Controls
Every key, click and touch gesture, on desktop and on a phone.
Steel Tide plays with a mouse and keyboard on desktop and with a purpose-built touch scheme on phones and tablets. Press F1 in game for the same tables.
Mouse and keyboard
| 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) |
| A + left click | Attack-move: engage anything met on the way |
| M + left click | Move, ignoring anything under the cursor |
| S / H | Stop / hold position |
| Shift | Queue orders, add to the selection, build ×5 |
| Ctrl + 1–9, then 1–9 | Assign and recall control groups |
| F | Center the camera on the selection |
| Alt | Show every health bar |
| Delete | Self-destruct the selection |
| Wheel, WASD / arrows / middle-drag / screen edge | Zoom, pan |
| Ctrl / Cmd + B | Toggle the sidebar |
| Space, − / + | Pause, game speed (1×, 2×, 4×) |
| F5 / F9 | Quick save / quick load |
| Esc | Cancel, or the pause menu |
| F1 | Help overlay |
Rally points are set with a right click while a factory is selected. Selling and upgrading a building live in its command card.
Touch
A finger has no second button, no hover and no Shift, so each of those is replaced rather than emulated.
| 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 |
| Tap an enemy with nothing selected | Inspect it |
| Long press | Attack-move to that point |
| One-finger drag | Pan |
| Two fingers | Pinch to zoom, drag to pan |
| Minimap tap / drag | Jump the camera |
| Minimap long press | Order the selection there |
The bar in the bottom-right corner carries what has no gesture:
- ⊘ clears the selection, so taps on the map stop giving orders.
- ▣ latches drag-to-box-select instead of drag-to-pan.
- ⇧ stands in for holding Shift: queue orders, add to the selection.
- ⚑ selects every mobile unit you own.
- ✓ / ✕ confirm or cancel a build placement.
Installing on a phone
Steel Tide is a progressive web app: open it in the browser, then use Install app (Chrome) or Share → Add to Home Screen (iOS). It launches fullscreen in landscape and keeps working offline once the art has been cached. On a desktop browser, Settings → Device → Touch controls switches the layout on for testing.