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.
