Map Down Arrow key to stop ship

Post ideas & suggestions you have pertaining to the game here.
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One keybind I always use is mapping Stop to Down Arrow. That Down Arrow would thrust by default is likely unexpected behavior to new players.
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Definitely caught me by surprise the first time I played. I was certain I'd broken something until I looked at the beginner's guide. :oops:

As an idea, it would be nice for future builds to have a "left-handed" and "right-handed" setup so that accidentally brushing the wrong part of the keyboard doesn't blow the last friendly station in the system into the next century.

On that day I learned the hard way not to lazily rest my hands on the keyboard. I also learned that Commonwealth justice is swift and harsh, even several systems away from the scene of a crime with no possible way of data being transferred between systems... Oh well. I learned my lesson and from that day forth blew up stations first, then docked later.
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Location: Hmm... I'm confused. Anybody have a starmap to the Core?

Seconded. Having it as period or something else other than down arrow by default is a bit confusing for a new player.
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Thirded. And while we're discussing the key bindings, Enter is a really bad key to be bound to FireMissile, since it's used to advance dialog and close some dockscreens. I can't imagine where your hands would have to be during gameplay for that binding to make sense, either. It used to be possible to unbind a key by removing the entry from the XML, but now the game just restores it to the default, so I have to bind it to something less dangerous, like Stop.
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NMS wrote:Thirded. And while we're discussing the key bindings, Enter is a really bad key to be bound to FireMissile, since it's used to advance dialog and close some dockscreens. I can't imagine where your hands would have to be during gameplay for that binding to make sense, either. It used to be possible to unbind a key by removing the entry from the XML, but now the game just restores it to the default, so I have to bind it to something less dangerous, like Stop.
I believe missiles can also be fired with shift. That's what I've been using, at least.
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JohnBWatson wrote:
NMS wrote:Thirded. And while we're discussing the key bindings, Enter is a really bad key to be bound to FireMissile, since it's used to advance dialog and close some dockscreens. I can't imagine where your hands would have to be during gameplay for that binding to make sense, either. It used to be possible to unbind a key by removing the entry from the XML, but now the game just restores it to the default, so I have to bind it to something less dangerous, like Stop.
I believe missiles can also be fired with shift. That's what I've been using, at least.
 “Shift” is what the hint at the start of the game tells you to use to fire missiles, true. What that hint doesn’t tell you is that if you hit “Enter” to advance a dockscreen before you’ve actually docked (and trust me, I do that entirely too often), you just put a Stiletto into whatever you’re trying to to dock with — or, more obnoxiously, into the Ronin/A guarding it. I’m definitely in favor of not having “Enter” as a default keybinding to fire the launcher.
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AssumedPseudonym wrote:
JohnBWatson wrote:
NMS wrote:Thirded. And while we're discussing the key bindings, Enter is a really bad key to be bound to FireMissile, since it's used to advance dialog and close some dockscreens. I can't imagine where your hands would have to be during gameplay for that binding to make sense, either. It used to be possible to unbind a key by removing the entry from the XML, but now the game just restores it to the default, so I have to bind it to something less dangerous, like Stop.
I believe missiles can also be fired with shift. That's what I've been using, at least.
 “Shift” is what the hint at the start of the game tells you to use to fire missiles, true. What that hint doesn’t tell you is that if you hit “Enter” to advance a dockscreen before you’ve actually docked (and trust me, I do that entirely too often), you just put a Stiletto into whatever you’re trying to to dock with — or, more obnoxiously, into the Ronin/A guarding it. I’m definitely in favor of not having “Enter” as a default keybinding to fire the launcher.
Yikes, I was unaware of that. Seconded.
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I would like down arrow to stop the ship.

It would also be nice to keep [Enter] as a [Shift] alternative (partially due to Sticky Keys prompt in Windows) and add [Ins] or [0] as an alternative for [Space] to let players fight using only the number pad.

Before I played Transcendence, I played Ur-Quan Masters (a.k.a. Star Control 2) with the number pad. A bit awkward at first, but after I got used to it, it was nice to fight battles with only one hand.
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I've been trying to mess around with the keybindings myself (settings.xml) - but I can't seem to make it bind to the number pad? I'm just using "2" etc, but that's not working.

I'm trying to get the game to play using the Emulated On-Screen keyboard of my Surface, but for that to work, I'd need to remap quite a few keys, probably to the number pad.
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ThePrivateer wrote:I've been trying to mess around with the keybindings myself (settings.xml) - but I can't seem to make it bind to the number pad? I'm just using "2" etc, but that's not working.

I'm trying to get the game to play using the Emulated On-Screen keyboard of my Surface, but for that to work, I'd need to remap quite a few keys, probably to the number pad.
Try:

Numpad0
Numpad1
Numpad2
Numpad3
Numpad4
Numpad5
Numpad6
Numpad7
Numpad8
Numpad9
NumpadStar
NumpadPlus
NumpadSeparator
NumpadMinus
NumpadPeriod
NumpadSlash

Let me know if it works.
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george moromisato wrote:
ThePrivateer wrote: I'm trying to get the game to play using the Emulated On-Screen keyboard of my Surface, but for that to work, I'd need to remap quite a few keys, probably to the number pad.
Try:

Numpad0
Numpad1
/snip
No luck I'm afraid. The on-screen keyboard takes up a fair bit of room anyway, and Trans seems to get 'stuck' sometimes just firing in a straight line. Some of the keys work, like all of your docking etc features, but I can't get the directional movement to work - even using the default 'alt' of J/K/L. Seems to be more of an issue with the OSKeyboard though.

It's fine, I'll just snap my keyboard on!
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george moromisato wrote:
ThePrivateer wrote:I've been trying to mess around with the keybindings myself (settings.xml) - but I can't seem to make it bind to the number pad? I'm just using "2" etc, but that's not working.

I'm trying to get the game to play using the Emulated On-Screen keyboard of my Surface, but for that to work, I'd need to remap quite a few keys, probably to the number pad.
Try:

Numpad0
Numpad1
Numpad2
...
It worked perfectly fine on my laptop.
PM wrote:I would like down arrow to stop the ship.

It would also be nice to keep [Enter] as a [Shift] alternative (partially due to Sticky Keys prompt in Windows) and add [Ins] or [0] as an alternative for [Space] to let players fight using only the number pad.

Before I played Transcendence, I played Ur-Quan Masters (a.k.a. Star Control 2) with the number pad. A bit awkward at first, but after I got used to it, it was nice to fight battles with only one hand.
Unfortunately, some keyboards (especially laptops) don't have [Ins] or Numpads. I agree that playing one-handed on numpad is fun but I had to buy/install an external one before I could boost my laziness levels quite that high. :wink:
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catfighter wrote:
george moromisato wrote:
ThePrivateer wrote:I've been trying to mess around with the keybindings myself (settings.xml) - but I can't seem to make it bind to the number pad? I'm just using "2" etc, but that's not working.

I'm trying to get the game to play using the Emulated On-Screen keyboard of my Surface, but for that to work, I'd need to remap quite a few keys, probably to the number pad.
Try:

Numpad0
Numpad1
Numpad2
...
It worked perfectly fine on my laptop.
Hmm. In the end, I found an extra setting on my Surface to use a full-keyboard with ESC, arrow keys and all that, and the game works fine (but I lose so much screen space, that it's barely worth it).

On a side note, Trans runs flawlessly on my FHD+ hi-def screen, which is more than can be said for a fair few other games I've tried recently. Kudos George, your rendering engine is coded pretty solidly!
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