Autobuild is invaluable in making player's lives easier in Tears of the Kingdom, but it's not handed off to Link through the tutorial like most of his other core abilities. Instead, it's discovered through a specific quest line that isn't even necessary to complete in order to move the story forward. This can leave Autobuild sitting in utter obscurity, leading some players to unlock it much later in their quest — or not at all.
Luckily, it's not difficult to unlock Autobuild itself, as long as players know where to look. When it is finally unlocked, Autobuild will quickly become as natural for Link to use as Ultrahand itself — potentially even more-so with the proper schemas.
How to Find the Great Abandoned Central Mine and Unlock Autobuild
Autobuild can technically be found immediately after Link reaches the surface once players have completed the initial tutorial sequence in the Sky Islands. To get it, players need to visit the Great Abandoned Central Mine in the Depths beneath Central Hyrule. This can be done naturally by following the A Mystery in the Depths quest line, but this isn’t really necessary to get Autobuild.
To get Autobuild without following the quest, players need to find the Great Abandoned Central Mine and talk to the Zonai NPC there. The Mine is located directly beneath the Temple of Time Ruins in the Great Plateau, south of Lookout Landing. There are four chasms in the area, but the closest is probably the Great Plateau East Chasm in Eastern Abbey just north of Lake Hylia. After diving through this chasm, the Great Abandoned Central Mine will be directly to the west and is pretty hard to miss. Once there, players will need to travel to the central upper platform, which can be done by using Ascend if approaching from the southern side, or simply walking right in from the north. There is a Steward Construct at the top of the ramp right beside a Zonai fast-travel point. Activating it will begin the event that ultimately results in Link receiving Autobuild.
How to Use Autobuild and Schematics
Using Autobuild revolves around utilizing three methods of recalling builds. There are previous builds that are auto-saved under History, past builds the player can manually Favorite, and Schematics the player receives through events and quests. Using Autobuild will always require selecting the Autobuild skill and using one of these three methods for recalling past builds.
While recent builds appear automatically in the drop-down menu, players can scroll down to any of the past 30 edits they've made on a vehicle and press Y to set it as a Favorite. After having some builds Favorited, players can select the star icon on the left side to scroll through any of their previously Favorited builds. Just below Favorites on the UI will be the Schematics tab, which holds all the blueprints from Schema Stones or Yiga Schematics players might have received. Schema Stones are generally given to Link by Zonai Constructs for completing various quests (like the one for unlocking Autobuild). Yiga Schematics, on the other hand, are only rewarded to Link after finding and taking down any of the numerous Yiga Hideouts in the Depths.
No matter what method the player uses, rebuilding through Autobuild will always require one of two things. Players will need the have the required Zonai Devices available right in front of Link. Or they'll need to take it out of his inventory to use. If Link doesn't have access to the required building materials, Autobuild will then dig into Link's available Zonaite stash and synthesize the parts. Each Zonai Device costs three Zonaite to create using Autobuild, but players can always find more Zonaite by mining Zonaite deposits or by killing enemies in the Depths.