just started playing... the game isn't very user friendly that I have found so far...

see a lot of stuff that you need to be able to do, you have to either type out as a / command, which I think you have to do from a command screen that isn't flight friendly. there are a bunch of aliases for them, and then you can bind them, but how to do that really isn't that obvious, and it seems to take a lot of time and patience to even figure it out.
the bind sticky on the board is nice, but its hard to follow when you've only played the game for a few hours, and its a long thread to read completely threw.

I haven't found a good source for everything that a player needs to know to play the game effectively. the manual is fairly generic except for the slash commands which seem like they need some more explination.

There is a slash-command reference around here somewhere. Lemme see if I can dig it up, okay?

It's true that the /commands are a bit obscure for the uninitiated, but you certainly don't need them to play. I've been playing for years are rarely do more than /bind a command to another key.

The user interface has been improving steadily recently.

I've been playing a little while, and I'm at the point where I need to start fighting the next level up from the collectors, which are guardians. I have been able to kill a few, but usually die very shortly after, looking at the boards it seems you have to do a lot of simultanious movement things, some of which I've only seen in the earlier sticky post that needs aliases and binding to make it so you are able to do them.

maybe its just that the difficulty of the bots doesn't scale up very well, you go from the first collectors which are really easy, the second type of collectors which aren't bad at all, then you get to the guardians which pretty much just tear you to pieces. seems that there should be another level of difficulty or two between them.

I never used bindings for fighting or movement.
There is NO NEED to bind anything, or to use the console beside of chatting. So where is your point?

You can bind your keys in the configuration screen, if you want to ... say ... make "X" your forward key...

Suggestion: ignore the binding thread and look for a mentor.

P.S.: oh, and do not forget to blame Windows and MacOS not to be userfriendly, because there is a console too...

I don't use bindings either. The commands I use the most are /join <###>, /msg <name>, /buddy, and /explode :)

If you're having difficulty killing bots I wonder if you've tried different ship/weapon combinations to find the setup that suits your combat style. Personally I prefer a Heavy battery and a fast energy weapon so I can get out many shots. Others swear by fast chage batteries and heavy missiles.

Remember dying is cheap and only costs you your ship, one of the reasons that ships are cheap is so you can die and rejoin the game with minimal penalty.

I also second the idea of getting a mentor. If your willing to die a few times during a duel and listen to soem of their suggestions you can improve. I've done this a few times and I feel it has helped my piloting skills.

If you are Itani I would be glad to mentor you. If you see me ingame just yell at me:)

The only time I used binds to fight was when I had a broken arm and had to fight one handed. The binds are not needed for anything.

Normal key binds can be done in the options>keyboard in the options menu. You can easily reconfigure your keyboard there.

Try experimenting with different ships, centurions are a good ship to take on guardian bots, and vultures are very good too. Try different weapons. Some people like low speed weapons like the plasma cannon and gauss while others like speedy weapons like tachyons.

The combat system is not learned in 1 day nor 1 month. One of the great things in this game is there is no end to how skilled you can be. The game would not be much good if you could master combat in a week.

I think that Vendetta does a good job of getting all the controls that you'll use regularly into the keyboard options panel, so that part's easy. I really only use /join, /msg, /buddy, /group.

I did copy some extra commands from the binds sticky that I've found quite useful (although not necessarily useful for a beginner). Namely the turbo lock (I use this all the time, but until you get a battery that's large enough to let you turbo for a long time - heavy, and fc batts - you run out of power too quickly) and the scroll wheel zoom. The scroll wheel zoom is nice to view faraway opponents and objects because just pressing i is so great a jump that you often get lost. Having the gradient of zooming allows you to adjust your aim so you're still centered on whatever you want to zoom in on.

But for combat, extra commands aren't necessary. Try finding a mentor. They can be great help when learning combat. Fighting bots is a good way of learning basic and intermediate tactics, but bots are only so skillful. You can take botting skills into a PvP match, but you'll find that while some of the maneuvers stay the same, the tactics are quite different because all players have different styles and maneuver quite a lot more than bots. PvP fighting skills can ONLY be learned when fighting other players.