Here I will break the standard core-exiles page layout down into a way that is more easily understandable. This is not the page layout for every single page in the game, but it is for 95% of the pages. Understanding this will make it allot easier to understand where you need to navigate to in order to read the information you are looking for.
The three sections are quite simple, mainly the header, footer and body.
Download file as mp3
Note: This audio guide doesn't cover place markers, labeling buttons and labeling links like the text guide does.
The header/top section
This section is everything from the very top of the page where it says core-exiles down to the last tab which is the "Assets Tab".
This section will not change, it will be on nearly every page in the game. The values of your ship stats will clearly change depending on what you are doing, but the layout of this section won't change. You will see it at the top almost no matter where you are in game.
This section gives you allot of information about your ship along with the four tabs which hold lots of different links and navigation sections to retrieve information and complete tasks. Starting from the top you will notice a few different things
The Very Top Of The Page (header)
this section will simply say "core-exiles".
In most browsers this will also read automatically on every page reload, this is not the case for Internet explorer no add-ons however.
Current Location and Status (header)
This will show you the current location and status of your ship.
example: " Current - Location: Nebula LB1 • Current System: Kinbnal • Faction: Contested • Law Level: 6 Status: Undocked".
Location means the planet you are either orbiting or docked at, in this case I am orbiting a nebula.
System is the solar system you are located in, in this example I am in the Kinbnal solar system.
The faction is the group that is the main presence in the solar system, it could be gal-fed, alliance, con-fed, pirate, or contested.
The law level is the determining factor of ship difficulty for the planet, the higher the law level the easier the ships are to kill. It ranges from 12 being the easiest to 1 which is the most difficult.
status is just simply telling you whether you are docked or undocked, if docked you see the promenade of the place you are docked, if you are orbiting you see the solar system with all the different planets.
Captain Name, Ship Name, Location Graphic, (header)
Example: Holiday : Wiener schnitzel II : Picture of Location.
This simply says your captain's name, the name of your ship, then a graphic of your current location.
My name is holiday, and my ship name is Wiener schnitzel II.
Your Ship's Stats Bar, (header)
This is a row of graphics with numbers following them for each of your ship stats. For most of the numbers it will show a current value followed by the current maximum value.
The stats that are listed: Shields, Armour, Hull, Energy, Cargo, Credits, Fuel.
Though the values for each of these will change, the graphics and the bar will nearly always be on every screen.
Experience bar and Level, (header)
This will simply tell you your current XP, the XP needed for your next level, your current level, and if you have blind/VI mode enabled.
Example: Current XP: 9,547,852 | XP Next Level: 11,673,566 | Captain Level 153 - Blind VI Mode Active.
The four Tabs
These are at the end of the footer/top section.
The four tabs are, System tab, Account tab, Mission tab, Assets Tab.
When you click on one it will open up links under it which you can then click on to go to a different page.
There is a complete section dedicated to the four tabs.
Page dedicated completely to the four tabs.
There is allot of information in the tabs as a whole, and it is important to get familiar with them and what is contained in each one.
The Footer / Bottom Section
This section starts at the graphic for your mailbox and ends at the bottom of the page.
This section will not change, it will be on nearly every page in the game.
This section has the big bottom Navigation bar which contains allot of different load out options, along with viewing your equipment. It also contains your mailbox and shows the current game time (gt).
Your Mailbox and Game Time
This is the start of the footer/bottom section.
example: "Link Graphic Mailbox 0 GT: Jan 18th 10:09 pm".
Bottom Nav Bar, (footer)
Here you will find a bunch of labeled graphical links which take you to different pages for equipping and viewing different things.
example: "Submit Bug Report , Help, Chat, Player Bio, Header News, Captains Log, Skills, Ship Store, Ship Loadout, Personal Loadout, Specials, Pods, NotePad, Announcements, Implants, Finder, Galaxy Map, Vote for Core Exiles.
Some of these pages will be covered in the screen reader section, others will be covered in the getting started section.
The Body/Middle Section
This section is everything after the Assets Tab and before the Mailbox graphical link.
This section changes depending on what you are doing in game and what page you are on. The top and bottom sections stay the same, it is this section that changes. It is impossible to list all of the different pages in a paragraph here, so I won't try. There is in depth descriptions on some of the specific pages in the screen reader section.
The important thing to point out is some things I have learned through my time playing to make navigation quicker. Some tips and tricks one might call them, this will not make you any better at the game, but it will allow you to navigate to sections much faster.
Navigational Tips and Tricks
These are just common sense to me, but others have not had the same approach when picking up the game, so I'm just laying them out.
Virtual find, (nav tips)
With jaws this is just accessed by the keys control + F.
You can use this to jump to any section of the page very fast.
to get to your ship store, simply search "p s".
to get to your personal loadout simply search "l l".
If you think about it this way you can jump to a specific link you need without arrowing down through a list of graphics or links. This makes life much easier.
Some of the common ones I use are:
System Tab: search "m t"
Account Tab: search "acc"
Mission Tab: search "miss".
Assets Tab: search "ass".
Player Bio: search "bio".
Captain's log: search "log".
Ship loadout: search "p l".
For any 2 word graphical link I nearly always search for the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word.
Quickly Getting To The Mailbox, (nav tips)
You can do this most the time with a simple control home to jump to the top of the page, then b to first button followed by V for the first visited link.
It turns out on nearly all core exiles pages this will bring you to the mailbox visited link, assuming it is a visited link that is. Mine nearly always is however so it works for me.
Using Place markers With Jaws, (nav tips)
This is something I have recently started using, and since I have started it has made my navigation much quicker.
There are a few steps to setting this up however, so I'll do my best to lay them out.
when in your browser hit insert f2 and go to Navigation Quick Keys .
Now find the entry for regions and change it to nothing, so there is no quick key for it.
Find the option for Radio Buttons and change it to R instead of A.
Next go to your Place Marker quick key and change that to A.
click Okay or save or whatever and close it.
Now you can set place markers using the shortcut control + shift + K on a link or graphic you want to have as a place marker, and after it is set you can use A as your quick nav key to jump to it. The reason A works better than K is so you can keep your left hand on the home row, and your right hand can be used for arrows, modifier keys, and home and end.
Re-Labeling Buttons and graphical Links, (nav tips)
This won't help you much with navigation, but it can make the game easier by labeling some things that aren't well labeled. Most everything in the game is labeled perfectly, but a few things are labeled as the graphic they are. You will notice this with a navmove button, and the buttons when in orbit for stars.
If you are undocked you will notice there are some buttons at the bottom of the page that are called something like navmove.png. These buttons simply place you in orbit of the planet which is read in text below them. I'll walk you through how to re-label them to say orbit instead of the default navmove.
Go to one of the buttons and place your curser on it, as if you were going to click on it.
now press insert + f2 and go to custom label.
it will ask you for a name for the item, type in "Orbit".
Hit OK and you are all done.
You can do this with anything you want to relabel, for graphics you can use the custom graphic label which is accessed by pressing insert + G when on the graphic you want to custom label.