Location

A loc, or location is a simplified set of raw coordinates that can be used to communicate the location of an NPC, base, mission objective, etc.

To retrieve your current location coordinates, type  and your current coordinates will be displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

The coordinates are displayed as (west-east, up-down, north-south) in the game.

Many people without experience in 3D graphics associate (x,y) as (west-east, north-south) and thus z as up-down. Using these names the display is (x,z,y). As of writing, this is the system used on this wiki.

To make sense of the order, one needs to know that the usual coordinates used in 3D graphics have (x,y) as (left-right, up-down) -- much like the view of someone looking straight ahead -- and z as the distance "into" this viewport. With this terminology, the display is the expected (x,y,z).

In-game map
Coordinates are also displayed on the in-game map (default key: M) as (x,y). Altitude is not specified. As a result, some coordinates may only have two numbers, in which case the coordinates were likely taken from the map rather than using the  command. These in-game map coordinates are sometimes a bit unaligned with the  coordinates, so some searching may be required.