Beginner Guide: How to Play — Iron Nest Wiki

Launch Version / Updated: August 11, 2026

Welcome to the Iron Nest. IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator is a first-person dieselpunk heavy-artillery simulator developed by Nick Nieuwoudt and Dominik Latos. You are the sole operator of a 5,000-ton walking turret fighting in an alternate-history Spain in the late 1920s, on the brink of civil war. Every lever, every dial, and every shot is under your control — and almost none of it is actually pulling the trigger.

This guide covers the core loop, every station inside the turret, and the habits that make a good operator. If you came from PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant, you already know the genre — Iron Nest trades the planet for a battlefield, and adds a tactical map, manual plotting and counter-battery warfare.

The Core Loop: Six Stages, Every Target

Every engagement follows the same six stages. Do them in order, one target at a time:

Read orders — the High Command teleprinter gives you the objective; the field-report typewriter gives you spotter intel.
Take measurements — locate the target on the tactical map using bearings, distances and triangulation.
Calculate — feed the range and bearing into the ballistic calculator to get elevation and powder charges.
Load the gun — pick the correct shell and ram shell + powder charges into the barrel.
Aim — rotate the turret to the bearing, crank the elevation to the calculated value.
Fire — arm the gun, confirm systems, and pull the cord.

The golden rule of Iron Nest: handle one target fully before moving to the next — except enemy artillery, which you must mark all at once before your first shot (see the counter-battery guide).

The Stations Inside the Iron Nest

Station	What It Does
High Command Teleprinter	Receives mission briefs and orders from High Command
Field Report Typewriter	Receives spotter reports, observation data and intel from the front line
Tactical Map Table	The 20×10 grid map where you plot targets, spotters and firing lines
Ballistic Calculator	Converts range/bearing/shell data into gun elevation and powder charges
Requisition Station	Buys shells, powder charges, recon planes and support
Gun Loading Platform	Ramms the selected shell and powder charges into the gun
Elevation Controls	Sets the gun's firing angle
Bearing/Rotation Controls	Rotates the 360° turret to face the target
Main Trigger Station	Arms and fires the guns

Also on the desk: a clipboard, a coffee machine, and a warhorn. Use all three.

The Clipboard Is Your Best Friend

The clipboard is the most important tool in the game. Click any line of text in the High Command brief or field reports and it is copied automatically. This is how you carry spotter coordinates, bearings, distances and firing data from one station to the next — no memorization required.

Caps Lock — toggle clipboard visibility
Tab (hold) — full-focus clipboard with a movable cursor
Right Click — remove a line you no longer need

Keep the clipboard visible at all times and keep it tidy. Stale numbers cause mistakes: a bearing from last mission will happily overwrite your current one. The calculator and gun consoles also push values onto the clipboard, so clear old lines as you go.

The Operator's Loop, Step by Step

1. Read the orders

High Command's brief arrives first: the objective, ordnance type, target info, your own position (needed for the map), and any special instructions. The field reports that follow give you spotter positions and target bearings or distances. Click key lines onto the clipboard as you read.

2. Plot the target

Mark the Iron Nest's own position on the tactical map first — every calculation depends on it. Then place spotter tokens, reference points and, once located, the enemy target tokens. Full details are in the map & measurements guide.

3. Calculate a firing solution

At the ballistic calculator, enter:

Distance to target (from your clipboard)
Bearing to target (rotate the coarse and fine wheels to match)
Shell type (sometimes dictated by High Command)
Powder charges (refer to the chart on the machine)
Target classification (Infantry, Recon, Artillery, Mechanized, Fire Director, Supply Cache)

Pull the lever and the calculator prints a firing card — the gun elevation (lower-left) and gun rotation (upper-right) — and attaches it to your clipboard.

4. Load the gun

At the loading platform, working left to right:

Pull the shell-selector lever until the correct shell is at the front
Ram the shell into the chamber
Dispense the powder charges — six levers, one charge each, total must match your calculation
Ram the charges home

You cannot unload a shell once it is in. Verify every load before you ram.

5. Aim

Rotate the turret first — traversing 360° takes time. Use the heavy lever for speed, the wheel for fine adjustment, and match the rotation counter to the clipboard's bearing exactly. Then set elevation: move the lever to approximate, let the gun stop, and fine-tune with the wheel. Elevation resets to zero and locks after each shot.

6. Fire

At the trigger station: arm the gun (each gun arms separately), confirm all systems ready, flip all five switches, then pull the central cord. The whole machine shudders. Then wait — radio feedback, a red skull token on the map, or an updated objective tells you the result. A blue skull means you hit a friendly.

Beginner Habits That Prevent Catastrophe

Place your own position token first. Your firing solutions are worthless if the Iron Nest marker is wrong.
Verify the bearing twice. Most misses come from a one-degree error, not a bad calculation.
Load last, aim first? No — read the correct order: shells are cheap, but a shell in the wrong gun barrel is a wasted mission. Check shell type AND charge count before ramming.
Keep the map clean. Erase old plotting lines and remove stale tokens; a cluttered map slows you down mid-mission.
Watch the hydraulic gauge. Keep pressure in the safe band shown on the gauge and feather the valves — slamming levers causes malfunctions and a repair minigame (see the systems & failures guide).
Do not hoard requisition credits. They do not carry over between sessions. Spend them on shells and powder before a major operation.

What the Game Is (and Isn't)

It is a slow, tactile simulation — one shell takes minutes of preparation. Kotaku called the demo one of the best Steam Next Fest demos of the year for exactly this reason.
It is single-player only — no multiplayer, no co-op. Just you, the machine, and High Command.
It is not a math exam — the machines calculate everything. Your job is to feed them the right inputs in the right order.
It has procedurally generated objectives — no two deployments are identical, and 15 regions, 100+ medals and 2 challenge modes give you reasons to keep firing.

Enemy Field Command (FDC) — What It Is and Why It Matters

Enemy field command in IRON NEST means the Fire Direction Center (FDC) — the enemy's counter-battery brain. It is not a rank or a voice on the radio; it is a target class you will be ordered to destroy.

It coordinates enemy artillery. While an FDC is alive, hostile batteries keep pressing you; destroying one pauses counter-battery fire and buys quiet time.
It is hardened. FDCs sit in the same Class 5 armor bracket as bunkers and underground caches — AP is the confirmed shell that penetrates them, and you should expect more than one hit.
The pause is a resource. Do not spend an FDC kill the moment it appears. Save it for a long reload, a relocation, or a final barrage.

Spotter language tells you when one is on the board: "fire direction post" or "FDC coordinates" in a field report means load AP and plot it like a bunker. The full target breakdown is in the enemy types guide, and the timer mechanics are in the counter-battery guide.

Next Steps

Controls & Keybindings — every key and input
Tactical Map & Measurements — the grid, tokens and tools
How to Find Targets — triangulation made simple
All Shell Types — what to load, and when