Welcome To Tabula Rasa!
Tabula Rasa Basic Controls and Keyboard Defaults
The basic controls and default keybindings can be set up in in either an FPS or an MMO style. A guide to the basic controls for both styles of play can be found here...
UI Overview
A screenshot of the Player UI can be seen in the image below.
Radial Menu
The Radial menu is a circular menu centered on the reticule which gives player access to Main interface objects. You can bring up a radial menu by holding down the CTRL key.
Equipping/Switching Weapons and Abilities
The Drawer System is the means of showing what weapons/tools and abilities are available for use "on the fly". There are two drawers: One is for Weapons/Equipment/Items, which is at the bottom left, and one is for Abilities, which is on the bottom right. Your XP Bar lies under both drawers.
To add an ability or weapon to the appropriate drawer, just open up the Backpack (B) or ability (K) window, and drag and drop the weapon/ability into the appropriate slot.
You can cycle through each one "on the fly" to choose the desired weapon or ability using the Q and E keys. or by pressing the number key assigned to the item you would like to select. Once you have the correct weapon or ability selected, press left or right mouse button respectively to equip it.
Combat
Once you have a weapon equipped, you can shoot with the left mouse button. Aim at your target and shoot. Any ability that you have equipped will fire using your right mouse button. You must hold down the right mouse button to ready the ability and let off of it to fire. Weapons use ammo while abilities use either adrenaline or power. For example, Sprint uses adrenaline and Lightning uses power. Power naturally recharges over time, while Adrenaline builds up by killing enemies in combat.
Weapons use ammunition and have varying clip sizes, depending on the weapon. Your character should automatically reload the weapon if you press fire when the clip is empty. Your reticle indicates how much ammo your current weapon has. When the inner circle goes all the way around the reticle, your weapon is full. As you fire, this circle will become smaller. When the circle disappears, you are out of ammo. Fire again or press R to reload.
When you move your targeting cursor over a hostile enemy, it should turn red to show you that you can fire upon this target. Pressing the Tab key will lock the target reticule on to your current target.
Killing several enemies in a row will give you an XP bonus indicated by the following icon located at the bottom of the screen by your XP bar:
Cover
When taking fire in combat, the reticle assists you by showing the direction of the incoming fire and the amount of cover you are behind.
In the above image, the Damage Indicator is red, indicating that the player is not covered by the environment in any way and is taking 100% of the damage dealt from enemy attacks from that direction. The Damage Indicator changes color under different amounts of cover.
- Red = 0% covered, Player takes 100% of Damage
- Orange = 25% covered, Player takes 75% of Damage
- Yellow = 50% covered, Player takes 50% of Damage
- Green = 75% covered, Player takes 25% of Damage
For example, if a player were to take cover behind some sandbags that gave him 50% cover from the front any incoming fire coming from the front would show a yellow damage indicator and do half the normal damage of uncovered incoming fire. So take cover recruit – the rear you save may be your own!
Weapon Damage Types
Different types of weapons do different types of damage. For example, an EMP weapon will do EMP damage to a target. EMP damage does not affect bio-organisms such as Thrax Soldiers, but EMP is very damaging to robotic enemies, such as shield drones. Mouse-over a weapon in your backpack or weapon tray to see the weapons’ damage statistics.
Forming a Party
Forming a party can be done by /invite and the last name of the player’s character or by targeting another player, holding down the control key and using the radial menu to invite the player to a team. While teamed you can use the integrated voice chat system by pressing and holding down the V key for as long as you want to talk. The voice chat system requires that a microphone be plugged into your computer. You can only use voice chat in teams.