Settings

The settings menu opens from three places: the title screen, the pause menu once you are in a world, and a button inside the inventory screen. All three lead to the same options. Everything you change there belongs to your installation rather than to a character or a world, so starting a fresh world leaves your keybinds, video options and volume exactly where you left them.

Frame skip decides what the game gives up when it cannot keep up. Left on, the renderer drops frames so the simulation keeps ticking at its normal rate. Turned off, drawing takes priority and the whole world slows down on hardware that cannot manage it, which looks smoother while running everything in slow motion.

This matters for anyone comparing weapons, because the DPS Meter reads differently depending on the setting. The same weapon against the same Target Dummy can produce two different figures on two machines, or on one machine before and after the setting is touched. If you are testing damage seriously, fix the setting first and only compare runs taken with the same value.

Autopause freezes the world whenever the inventory is open. It only applies in single player, since there is nothing to freeze on a server. For building and crafting it is close to essential, because it lets you read recipes and reorganize storage without something walking up behind you while you do.

It does change how you fight, though. With it on you can open the inventory mid battle, swap accessories and drink at your leisure. Build those habits, then join a friend's world, and the same reflex leaves you standing still with the inventory open while something eats you. Anyone who plays both is better off leaving it turned off.

Before 1.2.3, autopause had a hole in it. Opening the inventory while a tool or weapon was in use and then clicking an item would stick that item to the cursor, and it would drop on the floor when you closed the inventory unless you deliberately right clicked outside to release it. Consumables were worse: they were used rather than picked up, so a healing potion would heal you without the usual sickness debuff attached. The 1.2 update patched most of this, but anything with continuous use still got around the fix. Current versions do not behave this way.