BEGINNER GUIDE

IRON NEST Beginner Guide

A dieselpunk turret sim where the real game is math, not reflexes. Here's how the loop works and what to do before your first shell leaves the barrel.

The core loop

You sit inside a 5,000-ton walking fortress. Each mission runs the same cycle: read the teleprinter intel → mark the target on your tactical map → let the ballistic computer solve elevation and propellant charge → pick a shell → manually load → fire → check the reconnaissance photo and correct. The fortress itself is the weapon. Patience and precision beat speed every time.

How aiming actually works

IRON NEST deliberately gives you indirect information. Front-line observers report a bearing and a distance, not a grid coordinate. You:

• Plot two bearings from two observers on the tactical map; their intersection is your target.
• Measure the range from that point back to your fortress.
• Feed bearing, range, and shell weight into the ballistic computer to get elevation and charge.
• Fire, then read the recon photo to see where you actually landed.

Get the numbers wrong and you miss — sometimes catastrophically. That miss-the-target tension is the whole appeal.

Shell types

There are around 30 unlockable rounds, each built for one job:

• Armor-piercing (AP) — cracks bunkers and armored targets; wants a high charge.
• High-explosive (HE) — tears up infantry and soft targets.
• Smoke — screens friendly withdrawals.
• Star — lights up night fights for observation.
• Gas — deliberately uncomfortable; the game wants you to feel the choice.

The two guns can load different shells at once, so you might drop AP on a bunker while HE falls on the infantry next to it.

First-shot tips

• Write it down. There's a clipboard for a reason — trying to hold grid coordinates in your head is how you miss.
• Cross-check. When radio allows, verify the second observer's bearing against the first. Intel is sometimes contradictory or misleading.
• Ease the hydraulics. Small, gradual valve adjustments beat yanking the levers; overload introduces drift, and sustained fire adds barrel-heat error.
• Range, then fire for effect. Walk a ranging shell onto the target using the recon photo before you commit the barrage.
• Match charge to shell. Perfect coordinates with the wrong charge or shell still miss.

Watch your conscience

Target markers can sit next to "friendly hospital" labels. Civilian and friendly-fire kills are logged in an inter-mission newspaper and steer the branching story. Verify before you pull the trigger — and use recon planes or star shells to confirm.

Before you start

Make sure your machine clears the bar — see the System Requirements page. Then settle in, pour the coffee, and make every shot count.