The rather uninteresting key bindings findings of a very new CMDR.
02 Mar 2021Lhorndra
This is not a proper log entry. This is quite the opposite of a gripping tale of space adventure. It’s what my parents always told me: Lhorndra, you always organise and rearrange everything so many times around that you’ll never get any real work done.
Like killing pirates.
(OK, they didn’t say that last bit.)
I don’t know what it is with these ship controls nowadays. Don’t like them. Took me hours to reconfigure them. Well, days actually. Apparently, the controls on my Cobra Mk III and my Scarab SRV aren’t manufactured by Faulcon deLacy or Vodel themselves, but rather by a third-party supplier called Thrustmaster. Don’t know them, probably one of the millions of Federation companies. Their throttle & stick feel okay, I suppose. With the exception of the left hand POV hat, alas.
Anyway, I like my cockpit to be arranged logically by function, if ergonomically feasible. My left hand on the throttle controls the engines, vehicle systems, utilities and – if I can afford them – fighter pilots. My right hand on the stick steers the ship, of course, and is responsible for hardpoints and targeting. That’s why I balance my power distribution pips with my left thumb, not the right one like many others.
As I said, the POV hat on my throttle just doesn’t feel right. It’s… too sensitive, maybe? I put the pip distribution on the D-pad below, just to be extra sure. That D-pad feels soooo comfortable. Mmmmmh. The bottom D-pad is for countermeasures and the likes. It feels like an angry warthog anyway.
Moving on. Beneath the stick, the six buttons on its left still belong to the systems & utilities group. On its right side we have travel, nagivation and exploration grouped together. I put the less critical functions there, because I can’t see these buttons during flight and would probably miss them in a hurry, embossed or not. As important as the galaxy map may be, it’s not during combat.
Speaking of combat: on my flight stick, I put the secondary fire on button 3, not on the more usual button 2. Simply because it feels more comfortable for me pressing buttons 1 and 3 simultaneously in combat than pressing buttons 1 and 2.
So here they are, my button bindings. Oh, I almost forgot: There’s a modifier button on the throttle. If I hold it while pressing another button, the red coloured functions will be triggered. If I’m poking around the user interface, the blue stuff applies. I also copied a lot of the functions to my old-fashioned keyboard, because in space, you’ll never know on what kind of odyssey you’re going to be. And did I tell you how comfortable that D-pad on the throttle feels?
Now, I’ve seen a lot of different targeting bindings. For me, it only makes sense if I use a DOWN arrow for a SUB system and an UP arrow for the HIGHEST threat. So there.
The Bindings Findings Series:
- Be in control of the ship controls (this entry right here)
- What to do with all those buttons while sitting in a SRV
- How to use scanners
- Gallivanting around the galaxy map
Rookie pilot Lhorndra signing off to bind more buttons.
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Huge thanks to EdCardRef and GIMP.