So after 15 minutes in game, what are my first impressions?

Well, during the initial tutorial, I had a chance to buy some guns and power cells. They had a cargo space size, and an "enter quantity" field, so my first thought was to get some extra for a trade run (you never know ...). That seemed to be changed back to "quantity 1" without notice.

Being launched into space, my first instructions were to drift. Then, something else came up about a key to press. I didn't catch it, but I did remember "press m for the mission log".

But the text that showed up when I hit "m" did not match what I had been shown so far in the mission. And, it told me to check my speed, and that it should be zero. It was.

So how am I drifting with a speed of zero? This doesn't make much sense.

Looking around with my mouse (a mousepad, I hope that won't hurt me later), I found the entrance to the space station. And, I had a little trouble deciphering the radar, trying to match what I saw on-screen with the radar.

What I could not figure out was how to rotate. Left/right, up/down, that made sense (I think). But I could not manage to rotate around my nose/tail axis to line up the space station entrance properly. And there wasn't anything in the brief mission log about this.

More observations to come...

A little longer, and now trying to attack bots ...

First, I solved the rotation issue by moving in a triangle. Move left or right towards the side that is too high, then diagonally up and back to center the tilt.

Second, after getting the next lession, on maneuvering -- a and d to slide, r and f to slide, that kinda left q and e for rotate -- which it did.

But trying to target and fight the bots? ...

First, I managed to find a different bot at one point. All I could do (since I only know "x" to find the nearest one) was wait for whoever was shooting it to kill it.

Second, those beginner bots seem to ram into the rocks and vanish. I saw several disappear from my tracking with more than 85% health left as they got close to a rock.

I could not figure out how to catch them. The one or two times that I did catch them by accident, the left button didn't seem to do anything. No sound feedback, no drop in their health bar, etc. I don't recall ever seeing a "range" for my starting gun, and even when I saw a red square, I never saw the red square turn into a yellow square. Did I misunderstand what I should see?

Now, a quick question: Will I need to right-click? If so, do you support ctrl-click for right click, or do I have to use two-finger press + click?

I think you may be over-thinking the tutorial and it is protecting you from yourself. The tutorial is a bit early to be thinking about trade runs.

I'm not really sure why you are having so much trouble steering. Maybe somebody with a trackpad (I assume that's what you meant by "mousepad") can help. It almost sounds like you are trying to steer using only the keyboard? Usually it's keyboard and mouse in conjunction.

I think c or v is an alternate keybind for secondary fire.

Asteroids obstruct your radar so you lose your target information if they pass behind an asteroid.

The training guns have a range of 300m. Most weapons have a range of 500m.

'c' is secondary trigger, 'v' is tertiary.

If you press F1 while you are drifting in space, it will show a list of helpful commands.

Yes, I have a trackpad.

My steering consists of turning left/right/up/down with the trackpad, and sliding (d/a/s/w) in the opposite direction at the same time.

My trackpad has one physical button. My OS (Mac 10.5.8) turns ctrl-click, or click-hold, into a right click. The trackpad does have "physical" right clicking by holding two fingers on the pad while clicking; java programs (that I've tried) actually require that. I don't know how an SDL program will behave yet.

Ok, I seem to be unable to fire weapons. Do I have to do anything special to arm that starting gun?

I can track a collector bot. I see other ships in the beginner area. I can hear them firing.

But I get no visual feedback of any kind when I fire.
I can get close enough to ram the collector bots, but nothing happens when I click.

I tried "Target next enemy in front", and got an asteroid. I figured, stationary target, I should see something, right? Got within 300 meters, and tried to shoot. Nothing.

What do I need to do to fire?

The default bind for "primary fire" (which is all you need for beginner ships) is just.. pressing the mouse button. You only need one button. The game is definitely well known to work on Macs. A large percentage of our userbase is on Macs. So we've been handling the single-button case since people were using the "flavored" G3 iMacs with the godawful "puck" mouse.

Is it possible that your ship does not have an equipped weapon? The very-first tutorial walks you through the process of equipping a weapon, and it's pretty much required, but if you died and chose not to "buy back last ship" after exploding, and then re-configured your ship from scratch, you might not have a weapon equipped.

Did you re-configure anything else? Like weapon groups or key bindings? Anything in Options?

I did go through the first tutorial. I do recall seeing buttons lighted up for me to press. I do remember buying the weapon.

I did finish that entire tutorial, and I'm still on that same ship (did not die).

I don't recall any explicit "equip weapon" steps. Nor, for that matter, do I recall any explicit "equip power cell" steps.

Just that you buy a free ship, a free weapon, and a free power cell, with the comment that real starbases, ships, etc, all have tradeoffs and different power levels.

Oh yea -- the only option I changed was to play in windowed mode because full-screen was giving me problems.

According to the manual,
[quote]Each ship has a power cell port and one or more weapon ports. When you purchase one of these addons from the "Buy" menu, it is automatically installed into the appropriate port. [/quote]
So not seeing any explicit configure weapons seems correct.

So, you're able to use your mouse normally in the interface, and click on buttons and things, but as soon as you launch your ship from station, you can't shoot? That's awfully strange..

What was giving you problems in full-screen mode?

His full-screen problems: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/5/23682

How would I check what is actually my configured weapon? Is it possible somehow that I have no weapon?

Alright, I have checked.

According to the manual, on the left edge, near middle, I should see the equipment on my ship, including my weapons.

What I actually see is a blank spot. There's a shaded zone, but nothing in it.

Problem solved: Equip weapon.

Ok. How?

(Seriously, I can't find anything in the manual on how to dock with the space station.)

Hmm, docking is part of the tutorial. I just took the tutorial again and it was very detailed in this regard. Have you asked other players on channel 100 how to dock?

That tutorial does not require any equipping. The weapon and battery are automagically installed and are immediately functional upon launching.

Pressing "m" displayed the current mission goals in bold, and past instructions in faded text, as per usual.

"drifting" was a minor item of no particular importance to the mission.

There's also this wiki entry: http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/FAQ#How_do_I_Dock.3F

23 44 73 (20) (18) (15) (12) (12)

Do NOT attempt to enter the exit bay. Other ships may exit and crash into you and you will take damage from the force field and can be destroyed if you attempt it.

Obviously, our FAQ on the wiki is a little outdated :P

Well yes, but it'll still get him docked well enough.