Battlescape Hotkeys

[Tripp]

I've been working on a few modifications to my local version and I have successfully added keyboard scrolling to the battlescape. I could easily extend this to hotkeys like 'A' for aimed shot 'S' for snap 'D' for auto 'K' or 'N' for kneel (haven't decided which I like better) and others. Is the community interested in this kind of thing? What other hotkeys should be added? After some more testing I will probably submit a patch.

[luke83]

Yes , this has been suggest before so there is interest
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,409.0.html

Looking forwards to seeing a list of options you want to create

[moriarty]

now that we have this topic, perhaps we should use it as a rallying point? @Tripp: would you be willing to install a list of hotkeys in your first post that you update as we go along?

I think the "w a s d" keys shouldn't be used for hotkeys other than "left down right up", because that is kind of a convention: use either "arrow keys" or "w a s d". the new UFO:EU uses "w a s d" and most other hotkeys are laid out around that... maybe something like that would work for us, too?

I think "q" and "e" should be reserved for "rotate viewscreen left / right" in case we ever implement that.

"f" could be "fire", maybe "f" "g" "h" for the three available firing modes? ("f" for fire a.k.a. snap shot / "g" for "gun 'em down!" a.k.a. auto fire / "h" for high accuracy a.k.a. aimed shot)

"t" for throw? it's close to the other keys, but one row up, so no accidentally throwing your large plasma at the sectoid...

"r" for priming grenades, because it's next to the "throw" button? when priming mode is on, pressing "r" again sets timer to "0", so you don't have to move your hand for the most-used setting ("esc" exits priming mode)?

[Tripp]

Sounds like we all want 'modern' keyboard shortcuts and not '1993 dos' keyboard shortcuts. That all sounds great to me. I'm going to add everything moriarty said in his post plus 'c' for crouch. I will make it similar to most modern FPS keyboard shortcuts with wasd for movement in addition to arrows. I will update the first post with a list when I have them implemented.

[smerch]

Tripp, will it be hardcoded or configurable? If the latter will it be just a config file or hotkeys can be adjustable while in the game?

[Tripp]

I was going for hardcoded but I could extend it to the options config file pretty easily I think. I'm not an sdl guru so an interactive screen is probably beyond my skills at this point.

[smerch]

Me too. But it worth the effort, so I can join in (to help).

[darkestaxe]

Any and all key-bindings should be rebind-able in any game. The whole point of OXC is to leave the bad parts of 1993 in 1993. In fact I think if we reach 1.0 and battlescape shortcuts aren't user rebind-able I'll have to tell The Cynical Brit on Daiky/SupSuper's ass's!

But seriously I think battlescape shortcuts should at least be in the rule-set/config, you may want to check with Daiky and see what his plans are for shortcuts.