamepad?

Dock also doubles as transporting back to your ship when you are in a station. If you play other games that have Shift as a run key, you might find yourself accidentally transporting back to your ship. I also remapped some keys to be the same as first letter of action

Dock: Ctrl + D
Get up from Chair: Shift + U
Toggle Radar Mode: Shift + R - switches the radar HUD from tactial view to map view
Toggle Autopilot: Shift + A
Toggle Guidance: Shift + G - Turns on guidance
Pause: Pause
Toggle Sound: Shift + V
Container Magnet: O - A tractor bean - pulls in objects within about 300m

Controls: PlatForm Movement

This is for when you are walking around. The only thing I remapped was Run. Can't use Shift for run (WHY?!). So I just put it as E. You can also double tap forward to run.

Also be sure to remap Dock in the general section, because you might find yourself accidentally transporting back to your ship.

Controls: Menu Navigation

Leave as default. You'll probably use your mouse for this.