G-keys, macros and keybinds

benalexander

Hello,

after years of playing STO my space bar finally broke - its sacrifice will be remembered. Looking for a new keyboard I saw that many come with G-keys, programmable keys or macro keys. This brings me to my question: Is the use of such features allowed in STO? I'm not taking about automating the whole gameplay, but e.g. having the space bar pressed with this G-key / macro to deal with the myriad of abilities.

I have looked through the forums and reddit and found every opinion ranging from “it's all banned and keybinds are pushing it” to “bots are perfectly fine and here is how you do it”. I can't help but think that those two extremes are equally wrong, but that there probably is a line somewhere. The Terms of service (obviously) ban tools that allow the game to “be played automatically without human input“. This makes me think that keyboard functions / macros might be ok, if they are not used to be AFK but rather to supplement player input. Is this correct? Am I allowed to use these hardware features in STO or am I risking a ban?

Greetings

BenAlexander

tom61sto

The only people I've heard of getting banned for this type of stuff are people either completely automating a task and then doing it non-stop for several hours beyond what a normal person would play, or people slaving multiple accounts to one control. Considering the amount of automation of in-game macro tools, it should be fine as long as you don't take it too far. Particularly avoid anything that looks suspicious to other players, as I bet most of the bans that aren't for a huge number of hours played in a short number of days, are instead based on player reports tipping them off. So, don't have your character spin in place and randomly fire in a ground map that had objectives all over(seen this happen) or such as that.

protoneous

I believe you nailed it with one provision at bottom*

Keybinds: Feel free to use keybinds to map your keyboard in a way that's convenient for you, even the space bar. This is done in-game. I use key binds to bind individual powers to a variety of standard keys in ways that work and are convenient for me. There are lots of extra keys, including the tilde and at least a couple on your mouse as well.

Macros: Feel free to use macros within the in-game macro system so you can tie other abilities to a key press (i.e. pressing the space bar also activates tactical team) or where pressing the same key multiple times activates a series of abilities in a set order. Used by many players to activate standard rotations of boff abilities on their ships.

Full automation: Yup, that would be a TOS violation. You don't want to do that. You risk, well, everything up to losing your account permanently so just don't.

* What I'm unsure of is whether those extra G-keys and the manufacturer's software are compatible with STO which is why I'm suggesting trying to map them to other standard keys that STO will recognize in-game. Many keyboard manufacturer's have them (even some mice do), but are they usable even in this simplest fashion?

For example extra key #1 now mapped to [ key etc. which the game can now recognize? My own Razer keyboard has them but tbh I haven't tried to set them up in the manner above as I usually use a few keys on the keypad for extras when using a full sized keyboard.

Perhaps somebody else who has a keyboard or mouse with extra keys for gaming could fill in? These extra keys certainly would come in handy being so close to WASD.

benalexander

protoneous wrote: »

Macros: Feel free to use macros within the in-game macro system so you can tie other abilities to a key press (i.e. pressing the space bar also activates tactical team) or where pressing the same key multiple times activates a series of abilities in a set order. Used by many players to activate standard rotations of boff abilities on their ships.

Full automation: Yup, that would be a TOS violation. You don't want to do that. You risk, well, everything up to losing your account permanently so just don't.

Thank you for your answer. I'm not trying to automate everything. Where would be the fun in that?
Keybinds and activating a whole tray of abilities in succession by pressing one key is something I've been doing for years. It does work well, but it is tedious at times: Pressing the space bar a few times every second until everything gets going makes my thumb hurt and my space bar scream in agony. That's why these keyboard features caught my eye. I am mostly interested in the area between what I think is a “full” automation and simple in-game macros: a function that automatically presses the space bar to activate the corresponding abilities while I concentrate on important stuff. This is what I am unsure about. Does it still count as “full automation” even though there would be a lot of things left to do manually?

protoneous

A grey area perhaps best left answered in a non-specific way as it already has been.

To add to what has already been said most of the bans or other actions that I've heard of have been in response to automation of a pretty flagrant nature that was also for profit.

Your intent is to manually fly your ship and be at the controls and keyboard. That part sounds good

I'd be happy knowing if there is a way to make the extra 'gaming keys' visible in-game for use whether they're on a gaming keyboard or mouse. Is this possible? That's the part of your thread that caught my eye.

protoneous

benalexander wrote: »

Thank you for your answer.

Thank you for your question as it provided the me (a novice with my own gaming keyboard lol) with the incentive to explore my own keyboard's 'g-keys' and mouse a bit more thoroughly.

It's pretty easy to assign any in-game key to the g-keys or mouse buttons, as well as do 'quite a few other things'.

It's not my intent to execute out of game macros, but to use the extra g-keys to execute single key clicks or with the existing STO in-game keybind file scripting system.

Always follow the TOS.

bossheisenberg

benalexander wrote: »

Hello,

after years of playing STO my space bar finally broke - its sacrifice will be remembered. Looking for a new keyboard I saw that many come with G-keys, programmable keys or macro keys. This brings me to my question: Is the use of such features allowed in STO? I'm not taking about automating the whole gameplay, but e.g. having the space bar pressed with this G-key / macro to deal with the myriad of abilities.

I have looked through the forums and reddit and found every opinion ranging from “it's all banned and keybinds are pushing it” to “bots are perfectly fine and here is how you do it”. I can't help but think that those two extremes are equally wrong, but that there probably is a line somewhere. The Terms of service (obviously) ban tools that allow the game to “be played automatically without human input“. This makes me think that keyboard functions / macros might be ok, if they are not used to be AFK but rather to supplement player input. Is this correct? Am I allowed to use these hardware features in STO or am I risking a ban?

Greetings

BenAlexander

I use an Acer Predator which has macro keys and a very easy to use program to set them up. What I thought I could do with STO and maybe what you are asking about is setting a macro up to activate an entire tray of powers with the press of a single macro key. Unfortunately this is not the case. When I tried to do this, it just worked the same as any of my other keybinds. I had huge hopes of pressing one key a single time to activate an entire tray in succession, but that is either not possible or I am not doing it correctly. I have heard that it is not possible so don't get too excited.