If you hit the accelerator right as the race countdown finishes, you will get a burst of acceleration to start the race. This can be a valuable early leg up!


This green bar around the speedometer shows how much boost charge you currently have. While holding the boost button you spend charge to go faster. Boost is best spent on straights in order to keep the added momentum as much as possible, and is stronger when used in combination with a speedpad.



Driving over a speedpad gives your car a temporary speed boost, so hitting these will significantly improve your lap times. They usually have quite generous hitboxes, so skimming past them will still award the speed boost.

Handbrake can be used to set your car sliding around corners, making it handle rough terrain better and in some cases improve your line. The handbrake can also be used to stop in a straight line faster than using the brake/reverse. The video below shows how the handbrake can be used to tighten a turn - first without handbrake, then with.

Hold down the launch button to charge up a jump. The longer you charge the higher you can jump (up to a cap). You must be fully in contact with the ground when releasing the button to launch successfully.
Useful for jumping over obstacles or across platforms as well as evading some weapons. On some tracks, the fastest path requires the use of launch.

Grip has a reset function, by default bound to R(keyboard)/Select(Controller). This function teleports your car to the track with a speed around 250kph. This is a very good mechanic to learn to use fast as it can help you quickly get back into the race. You can reset at any time, meaning you can use it to save yourself even before you actually crash.

If you release the accelerator while airborne, you will enable air control. You can use the left stick (controller) to pitch and roll the car to give yourself a smoother, straighter landing. Unfortunately, keyboard users can only roll using their left/right keybinds (default A/D) and are unable to pitch.

These functions are used regularly in gameplay, and are useful to have bound to convenient buttons:

Certain settings change how the game feels significantly, and depending on preference you may want to turn them on/off. Here are some particularly impactful ones:

Forward-Facing Crash Camera
This setting when activated will attempt to point the camera in the direction of the track at all times. While this may be useful for telling you where you're supposed to go, it can be very disorienting to have the camera change its angle by itself. Disable this if you find camera behaviour in crashes to be confusing.

Instantaneous Look Back/Side
When enabled, this will cause the camera to immediately snap to the direction you want to look in, instead of rotating from its current position. This makes looking around much more responsive, but could be disorienting.

HUD Damage Effects
This setting only has an effect in races with destruction enabled. It will cause your HUD to distort and flicker more and more as your damage increases. While this is very immersive, it can be distracting and can obscure important information.

As a combat racer Grip contains several different weapons that can be used for different effects.



Driving over one of these in a race gives you a random uncharged pickup.



The diamond shaped indicator shows you what weapon slot have locked onto an opponent's car. If it displays |, the weapon in the left slot is locked on. If it displays ||, the weapon in the right slot is locked on. If it displays |||, both weapon slots are locked on.

When fired, locked weapons will try to track the targeted car. It is not needed to wait for the green icon - as soon as the white icon appears your weapon is locked on.

Weapons have two states: the base version of the pickup, and a charged version of the pickup. A weapon can be charged by having two pickups in your “inventory” and then holding down the button corresponding to the weapon you want to charge. A sound effect will play when charging begins to happen and a red circle will be seen going both directions around the pickup icons, at this point it is safe to release the button and the weapon will finish charging automatically at which point the other will be consumed.

Your speed will drop while you charge a pickup, so try to do your charging in corners or when you think you’re safe.

In the campaign, charged weapons are unavailable until tier 7. Charging is always available in online and quick races.

Painkiller:


Shield that mitigates damage from behind.
Charged: Full immunity to damage from all directions during its duration.

Scorpion:


Launches a homing missile at the locked target that explodes on contact and deals damage, blocked by shield. This weapon will not track if it is fired without a lock and will explode when it hits terrain so be careful!

Charged: Launches two missiles consecutively instead of one. Can lock onto different opponents if you have more than one in range.

Spearhead:


Fires 3 short range missiles that stick to the target car and explode after a delay, flipping the car over. Blocked by shields. Beware of the recoil that lifts your front when you fire this weapon.

Charged: Adds an EMP effect that disables the player’s engine and weapons for a short time. Can be blocked by charged shield.

Assassin:


Fires a homing missile at the person in the first place. Blocked by shields.

Charged: Adds an EMP effect if it hits a car, that disables anyone within a large radius for 4 seconds. Damage is blocked by shield but the EMP effect ignores shield and turns it off.

Firestorm:


Speed =D
Charged: TOO MUCH SPEED =D (Warning: may kill you.)
Make sure to fire that one on straight lines - and beware of the charged version who severely handicaps your handling. Firestorm is the only pickup that does not induce any speed loss while charging.

Hydra:


Fires a bunch of small missiles that follows the ground or a locked target. Deals damage and spins out the hit target. It’s possible for a hydra swarm to lock on to a target while it travels if fired without having a lock. Shields can block some of the missiles but will be overwhelmed if more than a couple hit.

Charged: Travels faster, can split up and track multiple targets, causes a screen flickering effect. Ignores uncharged shields.

Ramraider:



Fires a beam along the ground and launches anyone it hits into the air. Not blocked by shields.

Charged: Gives you a speed boost and pushes other racers away from you. Not blocked by shields.

Disruptor:


Slows down everyone in front, the further ahead the more they get slowed down. Distorts the screen while active.

Charged: Functions the same as the uncharged disruptor, but also teleports the user some distance forwards before ending the effect.

Raptor:


Minigun weapon that auto-targets in a cone in front of your car that deals damage and can cause someone to spin out of control if they are hit enough. Shield blocks most of the damage.

Charged: Fire rate is increased and bullets have a very strong impact which easily causes spins. Shield blocks a small portion of the damage.

Rollers are recommended over Airblades for new players because they are overall easier to drive in a racing environment.

Roller:
Cars with wheels.
+ Good at recovering from crashes or getting shot
+ Should not climb over barriers if you collide with them and can use them for safety.
- Can lose control on uneven surfaces

Airblades:
Hover Cars.
+ Ignores uneven terrain surfaces.
- Cannot deal with hits from some weapons.
- Long duration control lockout after crashes or hits.
- Will float over the barriers of certain tracks.

Recommended cars for new players:
The following cars are recommended in particular order because of their early access and that they are relatively easy to drive.

Extremely stable and forgiving handling. Immediately available.


Great acceleration and fair grip but a little unstable. Immediately available.


Very fast and not too difficult to drive. Immediately available.


A good all-rounder with solid acceleration. Immediately available.


Very stable with excellent grip, good at handling combat fire. Unlocks at lvl 3.


Stable and very competitive car with high acceleration and grip. Unlocks at lvl 5.

If you're interested in learning more here are some links for more information that I can recommend.
Mostly's guide: https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1264704389
Ryuu's information document, containing a lot of random information including things like, acceleration stats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jz039JrAuTzkhSm7BUqyU4k920Tt67D7tetAeTNHex4/edit?usp=sharing
This youtube video goes through all of the pickups with more in-depth https://youtu.be/ivKnypUm8e0
This youtube series shows of most of the tracks and the paths you can take on them: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCPi10ZAJSC6Uxhieyddkuy4XvTsJ9DTB

Thanks for reading