The keys¶
Every key of the port, with when it acts and the original's key. The letters are where a US or a German keyboard has them; the port reads a key's place, so where a layout moves a letter, the key at that place acts (chapter 1).
The stick and fire¶
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| the arrow keys, or W, A, S and D | the stick: up is forward, which climbs; towards the aircraft's facing the throttle, against it a turn |
| Space | fire; in a menu, choose |
| Enter, the keypad's too | choose in a menu, the original's Return |
Fire also skips the story, the title pictures and the briefing. A gamepad steers with its d-pad or left stick and fires with its four face buttons and two lower triggers; the commands need the keyboard. The vertical flip swaps forward and back and is remembered (chapter 1); the keyboard assist, which the page turns on, makes a press one step in the weapon menu of the hold, and a short tap is never lost (chapter 19).
The game's commands¶
| Key | What it does | When it acts | The original's |
|---|---|---|---|
| P, or Escape | pause, and continue | in a mission | Escape |
| V | the vertical flip | in a mission or paused | Control-F |
| G | save the game | on the carrier, in a mission or paused | Control-G |
| L | load a saved game | in a mission or paused, not while the demo plays; or the rank selection's last item | Control-L |
| M | all sound off and on, the music and the effects | in a mission or paused | Control-S |
| R | restart, back to the rank selection | while paused, or in the briefing | Control-R |
| C | clear the high scores, without asking | while paused | Control-C |
R and C wait for the pause, since without Control a stray press could throw a campaign away. The game switches the sound back on before every rank selection.
The shell's keys¶
| Key | What it does | When it acts |
|---|---|---|
| H | the help screen | outside the line editor |
| any key but a lone modifier or one held with Control, Alt or Command | closes it; the very first only starts the sound, the screen going once the sound runs | while the help screen is up |
| F | fullscreen on and off | outside the line editor |
| Escape | leaves fullscreen and pauses, never continues | in the fullscreen F gives, not the browser's own |
The help screen, the shell's list of the player's keys, pauses a running mission until it closes. Leaving fullscreen in any way, or the page hidden for a second or more, pauses a mission; P continues.
The line editor¶
It takes the name for the high scores in the name entry, up to 16 characters, and a saved game's name, up to 28:
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| a letter, a digit, a sign | goes in at the caret, if there is room; Shift and Caps Lock give capitals |
| Enter, the keypad's too, or fire | accepts the line |
| cursor left, right | moves the caret; with Shift, to the start or the end |
| cursor up, down, or the stick | leaves the line; in the save dialog, to the slot above or below |
| Backspace, Delete | deletes before the caret, or under it |
The original's clear-line, right Amiga with X, has no key in the port.
The original's commands¶
These Amiga keys are not for the browser, which keeps Control with R, L and F: Control with R reloads the page, losing a game not saved (chapter 1). The game's manual lists them on its page 12, save and load also on page 11. Escape, and Control with R, F, G and L, work as it says; the manual and the program part on three (chapter 20):
| Key | The manual | The program |
|---|---|---|
| Control-D | shows the high scores | absent: nothing reads it; the port leaves it out |
| Control-C | clears them, only after Control-D | clears them at once, in a mission or paused |
| Control-S | not listed | switches all sound off and on |
For the developer
The key left of 1 opens and closes the shell's diagnostics overlay, and so does the key right of the left Shift, since Chrome and Safari on a Mac with an ISO keyboard swap the two keys' codes, Backquote and IntlBackslash; neither reaches the game, and the same key closes it. Behind the overlay the digits are development keys, which change the game's score and open its dialogs. 1 sets the score to 5,000, enough for the name entry. 2 and 3 open the save and the load dialog at the next rank chosen; 4 records the following games as the demo, or stops. 5 and 6 choose PAL and NTSC, and 7 steps the stereo width and remembers it.
Inside the core the key layer turns each command letter into the original's key (chapter 19). In the line editor every key but the diagnostics key is a character or an editing key, and a saved game's name gets wof. in front, : and / becoming spaces. The function keys and Help stay with the browser, for reload and the developer tools; no modifier is ever mapped, since with Control as fire and W as up, firing while climbing would close the tab. The places: src/portkeys.c, the key layer; web/input.js, the key map; web/main.js, the shell's keys; re/notes/keys.md, the original's commands.