Ship controls

Iceman16

Vice Admiral
I downloaded the prologue and tried to play it but I cant stand the flight controls, is there a way to change them so I can use the arrow keys to fly? I'm on a laptop so there is no NumPad.
 
Keybinding can be changed when you go under

options-> control config-> ship => there you will find the numkey and can replace them.

A problem I encountered while doing that is that the arrow keys normaly are mapped to controle each shield quadrant indiviualy.
So the program will tell you that there is a conflict and the new keybinging should appear in red.
To solve that you can go into the misc tab and change the shield adjustment to whatever you like, if you use them at all.

There is also a button "solve problem" I don't recommend that as it just kicks out the older keybinding without giveing you a new binding.
 
As there was the question about keybindings in general I have taken a closer look at this topic.
FS uses a lot more commands that are mapped to the keyboard then WC. So when doing a setup for the mod it would come to problems.
Still it toke me about 5min to map the few WC keys in and solve the problems with the other keybindings that where now doubled.

I am currently asking if there is a possibility to somehow have two different keybinding setups for those who prefere the WC layout over the FS2 ones.

Still there are a few minor problems where people have to get used to the layout I think.
For example energie management is done differently to WC ones.

In WC you have to open the power management menu, then cycle through the different parts till you get the ones you want to change and then adjust that one and switch back to weapons, for example.

In FS2 you set directly the amount without the menu. There are two keys (increase/decrease) to each parameter. The energie destribution is allways visible on screen.

So here aren't any WC keys to map in but since its super easy to learn I think its not such a problem.

I have attached a screenshot where you can see the management and the keys would be, from left to right.

Guns
Insert = increase
Delete = decrease

Shields
Home = increase
End = decrease

Engines
Page up = increase
Page down = decrease

Just noticed that you can't influence repair as this is a constant value.

So thats the current thing with the keybindings.
You can map most of the WC keys to FS2 within a few minutes.
If its possible to give a default setup with WC bindings out, I don't know.
 

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awesome thanks! I got pretty much everything mapped to WC controls so it'll work pretty well. only thing I wasnt able to find is the autopilot key, what is it under?
 
To clarify, my issue with the way keys were mapped in the prologue wasn't that there was a lot of controls, it was the way they're layed out. I really don't care if there's a zillion options I'll never use. But when absolute basic controls require a key combo that is just so incredibly counter-intuitive. It doesn't matter to me if that's the way it is in freespace. Just because I can get used to a crappy setup doesn't mean that's the best way to layout the keys for the majority of people who have either never played freespace or haven't played a flight sim in ten years.

If you can have two options (a FS-based one and a WC-ish one) then I think that's a great option for those who want it each way. But for me, even if it only takes ten minutes to remap all the keys it just feels like something I really shouldn't have to do when I load a WC based game. THe beauty of the WC setup is that for the absolute main controls the key assignment makes sense. A=autopilot, T=Target,G=guns, C=communications, L=lock etc. If you want to have combos, there's still room. But why not make it make sense? Ok So we have T for target. How about combos that include T plus something else for your other targeting options? Maybe it's T plus the surrounding keys where the direction in relation to T has something to do with the function itself?

The absolute basics shouldn't be combos and should make sense. I can pretty much play any WC game with just A, tab, C, G, T, L, M, G, A and a mouse. Map and some of the other controls are useful, and for the hardcore player there are many other options in WC as well, but the average player new to the series won't like being confused by anything more complicated right away. Ultimately, you'll just turn off new player with such a muddy layout if you're goal is to attract new players.

Beyond key layout though, the other thing I had issue with was mouse control in the prologue. The controls felt soooo FPS inspired. I hated that I had to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling when tailing a turning enemy. It just doesn't work that well. While the WC system takes some getting used to the fine tuning and needing to center the mouse yourself, I actually got pretty proficent with it and I think it works nicely. I don't think we can count on everyone having joysticks in this day and age, though if you can make sure to support gamepad layouts from within the game I'm sure several players would appreciate that, as usb gamepads are much more common in this day and age than joysticks.
 
@Iceman16
You can find the autopilot under "misc" at the end of the list.

@AD
About the key layout, I will see what can be done. I just wanted to give you an example of where it could become problematic as things are handeled differently.
I still hope that there can be the "choose the layout yourself" option so everyone can decide what he wants.

As for the mouse controle. I just fired up WC1 and our current build and they are pretty much alike. There is still some issues but I hope we will sort these out.

Gamepads are supported as far as I know even if the support isn't the best to my knowledge.
The coders worked on it but as the request for these was never very high it hasn't gone very far.
Thing is I can't test it myself as I don't have a gamepad.
Also it will be interesting on how to get all the controles on a pad. Never thought about that.
 
@Iceman16
You can find the autopilot under "misc" at the end of the list.

@AD
About the key layout, I will see what can be done. I just wanted to give you an example of where it could become problematic as things are handeled differently.
I still hope that there can be the "choose the layout yourself" option so everyone can decide what he wants.

As for the mouse controle. I just fired up WC1 and our current build and they are pretty much alike. There is still some issues but I hope we will sort these out.

Gamepads are supported as far as I know even if the support isn't the best to my knowledge.
The coders worked on it but as the request for these was never very high it hasn't gone very far.
Thing is I can't test it myself as I don't have a gamepad.
Also it will be interesting on how to get all the controles on a pad. Never thought about that.

That's great news about mouse control. Regarding gamepads, most of the basics can be mapped to the gamepad and the left stick works pretty much the same as a joystick. You can set secondary stuff to use button combos. Or better, have one button work like a shift key where secondary functions are turned on for every button. Beyond that, I don't see why the keyboard couldn't be used as well as the gamepad for more complicated functions. I guess it would take some figuring out to work out the best layout for a gamepad, but you could take cues from the PSX version of WC4 for example I suppose.
 
I'm wonderingi someone can give me a hand.

Background: On a mac, on a wireless keyboard. I can't seem for the life of me to be able to hit alt+M for match speed in the first mission, even though I'm hitting alt/option key. Is there a way to change that binding? Am I just being utterly blind?
 
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