Vector X

Vector X is a top-down space dogfighter where nothing stops on its own. Thrust, drift, turn, burn. Your interceptor keeps every bit of momentum, so you fly by planning ahead. Brush stone gently and you glance off; hit it above 400 km/s and your hull shatters.

It's built in the spirit of the classic Unix game XPilot, rebuilt for the browser. No download, no account. Fly solo against the bots or bring your friends online. It works on phones and tablets with touch controls, and with an Xbox controller too.

Play online

Open Play online and host a room. You get a 4-letter code and an invite link to send around. Up to 4 pilots fly in one room, and bots fill the empty seats. In the team modes your friends can fly on your side or against you.

• Join a game. Hosts can list their room publicly. Open rooms show the host, mode, map, free seats and time left in the match. One tap and you're in, even mid-match.
• Chat. Press Tab to talk during a match. Type /help for commands like /players, /me and /mute. Hosts can /kick and /ban.
• Drop-outs. If someone's connection drops, a bot takes over their ship so the teams stay even.

The host's device runs the match, so keep the tab open on screen while you host. Online matches don't count toward the leaderboards.

Four ways to play

• Deathmatch. Every pilot for themselves. First to 15 kills.
• Team deathmatch. Vanguard against Corsairs, no friendly fire. First team to 30.
• Treasure. You, plus any friends, against every bot. Tether the glowing spheres out of their turret-guarded vaults and tow them home.
• Team treasure. Squad against squad. Raid their base, steal spheres back, hold all five.

Four arenas

• Stone sector. A fresh random layout every match.
• Asteroid belt. A dense band of rock and tight corridors.
• Singularity. A black hole in the center bends your ships and your shots.
• Fortress. A walled keep with four doors and heavy turrets inside.

Your ship

Twin pulse blasters, homing missiles, proximity mines, a cloaking device, an ECM shockwave that knocks missiles out of the sky, a tractor beam, and an emergency hyperspace warp. Fuel runs low, so coast into a depot's ring to refuel.

Overdrive. Every so often a pink Overdrive core appears on the map. Grab it and the view drops into your cockpit: first person, wide angle, neon everywhere. For 30 seconds nothing can hurt you. Same controls, so go ram something.

Cockpit view. Press V, or tap the eye button, to fly from inside the cockpit any time you like. It's calmer than Overdrive and it doesn't make you invincible.

Bots come in Easy, Normal and Hard. Hard bots lead their shots and finish off anyone who's hurt.

Controls

Every key can be changed from Controls on the main menu or the pause menu. One click puts all your weapons on the number keys 1 to 6. These are the defaults:

W / ↑	Thrust
A D / ← →	Steer (a tap nudges, holding turns faster)
S / ↓	Brake
Shift	Afterburner
Space	Fire
M or F	Homing missile
X	Drop a mine
C	Cloak
E	ECM shockwave
T	Tractor beam (hold), tether a sphere (tap)
H	Hyperspace warp
V	Cockpit view on or off
Tab	Chat (online matches)
P	Pause
N	Sound on or off

Xbox controller: left stick turns, RT thrust, LT brake, RB afterburner, A fire, B missile, X mine, Y tractor, LB cloak, D-pad up ECM, D-pad down warp, View for the cockpit, Menu to pause. It rumbles when you're hit, in browsers that support it. Press any button once so the browser picks it up.

On touch screens, drag on the left half to steer and thrust, and use the buttons on the right.

Also playable at vectorx.freshfx.co.