This is a How to Play Guide for Autonauts. Feel free to expand upon it.
Basic gameplay[]
PC Controls[]
The PC edition uses a combination of mouse and keyboard buttons to play:
- WASD or
or Shift +
to pan the camera around.
- Shift +
to rotate the camera.
- Shift + R to reset camera rotation.
- Z can empty a bucket while held, and shouts "Go!". It's also used while programming to add a Shout script.
- Mousewheel zooms the camera in and out.
tells your Autonaut where to go and what to do. It's also used to picks things up and interact with structures.
drops or deposits items, and hands items to bots or colonists.
- Ctrl +
engages with vehicles, shows the upgrade menu for structures, and selects instructions while programming a bot; Ctrl + C copies selected instructions, Ctrl + R adds a repeat loop around selected instructions.
- Ctrl +
disengages from vehicles and puts clothing on bots or colonists.
- Ctrl + Z undoes the previous action in certain situations.
- Tab brings up the Autonautopedia, which contains Academy certificates, Research tasks, a list of items with recipes, and advice.
- Space blows your whistle so you can get the attention of bots. Click and drag
to select multiple bots as a temporary team.
- I brings up your clothing inventory; you can drag and drop objects between slots and even trade with your bots.
- , and . (< and >) cycle forwards and backwards through your inventory (to swap the item in your hands).
- Q stows held items (assuming there's space in your backpack) so you can use your empty hands for other tasks.
- / swaps the held item with one item from your backpack.
- E brings up Edit Mode, where you choose what to build.
deletes a blueprint; Del (fn-backspace on Mac) allows you to remove finished buildings from the map (they are stored rather than deleted).
- M brings up Move Mode, where you can select and move structures. Click and hold
to select multiple buildings; hold Ctrl to exclude floors from the selection.
- P brings up Planning Mode, where you can define areas for planning your base layout.
- Ctrl + P toggles the visibility of planning areas in other modes.
- R rotates building blueprints clockwise, so you can choose which way they face.
- U brings up the item spawning menu in Creative Mode.
- T brings up the Cheat menu when Cheat mode is enabled.
- C toggles free camera; Q or E to move up or down, Shift to move faster, ↑ or ↓ to increase or decrease movement speed.
- X re-centers the camera on the player; works in free camera mode too.
- Esc pauses the game and brings up the Pause Menu, where you can save and load progress.