The following is the complete list of commands you can use while in play. Note that all commands are case sensitive, and a ^ denotes a control key, e.g. ^a means control+a, which is different from ^A, which is control+A (control+shift+a, in other words.)
d Detonate enemy torps. All enemy torps within a certain range will explode. They do as little as a quarter of their normal damage at maximum det range. Detting is useful for protecting another ship, causing damage to other ships (if you can manage to det enemy torpedos fired by one enemy over another) or preventing torps from hitting you. Use it carefully, though: if there are many torps nearby and only one or two will actually hit you, it is better to let them hit than det, as one direct hit will do less damge than say, 5 detted torps, each at minimally 1/4 normal damage, probably more.
D Detonate your torps. It does not do damage to anyone. But it will enable you to fire again if you have 8 torps active (the maximum.) This is not a very good idea however as you will be wastring gobs of fuel firing and then detting useless torps.
f Fire plasma torpedo. You need at least 2 kills, and must be flying a BB/DD/CA to do this. Plasma torpedos are tracking, but they can be shot down fairly easily by phaser. They do a lot of damage but use a lot of fuel. Note also that when they are shot down they explode and ships that are too close can take damage.
p Fire phaser. The mouse cursor specifies direction.
s Toggle shields
[ Shields down
] Shields up
t Fire photon torpedo. The mouse cursor specifies direction.
u Toggle shields
T Toggle tractor beam. The mouse indicates the target. This pulls the target towards you but uses a lot of fuel and raises your engine temp. Since tractors are very useful and hitting shift-T is inconvenient, many players map lowercase t to this function (see the section on keymaps.)
y Toggle pressor beam. Same as tractor (see 'T') but pushes.
_ (underscore) Turn tractor beam on. Mouse indicates target. ^ Turn pressor beam on. Mouse indicates target.
$ Turn tractor or pressor beam off.
k Set course. The mouse cursor specifies direction.
l Lock onto object. The mouse cursor specifies what; it can be either a ship or a planet. A small triangle indicates the lock, and you will fly towards that object. If it is a planet or SB you will orbit / dock when you arrive.
; Like l but only locks onto planets and starbases (things you can orbit or dock at)
* Send in practice robot, if there's no one else playing. On many servers, this is also the key for starbase transwarp. Lock onto your SB, go no faster than warp 2, hit transwarp, and you will go warp 99 until you reach the SB (at which point you will dock), run out of fuel, or die. This is handy for reaching the front lines fast. Not all servers support this.
C Try to coup your home planet. This is a way to get back your home planet if you have no other planets. Only possible after a genocide without a server reset, then everyone leaves, losing T, and people join the team that lost again. You must have kills and be orbiting it.
o Enter orbit or dock. You must be going no faster than warp 2 and be on top of a planet or starbase.
x Beam armies down to planet (yours or enemy) or a starbase. You must be orbiting or docked to the planet or stabase in question.
z Beam armies up from friendly planet or starbase. Again, you must orbit or dock.
F Send armies carried report
m Start sending message. After hitting this key type the destination (0..9 and a..j = specific player, F/R/K/O = specific team, T = your team, A = all) and then the body of the message. Hit enter to send or escape to abort.
X Enter macro mode. After pressing the macro key, you can send the macros you have assigned to those keys. See the section on macros. You also have available all the standard distress calls. Both the distress format and key can be changed (see: RCD). See the sections on Macros and RCD for specifics, including what the default macros are.
i or I Get information on object near mouse. Uppercase shows different info than lowercase. You can use this to, for example, find out how many armies are on a planet, where a player is logged in from, how many kills they have, or whether a planet is agricultural.
N Toggle short/long planet Names display on tactical window.
r Refit. Use this to change your ship type. You must be orbiting your home planet (Earth for Fed, Romulus for Rom, Klingus for Kli, Orion for Ori) or your team's SB. After pressing r, press the key corresponding to the ship type you want (s=scout, d=destroyer, c=cruiser, b=battleship, a=assault, o=starbase/outpost)
R Enter repair mode. This sets you at warp 0, and turns off shields and cloaking. Damage is repaired faster than normal in this state, but you cannot fire. To exit repair mode, raise shields or start moving. The fastest way to repair yourself is to do this while orbiting a repair planet or docked on an SB. When you are in repair mode a little R will appear in your flags and you will not be able to fire or cloak.
w Change war declarations. This is important. Your weapons will not lock or explode on ships belonging to races which you are not at war with, and you will take damage if you orbit planets of hostile races. So, declare war with your enemy and peace with everyone else (so you can use their fuel and repair planets.) Note that if you change your war settings while an enemy is on the screen you will be unable to do anything for about ten seconds while "the computers get reprogrammed." The moral of this is: declare war before you go into battle. Note that you start out hostile to everyone, so if you forget before your first engagement it's not too critical.
q Quit, don't re-read MOTD ("fastquit").
Q Quit, exiting to MOTD screen. If you hit either of these in red alert,
a self destruct timer will start. This is so you can blow up over your
enemy. While the countdown is in progress, any input cancels it.
: Toggle message logging. Saves all messages to a file so you can laugh at them later.
- Request partial update (see the section on UDP and Short Packets)
= or | Request full update (see the section on UDP and Short Packets)
& Re-read the properties file
L Toggle player window between active players and people observing the game.
O Toggle options window. There are many neat things here. Experiment! This is a really useful command.
U Toggle rank window. Shows you what ratings you need for promotion.
V Cycle through tactical planet display options. Possible options are show nothing, show owner, or show resources.
~ Toggle sound control window <space> Turn off all special windows (planet, rank, help, udp, etc.)