Controls

Steel Tide plays with a mouse and keyboard on desktop and with a purpose-built touch scheme on phones and tablets. In game, ? opens the beginner guide and the keys are listed under Settings → Controls. The keys, the mouse buttons and the controller's buttons below are the defaults: every one can be changed under Settings → Controls and Settings → Controller, and a changed row carries a reset icon that puts it back.

Mouse and keyboard

Choose a Keyboard preset under Settings → Controls. Every preset supports arrow-key camera movement; WASD, the default, also pans with those four letters. The other presets adapt familiar RTS bindings to Steel Tide's commands.

Preset	Main bindings
WASD	F attack-move, R stop / sell, C follow the selection
Classic	A attack-move, S stop / sell, F follow the selection
Age of Empires II	R or Z attack-move, S stop, N hold position, X Protect, H jump to HQ, C follow, Ctrl + Z formation, I launch
StarCraft II	A attack-move, M move, S stop, H hold position, D unload, Backspace jump to HQ, Ctrl + M battle map
Red Alert 2	A attack-move, M move, S stop, G Protect, D ability, L sell, H jump to HQ, Ctrl + M battle map

Editing a binding labels the setup Custom, with the preset it started from. Choosing a preset replaces your custom keyboard bindings. The detailed tables and key examples below use WASD unless another preset is named.

Input	Action
Left click / drag	Select / box-select
Double click	Select every unit of that type on screen
Right click	Move, attack, repair, board a transport (context-sensitive)
F + left click / drag	Attack-move to a point / sweep the framed area
P + left click / drag	Protect a friendly unit or building / patrol and defend the framed area
F while inspecting an enemy	Toggle that enemy as a priority target; this takes precedence over attack-move or camera follow in every preset
F + Shift + left click	Force fire at a point, or at a friendly unit or building. Anti-aircraft units barrage the sky over the point, which puts fire on a flight they cannot see
F + left click, or right click, with a silo selected · N + left click with a Kraken holding a warhead	Launch a nuclear warhead at the point
G + left click	Move, ignoring anything under the cursor
R / X	Stop / hold position
Z	Formation: the selected units keep their shape and move at the slowest one's pace; again to break it
T	Use the selection's ability; a submarine surfaces to run faster in plain sight, or dives again
R with a building selected	Sell it: the first press asks, the second sells
U	Unload a loaded transport; with a building selected, start its upgrade
Shift	Queue orders, add to the selection, build ×5
Tab / Shift + Tab	With an Engineer's or an Engineer Boat's building in hand, switch to the next / previous one on its card, skipping any that are greyed out. With no building in hand, hold Tab for the player list
Q (tap)	Leave a mark for your side where the cursor is. It reads what it is on: an enemy is Attack here, anything of your side's is Defend here, open ground is Watch out. A mark on a unit follows it. Marks disappear after 120 seconds of game time
Q (hold)	The quick-select wheel, in the middle of the screen. Point at a branch on the inner ring and its slices open on the outer ring; release on one. Forces: your whole army, its land, air or sea units, or the armed units on screen. Production: every war factory, airbase or naval yard, or the War Lab. Camera: to your headquarters, to the last place under attack, or to what is selected. Support: every engineer, the idle ones, every transport, or every unit under half strength. Release over the ✕ in the middle to choose nothing
Ctrl + 1–4, then 1–4	Form and recall army groups (twice jumps the camera there)
M	Toggle the battle map, hold to peek
H	Jump the camera to your headquarters
C	Follow the selection with the camera (again to stop)
Alt	Show every health bar and see through buildings
Delete	Remove the selection; units near their factory return metal based on remaining health
Wheel, WASD / arrows / middle-drag / screen edge	Zoom, pan
Ctrl / Cmd + B	Toggle the sidebar
Space, − / +	Pause, game speed (1×, 2×, 4×)
Ctrl + F5–F8, then F5–F8	Save and recall four camera positions and zoom levels for this match. Saving or overwriting a slot posts a message in the activity feed
Shift + F5 / F9	Quick save / quick load
Esc	Cancel, or the pause menu
? (Shift + /)	The beginner guide
F1	Hide the interface, for a clean view of the battle; again to bring it back. The selection rings, health bars and waypoints go with it, while a drag box or a building's ghost still shows
F2	Screenshot: the battlefield as a PNG, named for the moment it was taken. A browser downloads it; the desktop game saves it in Pictures/Steel Tide. The sidebar is never in the picture, so F1 first gives the clean shot
F3	Performance readout: frames per second, frame, simulation and render times, and what is on screen. Stays up across matches until pressed again
`	The admin console: metal, respawn, reveal, speed, kick

Direct control: mouse and keyboard

E enters Direct control. Its steering keys are the same in every preset and can be changed under Settings → Controls → Direct control. The other keys in this table use WASD defaults.

Input	In direct control
W A S D, arrows	Steer: held, the units drive that way at their own speed and turn at their own rate; released, they stand. An aircraft with wings holds its course
Mouse	The guns look at the cursor
Left button held	Fire at the cursor, if the guns reach it; guns that do not go on picking their own targets
Right click	The ordinary order at the point (move, attack, board…); steering takes over again at the next key
R	Stop
U, N, Delete	Unload, launch, self-destruct, as always
E, Esc	Let go. So does any new selection (the Q wheel, 1–4) or H

Production and building orders

Select a factory and designate a destination to set its rally point. Until you set one, a war factory or a naval yard sends what it makes two rows below itself, or, where a building, a cliff or the shore is in the way there, out of whichever side is open. With several factories selected, their available production choices are combined. Each order goes to the factory that can build it with the least work ahead, and their queues appear as one strip in production order.

Select a building and choose Upgrade to start its upgrade, or Sell to sell it. When Sell asks for confirmation, its indicator becomes a tick; choose Sell again to confirm.

A turret accepts an attack order on an enemy within reach and keeps that target until it dies or leaves range. Buildings cannot move, so a turret does not accept a target outside its range.

Attack orders and rearming

An attack order goes to the guns that can reach the target. A unit whose weapons cannot, a Hawk sent at a building or a Falcon at a tank, still goes with the rest: it moves up to its own range from the target and stops there, ready for whatever it can fight, so the Hawk's missiles cover the sky over the tanks doing the shooting. It never circles or waits on a target it cannot hurt, and it is free the moment it arrives. A unit already on an attack order lets go when its target turns into something its guns cannot reach: a cargo plane that lands, an amphibian that wades ashore.

An aircraft that has fired its last round flies back to an Airbase or an available Aircraft Carrier to rearm by itself, then carries on with its order. Hold position keeps it where it is, and a move you gave it is finished first.

Recycling

Units removed within four tiles of the footprint of a completed factory you own return metal: ground and amphibious units at a war factory, ships and submarines at a naval yard, and aircraft at an airbase. Engineers can also recycle within four tiles of your completed HQ's footprint. Any factory level works, provided the factory or HQ is not disabled by EMP. The refund is 50% of the unit's cost × remaining HP / maximum HP, rounded down. Elsewhere, the unit self-destructs without returning metal. Units aboard transports, carrier wing aircraft and warheads return no metal; removing a loaded transport still destroys its passengers.

Area orders and Protect

Choose Attack-move and designate a rectangular area to sweep. The selected units sweep it, revealing the ground and engaging enemies inside it; they do not chase targets outside its bounds. Selected turrets can also receive the area order, concentrating their guns on enemies inside the rectangle that they can reach. Enable order queuing to add the sweep after existing orders.

Protect takes a friendly unit or building as its target. Guards follow a moving target, match its pace, and engage visible threats nearby before returning to it. Give Protect a rectangular area to patrol it indefinitely and defend the allies inside it. A normal context order on a friendly target can also Protect it, when the target does not instead call for repair, construction assistance or boarding a transport. Giving a new order replaces the assignment.

While inspecting a visible enemy, choose Priority target to mark it for your faction's automatic targeting. Up to three targets can be marked; adding a fourth replaces the oldest, and using the action again removes a mark. Marks do not reveal fog or override weapon limits, explicit attack orders, anti-air duties or warhead interception.

Direct control

Select units and choose Direct control to steer them, aim their weapons and fire yourself. They move at their own speeds and turn at their own rates. When you stop steering, they stand still; fixed-wing aircraft keep their course.

Fire shoots at the aim point with weapons that can reach it. Weapons that cannot reach it continue choosing their own targets. Ordinary movement, attack and transport orders remain available; steering again takes over from them. Let go returns to ordinary command. Changing the selection or returning the camera to headquarters also ends direct control.

The camera follows the units and leads a little toward the aim point, with manual camera panning disabled. Up to three units can be driven together as a formation; a larger selection makes Direct control unavailable. Online, steering and firing arrive after the network round trip, as other orders do.

Commander assignment

When a commander runs your army, selecting combat units makes Assign to commander available. It hands those units back to the commander after their current orders finish. The commander fights under your team's view of the battlefield.

Assigned units wear a small reticle beside their names. Take control returns the selection to your command while keeping its current orders. Giving a unit a movement, attack or support order also takes it back; using an ability or surfacing a submarine leaves it assigned. Direct control is the separate action for driving, aiming and firing yourself.

Without an army commander, Assign to commander is unavailable. Older saves with delegated units still offer Take control. For a specific offensive objective, use attack-move or frame an area sweep; for a standing defensive assignment, use Protect.

Formation

Select two to twelve units and choose Formation to lock them into their current shape. Send the formation anywhere and it turns to face the way it is going, every unit heading for its own place in the turned shape around the destination you chose: tanks formed up in front of rocket artillery stay in front of it wherever you send them. A short step, under four tiles, keeps the facing it has, so a nudge to the side never sends everyone across each other. The front, when you form up, is the way the units themselves face (units that drove somewhere together face where they went), or the top of the map when they point every which way. A full about-turn sends the front rank through the rear one, which costs a little time; the shape comes together on the way and is whole when they arrive.

A formation moves at the pace of its slowest member: a buggy formed up with a heavy tank keeps station on the heavy tank. When the ground splits them up, the formation waits for whichever has furthest to go, one sent the long way round a wood or crawling through mud, so they all come in together. Through a gap only one unit wide they file through and fall back into shape beyond it.

A formation is one kind of unit: all land, all amphibious, all naval (submarines included), all helicopters or all fixed-wing aircraft. An amphibian would lead the column into water the tanks cannot follow, and a jet cannot fly slowly enough to keep station on a helicopter: no plane ever flies below its stall speed, half its top speed, whether it is holding station, loitering or short of power. For the same reason planes form up only when they can all fly the slowest one's speed, so a Falcon Fighter cannot escort a Spectre Gunship in formation. With more than twelve selected, a mix, or planes that cannot share a speed, Formation is unavailable and the reason is shown.

To take one unit out, give it a move order of its own: select it alone and send it somewhere, and the rest stay in formation. An attack, a stop or a hold leaves it in, and the next move of the whole formation puts everyone back in place. With the formation selected, or any part of it, choose Break formation to disband it. Forming up again takes units out of any formation they were already in; assigning them to the commander and boarding a transport also take them out. A formation down to one unit is gone. A unit in formation wears a small mark beside its name in the unit details, and the speed shown there is the formation's.

Touch

Touch controls keep the minimap and menu at the top left, with unit actions and build choices along the bottom. The selected unit or building's name appears near the bottom. With nothing selected, the Units in view row shows your visible units by type and count; tap a picture to select that type on screen.

Gesture	Result
Tap your own unit	Select it; tap again for every unit of that type on screen
Tap the map	Move, attack or interact with the current selection
Double-tap empty ground with units selected	Attack-move to that point
Double-tap empty ground with nothing selected	Select all your units in view, including engineers and transports
Tap a friendly building with an engineer selected	Repair it, or help finish the site; a building that needs nothing is selected as usual
Tap your own transport with ground units selected	They board it. This is how to load by touch: select the units first, then tap the transport. With a transport selected, tapping a ground unit selects that unit
Tap an enemy with nothing selected	Inspect it
Long press on the battlefield	Attack-move to that point
Hold a selected unit or building's name	Show its details in a popover above the name. The name and action row stay in place; releasing the hold hides the details
Hold the economy bar	Show the metal and power breakdown until you release
One-finger drag	Pan
Two fingers	Pinch to zoom, drag to pan
Two fingers planted and held still	A box between them; move either finger to adjust it, lift one to select what is inside. With attack-move or Protect armed, the box gives that area order instead (⇧ queues it)
Minimap tap / drag	Jump the camera
Minimap long press	Open the battle map
Battle map tap / drag, long press	Jump the camera; order the selection there

For a double-tap, tap the same patch of empty ground twice quickly. With units selected and ⇧ enabled, double-tapping queues one attack-move order.

The on-screen buttons provide the other controls:

Control	Action
✕ Deselect, bottom right	Clear the selection, so taps on the map stop giving orders
Engineers, bottom left	Select your engineers. Hold for a choice of all engineers or only idle engineers
⇧	Toggle queued orders and adding to the selection
1–4, right edge	With units selected, tap to add them to that group; if all are already members, tap to remove them. With nothing selected, tap to select the group. Hold to inspect its members
✓ / ✕, while placing	Confirm the building's position or cancel placement

Placing a building is a two-step: drag or tap to aim the ghost, then confirm. After each confirm the same ghost stands up again beside the one just placed, so a row of turrets or a wall is a row of confirms; ✕ ends the run. Each blueprint joins the engineer's queue behind whatever it is already building, so laying one never interrupts a job.

Select factories directly on the battlefield. Selecting a building centers the camera on it, and its floating action menu follows it while it is in view. Pan it off screen and that menu hides. Upgrade uses the upgrade icon with its price underneath; production and fabrication choices stay in the bottom tray.

The unit action row sits between square brackets and includes actions such as Protect, Hold position, abilities and Direct control. Priority target appears when inspecting an enemy. A warhead carrier or silo shows the loaded count on each launch button. Hold its name to inspect the full details. The touch layout hides the In Progress panel and the list of selected units or buildings.

In Direct control, the left stick steers and the right stick only aims. Hold the dedicated Fire button next to the right stick to shoot, and release it to stop firing. Releasing the aim stick keeps the last aim. Let go returns to ordinary orders.

The pause menu (the ☰ button) also lists the factions in the match and, online, each player's ping.

Controller

Plug in or pair an Xbox, PlayStation or Switch Pro controller and press any button: the interface switches to the pad the moment it speaks, and back to the mouse the moment the mouse moves. The names below are Xbox's; a PlayStation or Nintendo pad shows its own glyphs.

Input	Action
Left stick · right stick	Pan the camera · zoom. The reticle at the centre of the view is what every order aims at, and it snaps onto whatever is near it
A	Select what the reticle is on; hold and move to box-select; twice for every unit of that type on screen
X	Move, attack, repair, board, rally, whatever the reticle is on. The hint bar says which before you press
Y	Attack-move to the reticle; with LT held, force fire there
B	Cancel, then deselect, then the pause menu
LT (hold)	Shift: queue orders, add to the selection, build ×5
RT (hold)	The command wheel: build, produce and orders for the selection; the stick picks, releasing confirms, LB / RB turn its pages
LB (tap)	Leave a mark where the reticle is
LB (hold)	The quick-select wheel: push the left stick toward a slice and release
RB	Camera to the selection; twice to follow it
D-pad	Army groups 1–4: tap to select, twice to jump there, hold to assign the selection (LT: add). While placing a building, nudges it a tile
View	The battle map: the stick aims, A looks there, X orders there. Held: the player list
Menu	Pause menu
LS click	Jump the camera to your headquarters
RS click	Walk the sidebar with the d-pad; B returns to the field

Every menu, dialog and setup screen answers the d-pad, A and B; the bumpers switch tabs. Settings → Controller picks the glyph family (Steam Input presents every pad as an Xbox one), which face button confirms, the stick's pan speed and vibration.

Direct control: controller

Choose Direct control from the command wheel, then use these controls:

Input	In direct control
Left stick / right stick	Steer / aim
Hold RT	Fire at the aim point
X	Give the ordinary context order at the aim point
D-pad	Zoom
B	Let go