Controls and Saves
Starwind supports mouse-driven play with a small set of keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts are ignored while focus is inside a text input.
Keyboard
| Keys | Action | Context |
|---|---|---|
M |
Dock at the current station or undock | Map / docked |
K, S, U |
Dock aliases | Map |
J |
Jump to the plotted destination | Map |
R |
Refuel | Docked |
1, 2, 3 |
Select an event response | Event |
Esc |
Decline a permitted encounter or opportunity | Event |
?, / |
Open or close the controls panel | Anywhere |
Star-map mouse controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Click and drag | Pan the map |
| Scroll wheel | Zoom |
| Click a station | Select it and plot an available route |
Buttons remain available for the important actions, so shortcuts are optional.
Automatic browser save
The active game is serialized to browser localStorage under
starwind_save. It remains the authoritative playable save even when optional
telemetry is enabled.
Browser storage belongs to the current browser profile and site origin. Private-browsing cleanup, site-data clearing, or moving to another device can remove it.
Local slots and portable files
The Options panel provides:
- Three named local save slots
- JSON save export
- JSON save import
- A guarded reset
Local slots are convenient checkpoints but live in the same browser storage as the active save. Exported files are the portable backup. Export before browser maintenance, changing devices, or testing a risky build.
Optional telemetry mirror
When available, the game sends a throttled mirror of the latest save plus a presence heartbeat to the Starwind service. This supports recovery and the maintainer console, but it does not replace the browser save and is not required for normal play.
Telemetry can be disabled by setting the starwind_telemetry local-storage
value to off. If the service is unavailable, gameplay and local saving
continue.