Putting more of the Keyboard in the game

[Black Gas]

This, and group selection, order cuing, waypoints, etc. seems a pretty common back and forth around here.

why not have both? Have it be an option when posting a game.
If they put in a ranking system, then special ranking would be given for hardcore players who do it the old way.

Personally I'd prefer hot keys and a little more ease of use. I think it would make the game more fun, to be able to focus on strategy a little more, than having to click furiously to keep my bombers from flying suicide missions into destroyers while dealing with an attacking fleet on my other coast.

[Ace Rimmer]

This, and group selection, order cuing, waypoints, etc. seems a pretty common back and forth around here.

why not have both? Have it be an option when posting a game.
If they put in a ranking system, then special ranking would be given for hardcore players who do it the old way.

Personally I'd prefer hot keys and a little more ease of use. I think it would make the game more fun, to be able to focus on strategy a little more, than having to click furiously to keep my bombers from flying suicide missions into destroyers while dealing with an attacking fleet on my other coast.

Ah, but that is part of the strategy. Mastering your units and multiple coasts is all part of the game. Clicking furiously isn't, unless you're going head to head with a pretty good player or its 5x min or something of the sort.

[Black Gas]

This, and group selection, order cuing, waypoints, etc. seems a pretty common back and forth around here.

why not have both? Have it be an option when posting a game.
If they put in a ranking system, then special ranking would be given for hardcore players who do it the old way.

Personally I'd prefer hot keys and a little more ease of use. I think it would make the game more fun, to be able to focus on strategy a little more, than having to click furiously to keep my bombers from flying suicide missions into destroyers while dealing with an attacking fleet on my other coast.

Ah, but that is part of the strategy. Mastering your units and multiple coasts is all part of the game. Clicking furiously isn't, unless you're going head to head with a pretty good player or its 5x min or something of the sort.

yep, that's my point. Interface issues get in the way of that. Perhaps the bombers resorting to suicide runs isn't the best example, as that's just the game mechanics (not sure how making them more intelligent, like keeping maximum effective range when attacking, would change the game balance, but not that big of a deal).

Better example -- I don't think the game would lose anything by being able to click on a ship and press 'b' to select a bomber, instead of having to right click, select bomber from the pull down menu, then deploy, rinse repeat for your other ships (and having to stop and zoom out if you right click on a carrier too close to the bottom of the screen, so you cant see the entire menu). It would make the game alot more fluid and fun. It should be about how good you are managing your fleet and units under stress, not how good you are using a context menu under stress.

Anyway, point is -- why not make some of these things a game option, instead of arguing that there's only one best way? A checkbox for 'keyboard shortcuts' or whatever in advanced game options. Then everyone's happy.

[xander]

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I think you got the reaction that you got because you did not explain yourself well in your first post. When I read your first post, I thought you meant adding in hotkeys for various units, as has been discussed many times in the past. What you are suggesting is not that, at all. While I honestly don't think that your suggestion would make that much difference (it basically comes down to the difference between one keystroke vs one mouse click), I think it is a good one.

In fact, the last time anything like this came up, I think I agreed that there are some things that should have hotkeys. I think that all of the display buttons should have hotkeys (i.e. "U" of "unit deployment", "R" for RADAR, &c.). To add to this, I think that your idea of hotkeys for the menu options on units is a good idea. Right-click on a unit, then hit a key to select an order type, i.e. right-click on a bomber and hit "S" to put it into SRBM mode. I like the idea.

To expand upon it, what if it were done with number keys? There are not more than three orders per unit, so use 8, 9, and 0. Right-click on a carrier, the menus pops up:
8 - Launch Fighter (120 secs)
9 - Launch Bomber (120 secs)
0 - Anti-Sub Mode (240 secs)

I suggest 8-9, as 1-4 are already used to control speed, and I think that it should be possible to change speed at any time, regardless of whatever else is going on.

Also, I see no need to make this an "optional" setting. Either people will use it, and it is there for them, or they won't, but it is still there for them.

xander

[Bad Intel]

I like where you're going with hotkeys for the display buttons, xander. There's one specific implementation of this that I would love though:

I would assign the bottom row of the keyboard to match the display button order.
So 'ZXCVBNM<>?'. These are ideal to me since your hand is already at ASDW for camera movements.

The behaviour that I would prefer is this. Hold down one of these keys alone and you get 'active while pressed' response. A 'shift+key' combo would toggle the menu option on and off. When the option is shift-keyed ON, press and holding that key gives you 'inactive while pressed' response.

I play the game with Orders and Radar view turned on always. However, I find the need to turn off these options for small blips comes up every now and then. Such as when two fleets are engaged. If you're micro-ing heavily, there are command icons all over the place. It would be nice to just be able to press and hold a key for a few seconds to clear the view.

Another one is when you just fired all your silos and the fan of order lines is blocking an opposing fleet's activity. All you want is just a quick glance at what is going on. So pressing the corresponding key for Order menu would give you a clear view while pressed.