Manual

Introduction
Welcome to the Naev player's manual.

This manual is a work in progress. If there's anything you feel it needs, feel free to let us know via forum or this page's discussion tab.

This manual primarily expands on concepts that are omitted or only briefly mentioned in the in-game tutorial. Some things are better learned hands-on, so if you're looking for the basics like ship piloting and combat, please check out the in-game tutorial.

Controls
While Naev is primarily keyboard-oriented, mouse flying can also be toggled by clicking the middle mouse button or Ctrl-X by default. This will cause your ship to point towards the cursor, and by default engage the engines as well.

Time
Time in Naev is all standardized according to the Universal Synchronized Time (UST). This is a uniform way to express time across the entire galaxy.

There are three time units in common use, explained below. Currently, time is written as SCU:STP.hSTU; a real example might be UST 603:3728.91.

Time units

 * STU (Standard Time Unit)
 * Smallest named time unit. Equal to the Earth second.
 * hSTU: Also known as the hectoSTU, equal to 100 STU. Its usage in-game is broadly equivalent to a minute. Ship chronometers commonly use this as the smallest displayed unit.
 * STP (Standard Time Period)
 * Most commonly used time unit. STPs are the new hours. 1 STP = 10,000 STU (about 2.8 Earth hours).
 * SCU (Standard Cycle Unit)
 * Used for long-term time periods. 1 SCU = 5000 STP (about 579 Earth days, or a year and seven months). In informal situations this is generally called a "cycle".

Time passage

 * Flying in space
 * When in space, time passes at a rate of 30 STU per second, which is why the GUI's clock increases by 0.01 STP every 3⅓ seconds.


 * Landed
 * Time does not pass while landed.


 * Takeoff
 * Taking off takes 1 STP, which means that stopping to refuel during time-sensitive missions is generally a bad idea.


 * Jumping
 * Hyperspace jumps also take time, generally 1 STP per jump, though some ships such as the Quicksilver take less.

Reputation
Reputation is a fairly complex mechanic, but the most important bit is that factions will become hostile if your reputation with them falls below zero. Being hostile with peaceful factions is mostly unimportant, but hostile military ships will attack on sight.

Reputation can usually be gained (up to a point) by killing a faction's enemies, though it's usually far more efficient to do missions for the faction instead. Killing a faction's ships will often incur a harsh reputation penalty, many times what the benefit would be for killing one of their enemies.

Luckily, if you become hostile with a major faction, most of them offer rehabilitation missions at the mission computer, though making amends is rather expensive.