*Please note: “Anyone” is a specific community member (not just “any player!”)

CONTROLS
Controlling your ship in Dreadnought is pretty straight forward. By default, your modules (skills) are bound to 1, 2, 3 and 4 on a Qwerty keyboard, SHIFT is decent, SPACE is ascent, W and S control forward and backwards thrust, whereas A and D control the turning left and right respectively. In Dreadnought you have to rely on energy management and there are a total of 3 different energy usages: Power to Weapons (PtW), Power to Engines (PtE) and Power to Shields (PtS). Energy management is controller by either F1 (PtE), F2 (PtS), F3 (PtW) and F4 (energy off). Additionally, there’s an energy management wheel on E, which allows you to select one of the 4 modes by moving your mouse. However, the energy wheel will cost you a very expensive split second that will make switching between power modes slower at moments where you need it the most. Additionally, Dreadnought has the F button. This is a very important button and works different based on the target you’re aiming at. Aiming at an enemy gives you the option to either mark the target in the HUD, or mark it as target to fire at for your allies. Last but not least, a button often missed by new players, the Q to toggle between primary and secondary weapons, which is often forgotten, and the R, which reloads your currently selected weapon. When your primary weapon is selected, the left of the orange bars is highlighted, when your secondary weapon is selected, the right of the orange bars is selected.


USER INTERFACE
The white bar indicates the health points left. When you take damage, it will take 10 seconds of not taking any damage before your health starts regenerating health back to full, and stops when taking damage again. The blue bar is your energy bar. As mentioned before, energy comes in four different modes: Power to Weapons (PtW), Power to Engines (PtE), Power to Shields (PtS) and power off. You can see cross underneath the 100, this means that power is currently off. Different power modes are shown with different icons: PtW has a skull, PtE an arrow and PtS a shield. The current power usage is also shown with identical icons next to allied and enemy ships. The current target is not using any power as shown by the cross next to the health bar. Also, this ship has no energy left (the bar below the health bar). see several more important indicators that you will find extremely important while playing. You see the four modules equipped on your ship. When on cooldown, it will turn red with an indicator, whereas active -over time -modules are shown the same but in green. The blue icon means it’s ready to be used and green means it has a target lock. Whenever you aim for a target (missiles, torpedos, or anything else that can lock), or you have an area of effect module affecting allies or hitting enemies, the icon will light up green, but also the affected target will have a green icon above its health bar as shown in the screenshot. If this would’ve been an enemy, the weapon breaker missile would’ve been green on top and above the health bar. Also shown above the modules: ship class and tier.

Read Anyone’s full entry HERE[www.greybox.com].

• Energy is the secondary resource besides your armor, which can be used to boost your ships strengths for awhile. In return, it slowly drains your energy while active and if it absorbs or boosts damage.
  
• Power to Shields - With PTS activated all incoming damage is reduced by a certain percentage. The ship classes have different shield types installed, which are balanced between energy efficiency and absorption rate.
  
• Power to Engines - Fueling your engines with extra energy from your reactor increases your movement speed by 100%. Destroyers and Dreadnoughts gain a little less, Artillery Cruisers gain a little more speed. PTE constantly drains energy, but at a much slower rate than PTS or PTW.
  
• Power to Weapons - Powering your weapons with energy increases weapon damage, fire rate, and reload speed. It should be noted that there’s also an Officer Briefing that increases module damage while PTW is active.
  
• Managing your energy - New players often make the grave mistake of keeping their energy active in one mode until it’s exhausted. Energy should always be used in short bursts, if it’s no longer needed, deactivate it as soon as possible. Never use up all of your energy if there’s the chance of a big hitting attack! PTS has the convenient property that it still absorbs the full amount, even if you are hit with 1 energy left.

Read Noctamis’ full entry HERE[imgur.com]

Corvettes
The key to surviving a enemy corvette attack is watching your surroundings and maintaining a good, close proximity to friendly ships. Corvettes will very often just run away if you survive the initial attack or make any attempt to fight back, though beware some will try to suicide rush you.

Artillery Cruisers
The key to surviving an enemy sniper attack is simple in most cases. Often this is again a simple matter of watching your surroundings and being prepared to move. Never, EVER stay stationary as a Tactical Cruiser.

Dreadnoughts
If you have an enemy Dreadnought on your position you are in for a whole world of hurt. Your weapons are very unlikely to kill it before it kills you. The best option here is to run away, mark target, or attempt to keep dodging till help arrives.

Tactical Cruisers
They’re not an attack ship, their first priority is always to keep everyone else alive. (Tactical Cruisers can be easy targets, take them out when you’re able so the enemy team can’t be healed).

Destroyers
That’s a really big ship and it’s full of guns. There really is no good way to deal with this situation and you are entirely reliant on your team to save you here. (Destroyers are ships that are well balanced in both offense and defense. Keep an eye on them as they can both pack a bunch and take a beating).

Read Kyrele’s full entry
HERE[www.greybox.com]

Artillery Cruisers
Artillery Cruisers are the snipers of Dreadnought, serving as long range burst damage dealers. Typically dealing a large amount of damage per shot, this class is able to dish out a lot of hurt from long range. It is typically best to avoid close range combat whenever possible in this class. It’s ship icon is displayed as a narrow elongated diamond. It’s nicknames include “Arties”, “Arty”, and “Art Cruiser”, among others.

Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts are your stereotypical tank class. Their weapons usually don’t deal that much damage per hit, and without a Tactical Cruiser, a Dreadnought is going to have trouble staying alive. Dreadnoughts have the most health of any class in the game, in addition to being one of the slowest moving. They are unique in the fact that while they have the lowest shield damage blocking percentage (65% damage reduction), taking hits does not cause your energy to drain faster as it does on other ships. The ship icon for Dreadnoughts is depicted with a thicker, pentagon like shape as can be seen in the screenshot to the right.

Tactical Cruisers
Tactical Cruisers are typically the healers of Dreadnought. They are the only class with the ability to restore the hit points of other ships. The ship icon for Tactical Cruisers looks a lot like a triangle, or a short tent. Community nicknames for Tactical Cruisers include “Tacs” and “Tac Cruisers”.

Destroyers
Destroyers are very good at dealing sustained damage at any range. Relying heavily on modules, these ships can (Not complete).

Corvettes
Corvettes are essentially the glass cannons of Dreadnought. Deadly at close range, but with very little health if it starts getting focused. The icon for Corvettes is the tiniest of them all, and looks almost like the Artillery Cruiser icon with the front snapped off.

Read Draggommer’s full entry HERE[docs.google.com]

• Evade - If you’re being shot at, move up or down to evade fire. You’ll be surprised how much it causes people to miss, even with the larger hitbox. Duck and weave at all times, because it could save your life.
  
• Know when to quit - If your attack has failed, and you won’t be able to kill the target before you die yourself, get out of there. You’re better off aborting the attack and getting behind cover than dying with nothing to show for it.
  
• Use the terrain - It’s your best friend. Fly low on the map, go behind mountains or asteroids, and turn the camera as far as you can to see around the terrain. This lets you scope out the enemy team before you use your cloak or go out into battle. Also, when you’re making an escape, always, always get behind terrain. Even if you get stuck behind enemy lines, you can cooldown your modules and then escape back to your side, or an enemy ship may come after you by itself and give you a much better shot at scoring a kill.
  
• Reload - Reload. Always reload whenever you’re not shooting. Reload, reload, reload. Don’t get carried away. Don’t chase a Corvette right back to its battle group, because you’ll stand no chance. Don’t get greedy after pulling off an alpha strike, because your modules are on cooldown and the enemy team might start killing you. On the flipside...
  
• Know your opportunities - If there are two AC’s sitting behind the main group, you could get them both. Assess their tiers and how fast you can kill them, and go for the second one if you’re feeling confident after the first kill. Show no mercy. Did that Artillery/Tactical Cruiser just respawn and it’s on its own? Don’t care. Kill it.

Read Spork’s full entry
HERE[www.greybox.com]