Controls & Hotkeys
Dust Front ships no in-game manual, so its controls — and especially its hidden quality-of-life shortcuts — trip up new players. This is a community-compiled reference.
A note on accuracy: unlike the unit and building stats on this site, key bindings aren't in the extracted game data — they're compiled from community reports of the current build and can change between versions. Always confirm and customise them in the game's in-game Settings → Controls menu, which is the authoritative list.
Camera
The camera is the most-discussed control on the forums — it pans with the arrow keys by default and sits low to the ground. Many players rebind movement to WASD and push the zoom-out limit in the settings.
| Arrow keys | Pan the camera (rebindable to WASD in settings) |
| Mouse to screen edge | Edge-scroll the camera |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom in / out |
Selecting units
| Left-click | Select a unit or building |
| Left-drag | Box-select multiple units |
| Double-click | Select all on-screen units of that type |
| Ctrl + 1–9 | Assign the selection to a control group |
| 1 – 9 | Re-select a saved control group |
Issuing orders
| Right-click | Move to a point, or attack the target under the cursor |
| Right-click + hold / drag | Set a facing or formation for the move order |
| Shift + order | Queue the order after the current one (waypoints) |
| Attack-move | Advance and engage anything in range along the way |
Tempo & quality-of-life
These are the shortcuts new players most often miss — the game ships no tutorial, so they go unmentioned in-game. The tactical pause in particular makes the game far less APM-intensive than it first feels.
| Spacebar | Tactical pause — freeze the action while you still issue orders |
| Loop / repeat queue | Set a production building to keep building a unit on repeat |
| Rally point | Right-click with a production building selected to set where new units gather |
| Hotkey buildings | Bind supply depots and production to control groups for instant access |
Repair
Repair confuses almost everyone. The full breakdown — who repairs what, and how recovery of wrecked super-heavies works — is in the Repair & Recovery guide.
| Right-click damaged ally | Order a repair vehicle (BREM) to repair it |
| Shift + E | Reported shortcut to queue repair targets in sequence |
| Auto-repair | The TRM “Silach” and construction crane repair nearby vehicles on their own |