1. WASD person?
2. Double mouse buttons type?
3. Game controller guy/gal?
4. Custom gaming mouse with a zillion buttons min/maxer?
4. Other?
Frankly, for non-escort play it probably doesn't matter much. But when you're trying to line-up cannons or a BO shot, the efficiency and responsiveness of your "steering" mechanism may make all the difference.
So, how do you steer *your* ship in STO PvP play? And while your at it, tell us how you handle other stuff, like throttle control and powers activation.
Note: I use the WASD keys with my left hand and the number keys pad to activate powers with my right. Not the most efficient solution, and it shows: I suck! :P
I use WASD, it may seem noobish but it's what I'm used to. I have a gaming mouse hooked up with Macros on the side buttons to activate certain key binds.
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So far the trend seems to be to use the directional keys and then supplement with mouse buttons.
Does anyone use their right hand for button actions? Or do you all keep your right hand glued to your mouse and just use its extra buttons (if any) to activate powers?
Is anybody actually mousing around their tray clicking stuff in combat? :eek:
I know that, once the melee starts, my hands stay glued to the keyboard. Only rarely do I use the mouse, and then only to adjust the camera angle.
There's another good topic: What camera mode do you use for PvP? Free? Follow Target? Chase?
WASD for steering, it feels nicer than trying to do it on the mouse, plus it frees up the mouse for camera setting. Throttle control depends, I did set up the side buttons on my mouse to give me an all stop and a one step forward buttons when I was flying my escorts, allowed me to spin round in a couple of seconds to line up cannons on some poor person's rear arc. Power activation is a mix, all my core skills are on the spacebar, everything else is on the numpad operated by my little finger and thumb on the left (Ctrl, Alt) and my hand on the right. I always use a free camera, I like to have the control over my viewpoint.
WASD for steering, it feels nicer than trying to do it on the mouse, plus it frees up the mouse for camera setting. Throttle control depends, I did set up the side buttons on my mouse to give me an all stop and a one step forward buttons when I was flying my escorts, allowed me to spin round in a couple of seconds to line up cannons on some poor person's rear arc. Power activation is a mix, all my core skills are on the spacebar, everything else is on the numpad operated by my little finger and thumb on the left (Ctrl, Alt) and my hand on the right. I always use a free camera, I like to have the control over my viewpoint.
So you alternate between mousing and numpad pressing...interesting. That's how I do it, as well, however I find it can be distracting when I'm trying to keep the camera on a fast moving target while also activating buffs.
Another Topic: How are people laying out their buff activations? I keep my most common ones in Tray 0 and just use the numpad to activate them. However, I have so many that I sometimes have to overflow into Tray 1, and that means a ctrl+keypress combo, which is not always convenient when fighting an escort in a turn battle.
As for a primary keybind, what do you folks use? Anyone map stuff to keys *other* than spacebar?
FWIW, I've got my ASDW keys all mapped to execute items in Tray 7. So A2D, TT, EPtX and TI all get cycled continuously whenever I turn or pitch. Spacebar also executes Tray 7 (for when I'm in a tight turn and can't maneuver) and also fires weapons - good for triggering a manual BO shot, etc.
i mostly use the mouse to steer, although i also use wasd when making certain turns or when i need to move the cam about (i use freelook cam). btw, it would be great if my cam didnt always resort to 'follow target'!
i use the mousewheel for throttle and q/e to zoom/unzoom.
i have my cycly skills bound into two groups of two- so four keys: gbcz. two keys are defensive-based and two are offensive-based. i do not bind the alpha-strike buffs, nor gdf, tet cascade, etc.
i also tend to run things in reverse, like a flight sim. mousewheel back to accelerate, inverted mouse y axis, etc.
Two-button mouse for steering, with one-button mouse camera control. The mousewheel is for throttle control, with a side button will rebind that if I need to quickly adjust my camera zoom. I've never managed to get the hang of wasd movement in any game.
The most frequently used abilities get broken into groups:
T for Tac Teams
H for EPtX abilities
G for attack patterns
Y for cannons/beam overloads.
Everything else uses the number keys or I use it infrequently enough that manually clicking the ability tray isn't a problem.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced I should try mouse steering. WASD is great for basic maneuvers/cruiser play, however, I can't help but feel I'm losing some turn potential due to keyboard lag, lack of key repeat (when jamming a single directional key in a tight circle-battle), etc. Gotta be a better way...
Pitch Up - W
Pitch Down - S
Turn Left - A
Turn Right - D
Throttle Forward - E
Throttle Back - Q
RMB-Drag to rotate the camera, sometimes dropping in the LMB as well just to steer that way if I've got to scratch my nose...course, sometimes that causes me to fire prematurely.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced I should try mouse steering. WASD is great for basic maneuvers/cruiser play, however, I can't help but feel I'm losing some turn potential due to keyboard lag, lack of key repeat (when jamming a single directional key in a tight circle-battle), etc. Gotta be a better way...
Keep it going, guys! Lots of wisdom on display!
RCK
Get a slow turning Cruiser and EWP. Hit up some NPCs and paint them. Not a stream of EWP, but a puddle - forward, backward, turning, forward, backward. Move to a faster boat with EWP. Work your way up in speed as you paint them. Eventually, you won't even think about it while flying - it will be reflex as you work the throttle control into your pitch/turn to dance your nose on the target. As you get used to the ship, you'll work the inertia into it - working the slide - start going Dukes of Hazard with powerslides, bootleggers, and the rest.
My rule for all PVP games: do not move your hands. If you are picking up your hand to reach a key thats used in combat often then you need to redo your layout (out-of-combat keys like chat or map view dont matter).
For me, left hand is always set to the home-row position (ASDF) and right hand is always on the mouse. With my left hand in this position, I can reach the whole left half of my keyboard without moving my hand; I use ESDF for steering, which frees up my pinky for modifiers and specials (shift, tab, tilde, etc), and can reach 6/H/N with my index finger, which gives me a lot of keys for specials. The mouse is used to control camera position and zoom, targeting, and throttle. I use mouse steering for small craft (fighters and shuttles) because they are too twitchy for keyboard control, but the behavior changed in one of the S9 updates and its not reliable now. I would use the mouse more if I could remap the buttons the way I want, but some of the controls are undocumented or unchangeable.
ps--I havent owned a joystick for 10 years but have thought about getting one. Might be able to do some interesting things with a hat and camera/targeting, plus get more fire controls onto the right hand so i'm not bashing space bar as much.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Well, I use WASD+SB+numbers for regular stuff, mouse side buttons for pwr conf and some switching to off/def, mouse wheel for throttle, and clicking on some powers, Page up, and down for zoom, varies on ship and capt.
Tried with PS controler, but camera gets tricky although flying fast ships is more precise(on paper)
On escorts both. When the match is in a slow phase, i use WASD since it's easy to stay front and shoot with my DHCs; when i need to stay focused on a fast target, i use the double mouse buttons, so i can better steer my ship. Q+E for standard speed modifier and my personal binds near the left hand
On Healers and Sci's WASD.
WASD + throttle on mouse wheel. I use a Naga mouse so my top tray is all bound to my side buttons. Tray 1 is 1-6 number keys, tray 2 is Shift 1-6, Ctrl 1-4. Shield distro is on ~.
Mouse usually, I only go near WASD if I'm reversing. I'm a leftie too, so that might have something to do with it. Setting up the keyboard for lefties inevitably leaves you reaching for some awkward combos. My right hand lives on the keyboard and activates all of my abilities, no clicky clicky for me.
You just let go of 1 button for a sec or 2, no biggie.
Heh, I guess for some - it would explain to them why it looks like I'm flying around like I'm not looking where I'm going...cause odds are probably good at that point I'm literally not looking where I'm going.
Whether looking at a target, looking at what the expected path would be on that target and thus looking at what the expected paths to attack somebody on that path is - or - doing the support thing, trying to keep folks visually queued so I can try to avoid flying out of range of them and watching for where their flying might be leaving them open...I guess I'm just looking around.
But I guess that's tied into not really ever flying anybody that's built to kill - tend to be support or distraction. Toss some buffs/debuffs/heals...get somebody to burn some buffs/debuffs/heals...get folks chasing to maneuver them into position for somebody else...kiting...etc, etc, etc.
Figure I'm going to have a tough time with the two rerolls that I did to try to make kill boats. It's left me feeling like I'm flying blind with them - the narrow 45 arcs, more focused on keeping them on target (not the wheeee, here I am, come chase me and forget about the guys about to kill you)...because so far, lol - I'm definitely having trouble with them (outside of just the lack of piloting skill I have for the 45 arc, I keep getting blindsided by things that I normally would have seen coming - perhaps it's just the focus on the 45 arc being unnatural...meh...now I'm babbling...)...
arrow keys for movement, R ctrl and R shift for beam and torp fire, num pad for various binds like energy levels and target calling, throttle on mouse wheel, execute whole row binds on 5 different mouse buttons, zoom in and out on 2
I use WASD to steer. I use the numpad for tray. I use the math keys for power levels. I use binds to activate trays 5-8. I use chase cam and switch to target cam if I'm going against a fast opponent. Shift-F targets nearest ally.
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Harden up Princess
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(wasd/qe+mouse for camera and powers. no macros, follow target cam; ground-edit: wasd+numblock and barely mouse)
Right Hand: Razar Naga (Gaming MOuse with with a Num-Pad like buttons for the thumb)
Does anyone use their right hand for button actions? Or do you all keep your right hand glued to your mouse and just use its extra buttons (if any) to activate powers?
Is anybody actually mousing around their tray clicking stuff in combat? :eek:
I know that, once the melee starts, my hands stay glued to the keyboard. Only rarely do I use the mouse, and then only to adjust the camera angle.
There's another good topic: What camera mode do you use for PvP? Free? Follow Target? Chase?
RCK
So you alternate between mousing and numpad pressing...interesting. That's how I do it, as well, however I find it can be distracting when I'm trying to keep the camera on a fast moving target while also activating buffs.
Another Topic: How are people laying out their buff activations? I keep my most common ones in Tray 0 and just use the numpad to activate them. However, I have so many that I sometimes have to overflow into Tray 1, and that means a ctrl+keypress combo, which is not always convenient when fighting an escort in a turn battle.
As for a primary keybind, what do you folks use? Anyone map stuff to keys *other* than spacebar?
FWIW, I've got my ASDW keys all mapped to execute items in Tray 7. So A2D, TT, EPtX and TI all get cycled continuously whenever I turn or pitch. Spacebar also executes Tray 7 (for when I'm in a tight turn and can't maneuver) and also fires weapons - good for triggering a manual BO shot, etc.
RCK
Free-look mode, with most of my time spent holding down the right-mouse button and looking around.
Joypad for regular powers and dogfighting.
Mouse for target selection and casual flight.
Keyboard for irregular powers (like batteries, cruiser commands, set powers).
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i use the mousewheel for throttle and q/e to zoom/unzoom.
i have my cycly skills bound into two groups of two- so four keys: gbcz. two keys are defensive-based and two are offensive-based. i do not bind the alpha-strike buffs, nor gdf, tet cascade, etc.
i also tend to run things in reverse, like a flight sim. mousewheel back to accelerate, inverted mouse y axis, etc.
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Two buttoned mouse with free look.
My left hands too busy activating powers on the tray to steer!
Also, this thread is far more useful to less experienced pvp'ers than pretentious platitudes that include "team work is OP".
The most frequently used abilities get broken into groups:
T for Tac Teams
H for EPtX abilities
G for attack patterns
Y for cannons/beam overloads.
Everything else uses the number keys or I use it infrequently enough that manually clicking the ability tray isn't a problem.
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The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced I should try mouse steering. WASD is great for basic maneuvers/cruiser play, however, I can't help but feel I'm losing some turn potential due to keyboard lag, lack of key repeat (when jamming a single directional key in a tight circle-battle), etc. Gotta be a better way...
Keep it going, guys! Lots of wisdom on display!
RCK
Pitch Down - S
Turn Left - A
Turn Right - D
Throttle Forward - E
Throttle Back - Q
RMB-Drag to rotate the camera, sometimes dropping in the LMB as well just to steer that way if I've got to scratch my nose...course, sometimes that causes me to fire prematurely.
Get a slow turning Cruiser and EWP. Hit up some NPCs and paint them. Not a stream of EWP, but a puddle - forward, backward, turning, forward, backward. Move to a faster boat with EWP. Work your way up in speed as you paint them. Eventually, you won't even think about it while flying - it will be reflex as you work the throttle control into your pitch/turn to dance your nose on the target. As you get used to the ship, you'll work the inertia into it - working the slide - start going Dukes of Hazard with powerslides, bootleggers, and the rest.
For me, left hand is always set to the home-row position (ASDF) and right hand is always on the mouse. With my left hand in this position, I can reach the whole left half of my keyboard without moving my hand; I use ESDF for steering, which frees up my pinky for modifiers and specials (shift, tab, tilde, etc), and can reach 6/H/N with my index finger, which gives me a lot of keys for specials. The mouse is used to control camera position and zoom, targeting, and throttle. I use mouse steering for small craft (fighters and shuttles) because they are too twitchy for keyboard control, but the behavior changed in one of the S9 updates and its not reliable now. I would use the mouse more if I could remap the buttons the way I want, but some of the controls are undocumented or unchangeable.
ps--I havent owned a joystick for 10 years but have thought about getting one. Might be able to do some interesting things with a hat and camera/targeting, plus get more fire controls onto the right hand so i'm not bashing space bar as much.
Tried with PS controler, but camera gets tricky although flying fast ships is more precise(on paper)
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On Healers and Sci's WASD.
mouse wheel for throttle, freecam preferably, though sometimes it switches to follow target on me.
I have keys around wasd bound for certain powers/power group activations.
and I have several keybind files made to quickly switch when I change ships or layouts, depending on my objectives.
Derrick - Fed Eng
You just let go of 1 button for a sec or 2, no biggie.
Heh, I guess for some - it would explain to them why it looks like I'm flying around like I'm not looking where I'm going...cause odds are probably good at that point I'm literally not looking where I'm going.
Whether looking at a target, looking at what the expected path would be on that target and thus looking at what the expected paths to attack somebody on that path is - or - doing the support thing, trying to keep folks visually queued so I can try to avoid flying out of range of them and watching for where their flying might be leaving them open...I guess I'm just looking around.
But I guess that's tied into not really ever flying anybody that's built to kill - tend to be support or distraction. Toss some buffs/debuffs/heals...get somebody to burn some buffs/debuffs/heals...get folks chasing to maneuver them into position for somebody else...kiting...etc, etc, etc.
Figure I'm going to have a tough time with the two rerolls that I did to try to make kill boats. It's left me feeling like I'm flying blind with them - the narrow 45 arcs, more focused on keeping them on target (not the wheeee, here I am, come chase me and forget about the guys about to kill you)...because so far, lol - I'm definitely having trouble with them (outside of just the lack of piloting skill I have for the 45 arc, I keep getting blindsided by things that I normally would have seen coming - perhaps it's just the focus on the 45 arc being unnatural...meh...now I'm babbling...)...