What keyboard shortcuts or keybindings are essential in Factorio?

On PC, the core keyboard bindings fall into four pillars: movement, building/interacting, quick access, and blueprint handling. Movement is simple: W to move up, A left, S down, D right. For interaction, use the left mouse button to build/place and the right mouse button to mine or interact with objects; keyboard equivalents and fine control are documented in the official controls guide. For quick actions, press E to open the character screen, F to pick up items from the ground, and Z to drop items. Rotate with R, reverse rotate with SHIFT+R, and flip entities with H (horizontal) or V (vertical). Alt-mode can be toggled with ALT, SPACE shoots or uses the currently selected weapon, and C cycles to the next equipped weapon. Enter/leave vehicles with ENTER, and G toggles the rail layer when using rail infrastructure. Quick access to frequently used items is handled by the quickbar: press 1–0 to use items on the top quickbar, SHIFT+1–SHIFT+0 to switch between quickbars, and X to rotate the active quickbars. For blueprint work, R rotates a blueprint and H/V flip it vertically/horizontally. All of these can be customized in the controls settings. official guide and quickbar overview.