Getting started in this game can be a bit tricky, since it is still very much so under development and not all controls may be advertised as clearly as one would expect. Also, some tutorial and on-screen hints may be off a bit as well.

Make sure to check the options screen, especially Controls and Video. I have found the Controls page to be somewhat enlightening, and since the game defaulted to 800x600 the first launch its probably best for most players to check that as well.

Starting a new game is as simple as clicking Game, followed by New.
This will show you a galactic map overlayed with tutorial text. Read it, as it gives some vital clues what the game is about and what you will need to do.

When you are done reading (or just want to skip it) press Escape and observe the galactic map.
Clicking the Right Mousebutton will switch between rotating the map and selection, revealing the cursor.

Click on a star system to observe its planets. (Currently) It is important that you remember the name of the star system you have selected, and the planet you will select next. Since anything you build will remain after you die you can easily return and continue work on your colony base. You can now either click a planet or press Escape to return to the galactic map.

Clicking a planet will reveal some information about it. What you'll want is to start on a Desert type planet, as it is the easiest to survive on. Click the planet again to start your descent.

When first you arrive on a planet you have nothing with you; Everything you need is in the capsule you landed with, in some ship parts around, and in the rocks and formations you see around you.

Approach the capsule with WASD (walk forward, left, back and right respectively). You can look around with the mouse. You can switch between looking and selecting / placing with the right mouse button (just like in the galactic map).
When you have the capsule selected, press F to interact with it. You can interact with most machines and equipment you find / build, but most of them will only return statistical data

Grab your mining laser and put it in one of the 9 bottom slots. These correspond to your numerical keys at the top of your keyboard and allow you to switch to the item in that slot (pretty basic FPS controls). Grab the rest as well, but put that in your backpack (if you have played with the mouse scroll wheel you will have noticed you are actually pretty naked...but you get the idea).

You will also notice some icons on the left. From top to bottom these indicate (slightly guessing here) Facility Statistics, Research, Help and Crafting, where Help is the same documentation you saw when creating a new game.

If you need more of an overview over the terrain, you can activate your jetpack with the C key. In addition to the WASD movement keys, the Q and E keys will now allow you to roll left and right, and the left CTRL key and Spacebar will allow you to descend and ascend. Turn the jetpack off with the C key again.

When closing this interface you can open it back up with the I key, which will show you your Inventory. From either the interaction or this inventory you can use the Crafting icon to craft numerous items, machines and other objects.

You will first want to create at least 2 Foundations (Foundation3 is a good symmetrical one), a Solar Generator (Supply - Electricity if you choose to use filters, they help A LOT), a Water Pump, an Oxygen Generator, an Oxygen Dispenser Air Duct, some electrical wires and water pipes. As you can create them from your inventory it is probably best to create the wires and pipes after you have placed the machines, so you know how many straight and curved you'll need.


In order to create these you will need more supplies than the ones you gathered from the pod, so use your Mining Laser by pressing the corresponding numeric key on the keyboard, aim at a rock formation and use the left mousebutton to fire away. Ores will peal off and you can collect them (or most of them, had some fight with physics earlier) by just walking over them.

Note that there are (currently) 3 different types of ore; Coal (black nuggets / veins), Copper (brown nuggets / veins) and Iron (grey nuggets / veins). Coal is mainly used as fuel for both the Coal Generator and the Steel Forge (used to create Steel). Copper is used in numerous objects, the most basic of which is wires. Iron is used in the more sturdy machines and the creation of Steel.

Now, most low tier machines, pipes and wires don't require ores to be refined (I found that out the hard way), so there is no need to waste resources on a Furnace just yet. It is a common starting point for most survival games, but not this one.

First you'll want to place some Foundations, which I assume you crafted at this point. This will make sure your machines are off the ground and nice and level in respect to eachother. You can actually build on most rock formations, but height differences can make that a bit tricky.

Put a few in a bottom slot and select that slot. Then press your right mouse button to switch to selection / place mode and click the ground.

After you have placed them you can get on top using your jetpack as described earlier (or Control Overview).

Be sure to deactivate your jetpack when you are where you want to be. I'm not sure if it uses fuel or not but it can be hard to move around with it constantly on. Better be safe than sorry. And if the developers decide to add this, at least you won't have to change your habits.

You can now place a Solar Generator on the platform. Next to it, on the sand instead of a platform, place a Water Pump. Hook up the 2 with an electrical wire. These are blocks, and as such you will have to create several of them, and probably a curved on or two as well. Also bear in mind that you can rotate the Water Pump so that its in-/outlets are at the same level as the platform. This will save you some more pipes / wires. You will want to create a series of linking wires between the fusebox of the Solar Generator to the wire with the yellow lightning icon on the Water Pump.

During placement, as well as afterwards, you can use R, T and Y (although I never had to use Y) to rotate an object to fit. This is important, especially the rotating after placement. This allows you to toggle one output or another if you don't have the Solar Generators to power all your machines at the same time for instance.

A short time after you have connected the two (and assuming it is still daytime) you will see the electrical icon at the center of the Water Pump disappear. It was there to tell you 'Hey, I need power!'. Now it should no longer.

You will now want to connect an Oxygen Generator to that Water Pump, and probably again on top of a platform. Connect the connector with the blue drops together with Water Pipes. An Oxygen Generator will also require power, and you can hook it up to the Solar Generator as well. Just place another wire where you want a junction and hook it up to the Oxygen Generator, again, the inlet with the yellow lightning bolt indicates a power connector.

If you are unsure about a connection, you can always switch to selection mode with the right mouse button and left click on a wire or pipe to check if its connected (infobox at the right edge of the screen), and machines that require something will tell you by a similar icon in the center of the machine (and give details when selecting them). They should inform you of a net it is connected to, the amount of resources put into the net by generators, the amount required at that moment, the amount in storage and the amount of surplus / deficit.

Say you have placed an object, and not only is its rotation correct, but its position is WAY off. Just switch to selection mode using the Right Mousebutton, select it and press Delete. This will put the object in your inventory so you can place it again.

Well, not quite, but creating and connecting a Food Generator is pretty* similar (and doesn't require oxygen at the moment, only the player does). After that you might want to look into Batteries, Water Tanks and other stuff that keep the base running even at night. Also noteworthy are the weapons, spacecraft, robotic arms and conveyors you can build to aid in your production and exploration of the galaxy, but I won't spoil any of your own exploration any more than I already have.

I am still very much in the process of understanding the game and how its mechanics function (not to mention this is the first guide I have ever written on Steam), but this should get you started somewhat.

If you find yourself without oxygen / food, I just learned you can use the G key when holding an oxygen tank / food crate in your hand to refill your bar.

Its a project very much under development and from what I've seen we have a lot to look forward to, so have fun and please do leave some comments.

* The Food Generator currently has no inlets for resources, but I found just have pipes/wires touching it to be sufficient for it to be concidered connected. Again, keep an eye on the icons in the center of that Generator and frequently check you pipes/wires to be sure.

I won't spoil too much regarding conveyors so your brainjuices have plenty of reasons to keep flowing, but there are some things that you should know:

• Ores and materials transported over conveyors have a tendancy to get snagged by terrain or other buildings. You will want to avoid a platform of sorts directly next to a conveyor slope or on the inside of a corner because of this.
  
• Putting a solid block as an endcap will work, but you will lose some resources, as some of them will be pushed inside the block if an arm can't remove them fast enough.
  
• Slopes / inclines generally work, but the objects move through them instead of over them. This can cause some problems as well.
  
• Never build at ground level. It looks a lot better, but ores in particular will have the tendancy to fall through the belt. It is good practice to mark the height with a Foundation, place the belt piece and remove the Foundation so you can re-use it.
  
• Belts have 2 lanes, a left and right. In order to get everything to a single lane you can use the robotic arms or use gravity as shown in the image (gravity differs per planet, ore may be thrown further on you world).
  
  
• Some machines require them to be built over belts or have belts run through them, like the Press.
  
• Some machines can influence the timing of objects moving over the belt. The foremention Press for example has 2 doors that open once every 30 seconds or so, letting objects (ingots in this case) enter the press chamber, closing the doors behind and in front, press them and open them again.
  
• A robot arm will pick up items from the side where the base is round and drop them behind them.
  
• You can use robot arms to pick up items from a belt and put them into a machine or storage container, with the round side of the base facing the belt.
  
• Inversely you can point the round side to a machine / storage container and have it pull out items.
  
• A belt is not always required in a production line; A robotic arm is perfectly content with pulling out of a storage container to feed a Furnace, or pull out of a Furnace and feed a Steel Forge for instance.
  
• A belt is the size of a Small Block, Wire, Pipe, Duct or 1/8th the size of a full Block or Foundation.
  
• A robotic arm comes in 3 sizes (at the moment). With the smallest picking up items directly next to it and putting them directly behind it. A 2 Lane arm can pick items from the 2nd lane on the belt if you want it to end up at the same side.

Movement:
W - Forward.
S - Backward.
A - Left (Strafe).
D - Right (Strafe).
Spacebar - Jump (note how the gravity differs per planet)

Jetpack:
C - Toggle jetpack on / off.
Left CTRL - Descend.
Spacebar - Ascend.
Q - Roll left.
E - Roll right.

Interaction:
G - Use consumables on yourself (oxygen tanks, food, etc.) to refill bars.
F - Interact with an object in the world.
I - Open inventory, Structure information, Research, Help and Crafting.
Left Mousebutton - Fire Mining Laser, select / place object.
Right Mousebutton - Toggle between mouselook and interaction (or rotation in the galactic map).
1 - 9 - Items slots you can drag objects from your inventory in for use in the world.
R - Rotate an object either while placing or after it was placed on the X axis (horizontally).
T - Rotate an object either while placing or after it was placed on the Y axis.
Y - Rotate an object either while...ow you get the idea...on the Z axis.
Escape - Close menu's, reset selection, zoom out in space, open game menu.
Delete - Return selected world object to inventory.

Camera:
Z - Switch between 3rd and 1st person perspectives.

Electrical wires can cross other wires and form junctions. So can water pipes and air ducts.

You can save resources otherwise spent on Foundations by constructing on top of your escape pod or ore deposits.

Meteors can drop and provide you with more resources to mine. They may destroy your base one building at a time, but defense systems can be used to shoot them out of the sky.


Cargo pods can sometimes be found and can contain all sorts of goodies. You can't pick them up and place them as though they were storage containers though.

Unlike the Oxygen Dispenser (Air Duct), where you can just stand next to it while it is operational, you will have to interact with the Food Generator to retrieve crates of food, and consume them using your hotbar and the G key.

Power hungry machines eat power even though they aren't doing anything. Try rotating the wire that feeds the Furnace when not using it.

3 Solar Generators can provide for 2 Batteries, 1 Water Pump, 1 Oxygen Generator and 1 Food Generator both day and night. Add an Oxygen Dispenser Air Duct to recharge your own oxygen supply and you can survive indefinately.

Upon request: You cannot chain batteries; You will need to connect them parallel, where each individually connect to the power source as well as the main line. If I were to remove the straight wires that passes each battery and leave the curved ones in, the system would choke since batteries cannot charge batteries. The same goes for water pipes / tanks and air ducts / tanks.

If the duration of the night is bugging you (has already been greatly reduced), try Windowed mode or Alt+Tab; The game can run in the background, and at the moment it does take a while before you run out of oxygen / food (and even then there is a health bar that takes a long time to go down after that).

Although a lamp costs 2 bars of iron and their emission is (currently) quite limited, they do not require power to operate. Neither do doors for that matter.

Food crates can stack over a 1000 if you keep them in the Food Generator. The same applies to any machine / structure with an inventory.

You can (currently) access the inventory of distant objects by selecting them and pressing F.

You start off with a limited amount of portable oxygen tanks. These cannot be reproduced or refilled at the moment (although you may be able to find some in crashed storage containers).

When placing a Robotic Arm, it looks for items to pick up (or out of a machines inventory) at the rounded side of the base.

A standard Robotic Arm can only reach for the nearest lane on a Conveyor.