Your aiming cursor will turn green when you can fire your currently selected secondary weapon.

Holding Pen

When you first enter a map, or when you die, you wind up waiting inside this holding area for a short period of time before you can enter the game. If your ship doesn't automatically enter when the time period is up, just move a little bit, and you'll be in.

Aiming Cursor

The aiming cursor will change form depending on what secondary weapon you have selected. Yellow dots to the right of the cursor indicate how many rounds you have left for that weapon, just as green lights do beside the weapon indicators on the sidebar. The weapon indicators also have a small, green bar at the bottom, to show you how much time is remaining before another round of that weapon is added to your inventory.

The Radar

The green dot in the middle is you. The purple brackets show you how much of the map is currently visible on your screen. The colored dots, of course, correspond to players in the game. The two upside-down Ts are flag holders. The line across the bottom shows which team the flag post belongs to. The vertical line shows which color of flag is supposed to be placed there. If one of the players on the radar is flashing, that player is carrying a flag. The flash color will vary depending on the color of the flag being carried.

Power-ups and charging stations

Power-ups will randomly appear in the maze; simply drive your saucer over them to pick them up. The ball icon gives you a bouncy-laser round; the cluster of rockets, a rocket; and the bomb, a grenade. The fourth power-up, the wrench, will heal some of the damage you've sustained, if any.

Charging stations are cross-shaped areas of concentric lights that pulse from outside to inside. Park your saucer in the center of a station to build up your weapons at a faster rate.

Game Controls

• Arrow keys — movement
• Mouse — aim target
• Left mouse button — fire primary weapon *
• Right mouse button — fire secondary weapon *
• Ctrl — toggle through secondary weapons **
• Tab — drop flag
• F1 — shows/hides list of players and scores
• F2 — instructions
• F3 — options
• F4 — switch teams
• F5 — activates radar
• F6 — activates CD controls (in radar)
• F7 — activates player list (in radar)
• F8 — brings up menu (in radar)
• F9 — selects and activates lasers
• F10 — selects and activates missiles
• F11 — selects and activates mortars
• F12 — selects and activates bouncies
• Esc / Alt+F4 — quits game

  * Only in "Newbie Controls" (see below).

  ** IntelliMouse users can also use the wheel. (Some of these commands are also selectable from the sidebar on the game screen itself. More information on that below.)

Whether the right mouse button fires or activates the secondary weapon depends on how your options are set in the configuration menu. "Newbie Controls" is the default, and is actually preferred by most players, new or experienced. This mode makes your right mouse button actually fire the secondary weapon. If you have "Classic" controls set, the right button will toggle between the primary (laser) and secondary weapon. You can then fire whichever weapon is selected by pressing the left mouse button.

Communication

To send a public message that everyone on the map will see, just type your message and hit ENTER. To send a private message to your team, start your message with a semicolon (;).

Strategie

Stay close to obstacles
Always stay near an obstacle of some sort; never venture out in to the open unless you've taken a good look at your radar. If for some reason you have to wander out into no-man's-land, look for the nearest obstacle and make a run for it. Always keep near some kind of obstacle when you're fighting. At the same time, stay away from long, narrow tunnels and corners; always keep your options for escape as open as possible.

Move, move, move
ALWAYS keep moving. If you aren't constantly applying pressure to one of the arrow keys, you're doing something wrong. Whenever possible, try not to take your shots from the same place twice, unless you are in a bunker or covering some important defensive position. Always keep as many obstacles as possible between you and the enemy. When approaching an enemy in the open, keep shifting from side to side — never come straight at them.

Guerrilla warfare
Hit and run! Some people might consider this lame, but it's really the way to go. Let your enemy come to you — but don't just sit there and wait; move around and try to lure them in. Squeeze off a few shots to get their attention, then duck behind the nearest available wall and wait for them to pursue. When they do, nail them again and repeat the process until they're dead. Not all players will go for this tactic right away; some may need a little more provocation, but remember, impatience is the #1 killer in ARC.

Some players will just refuse to chase you at all; in which case, you'll have to do the initiating. As stated above, keep moving, and try not to attack from the same place twice. Be careful: if your enemy just holes up and waits for you, they're probably waiting for their grenades or bounce bullets to recharge.

Peek-a-boo!
There's nothing worse than jumping out to clobber your enemy, only to find that they had their crosshairs sitting right in your path the whole time. The key here is to jump out REALLY quick and jump back before they can hit you; don't even bother firing at them. If you play it right, they'll probably waste some of their secondary weapons and give you the opportunity to jump out and do some damage before their guns recharge. This also works well with mortars. If there is a big wall between you and your enemy, sneak out and make yourself look like a tempting target, but at the same time, keep an obstacle nearby so you can take cover. A good indication that someone is lining up a mortar shot is when they get right up against the wall and just sit there for a few seconds.

Drop it!
The reasons for dropping a flag should be obvious: you're much more mobile when you're not carrying one. Don't wait till the last second. If you see trouble coming, and you don't have sufficient backup, get rid of that thing and deal with it. A good strategy here is to drop the flag and give the enemy the opportunity to pick it up (an opportunity that is just too "good" for most players to pass up). Flags are great weapons in this regard, as they make superb bait for traps. At the same time, if you are pursuing a flag carrier and they drop it, don't grab the flag right away. Make sure you get rid of your enemy first, or they'll do the same thing to you.

Retreat
Move and retreat as necessary to keep your enemies on one side of you. Naturally, you don't want to get yourself surrounded. Take a look at your radar at every opportunity to make sure no one is trying to sneak up behind you. If you do get surrounded, look for the weakest point in their defenses and make a run for it. Look for a smoking enemy ship, or a teammate that can aid you.

Beating "the box"
Those one-way walls are known as "the box." Don't get in front of one when there is an enemy sitting in it. Just don't do it! Try to get to the side and use your bounce bullets, or better yet, grenades. Don't try to drop grenades right on top of the enemy; aim for a point in the box just behind them. Many players panic when they see a grenade coming, and run out of the box, assuming that the grenade is coming straight at them. If you put it behind them, they will often run right into it.

Lag, lag, lag
It's sad to have to include something like this in a strategy guide, but this is the Internet, and we're stuck with it. LEAD YOUR TARGET. Ping can produce up to a one-and-a-half-second delay, sometimes more, between what you see on your screen and what your target sees on theirs. Don't aim for the leading edge of the ship, either; aim so far ahead that your bullets don't even appear to hit! Use half a ship width when you're up close and one-and-a-half ship widths when they're near the edge of your screen. Obviously, this is not an exact science, so you will want to fire your bullets in a "spread," maximizing your chances, since you really don't know where they are for sure. This, of course, does not apply to stationary targets, and when you come up on one that's moving from side to side … well, just fan out your fire and hope for the best. That's all you can do. The best way to hit someone with high ping is put your ship either directly in their path or directly behind it, so that they are not moving perpendicular to your fire. Yet even then, there is still the packet-loss issue, where many of the data packets containing your shots never survive the long voyage across the Internet to reach your opponent's machine in the first place. Never, ever assume that you have hurt your enemy. Players often jump out at an enemy, thinking that they really nailed them with that last volley, when in fact they completely missed, doing no damage at all. They are then sitting ducks for a counterattack. Always fight like you are in grave danger of losing the battle, no matter what it looks like.

AAAHHH! They're gonna grab our flag!
If you're outgunned, don't be in a big hurry to try taking them all out before they get your flag. A good strategy here is to simply get out of the way and LET them take it. Then you box them in. Wait outside your base and keep them pinned down until help arrives. You have the advantage here, as you have plenty of room to maneuver and the enemy is stuck inside your cramped little base. Sooner or later, your teammates will make an effort to help you, or dead teammates will respawn in or near the base and be obliged to help. The enemy will be in a hurry to get out before that happens and are thus more prone to making mistakes. Using this strategy, it's possible to take on a larger enemy force while taking virtually no damage.