The Ultimate Beginner Setup Guide

[Titan]

If it's your first time playing, the game can seem more daunting than it actually is. The goal here is to make it easier for the complete beginner to leave the comforts of the Local Game and make their way into the Online Multiplayer realm, where there's hours of fun waiting for them.

Summary:

1. Set 3 keys for turning left and 3 keys for turning right.
   
2. Set keys for glancing left / right / back.
   
3. Set Initial Camera: Custom
   
4. Lower the resolution if you have to.
   
5. Check out the Global Key Config.
   
6. Play the game!

So here's all the settings I recommend changing:

Player Setup
The only sub-menu you need to worry about here is Player 1 Settings. After changing your name and colour to something you like, first go into Input Configuration and assign 3 keys that are close to each other to Turn left and, similarly, 3 keys to Turn right. To find what keys will work best for you, just close your eyes and rest your hands comfortably on the keyboard. You'll use your first 3 fingers for turning and your pinky for glancing (turning the camera left/right).

Once you have your turning keys set up (let's pretend you chose SDF for left and HJK for right,) you'll want to set Brake to spacebar and the less important Toggle Brake to somewhere nearby (like V). Assign Toggle Spectator to some far-off key you won't press by accident.

Now hit escape to go back in the menu and enter Camera Input Configuration. I'll make this step very simple: unbind everything (using backspace once on each item) and focus on these three: Glance left, Glance right and Glance back. Set glance left and right to the keys where your pinkies are resting naturally (using my previous example that'd be A and L) and set Glance back to somewhere easy to reach in the middle (e.g. G). Before you leave, set Switch view to the key you want to switch cameras with (e.g. C). To be clear, everything that says Look, Zoom, or Move should be Unbound.

Go back in the menu again and enter Camera Setup. Change Initial camera to Custom. No need to touch anything else for now.

System Setup

I strongly recommend playing in fullscreen for the best performance. In the Display Settings > Screen Mode menu, you might want to lower your Screen Resolution if you have a 4K monitor. That way you'll get crisper gameplay and the graphics won't take too much of a hit anyway. I keep my resolution pretty low, you'll have to find your own sweet spot. If your PC is a beast you might not even need to lower it.

Ignore the rest for now and head on over to Preferences. I have everything except Show FPS turned off here. Mix and match, you'll soon find out which ones you don't need. Continue into HUD Options and note that you can turn on an in-game clock display if you want to.

Misc Stuff
This is a well-hidden* part of the menus, but has some useful stuff in it.
For example in Global Keyboard Configuration I like to set Scroll down/up to my down/up arrow keys as they're easier to reach in the middle of a round.
You can also change your in-game screenshot key and Toggle Fullscreen to somewhere safe. Make sure that Console input hasn't been accidentally unbound; you'll need this key for further in-game customization!

*They're "hidden away" over here simply because they're not specific to Player 1-4 settings, but as the name suggests, global.

Console Settings
This is not a menu item. You can access these settings while in-game (both Local and Online) by pressing your Console input key, and here are a few useful ones to know about:

Zone_alpha 0.5 (values between 0-1 determine how see-through the zones are.)
Zone_height 2.5 (Depending on what server you're playing in, you'll want zones to be more or less visible. In Capture The Flag or Racing servers you want to see them easily, while in Sumo or Fortress you might want them to be less intrusive. Lightcycles and their walls are 1 high.)
Predict_objects 1 (This is a matter of taste. Most players prefer it to be turned off, while some play better with it turned on. It puts enemy llightcycles at the front of their lag-o-meters, which means the game predicts their position assuming they don't turn. It can make the game more intuitive at the cost of making it look a bit jumpy.)

Assuming you're using the custom camera, you can customize it using camera_custom_back, camera_custom_rise, camera_custom_pitch, camera_custom_turn_speed and more. If you're going to experiment, take note of the default values before you change them all!

Alright then! There are plenty more ways to streamline the game's performance and if you do fall in love with this game, as many have before you, you'll end up getting acquainted with the parts of the menus that we skipped here soon enough. If you're getting stuck, there are usually players you can ask for help in-game and there's tons of information available on the wiki and forums.

On top of all this, you can even customise the graphics as much as you want, but that's a completely different tutorial.

I hope you'll find this useful,
I'll see you on the grid!

[girl hell]

great guide!

[qume]

how about shif+esc for quick boost ?

[schplorf]

you should post this on the "guides" section of this games steam hub