Autonauts

Friday the 13th of October 2017

Latest weekly update (Version 16) now available!

Who or what are the Autonauts?

The 'Automationauts' (to give them their fuller, grander, longerwindeder title) travel the universe with the sole goal of setting worlds in motion through the power of automation.

They harness whatever natural resources are available; they learn fast and can eventually make pretty much anything from anything. But their most important creations are workerbots, which can be made from the crudest of materials and taught to do anything an Autonaut can do so they can get on with helping species evolve.

+ + + AUTOWORK IN AUTOPROGRESS + + +

This pre-pre-pre-Alpha release is lacking refinement and presentation - and it can take some getting into - but under the rough edges there's a great example of what we're doing and where we're going.

How to Play

Use a combination of mouse and keyboard.

• WASD or SHIFT+RMB or Middle Mouse button to pan the camera around.

• Mousewheel zooms the camera in and out.

• LMB tells your Autonaut where to go and what to do.

• LMB also picks things up and makes things happen.

• RMB drops things.

• Z can be used for some things like instruments and signs.

• Space blows your whistle so you can get the attention of workerbots.
  I brings up your inventory: what's in your hands and your backpack; you can drag and drop objects between slots - and even trade with your workerbots. Holding Left Shift and clicking an object will automatically swap between hands /inventory or player/bot.

• , and . (< and >) cycle forwards and backwards through your inventory (to swap the item in your hands).

• / or Q stows the held item (assuming there's space in your inventory) so you can use your empty hands for other tasks.

• H brings up the 'Hot Bar' so you can quickly swap items between your hands and your Inventory.

• E brings up the Edit Menu, which is where you choose what to build; note that some things can only be built on flooring.

• R rotates building blueprints clockwise, so you can choose which way they face.

• RMB deletes a blueprint; DEL (fn-backspace on Mac) allows you to delete buildings once built (but only while in Edit Mode).

• Esc pauses the game and brings up the Pause Menu, from where you can save and load progress.

• C toggles 'Free Cam' on/off. Use WASD to move around, Q/E to move up and down and Left Shift to move faster; the Mouse Scroll Wheel zooms in/out; Up/Down Arrow changes movement speed.

• X recentres the camera on you.

And speaking of nothing, that's exactly what you start with. But from these humble beginnings you can build and automate an entire civilisation. Well, you can when the game's further along; for now you can only start a forestry and cereal farming, and provide shelter and food for the folk.

You can also make and teach robots how to do anything you can do, which is aces.

Please Note

Autonauts is so early in its development that we won't be able to guarantee the compatibility of saved games between versions (but we will do our best to minimise issues).

Also, the Linux version is still untested by us (because we don't have Linux) but feedback so far suggests that it's working well enough, so we'll keep supplying a Linux version with every update :)
#strategy