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Does the keybind posted by Hilbert a few years ago still work?

I haven't played in a few years and was thinking about playing the game again. I used the "Hilbert Guide" and blog to help with my ship building. I'm pretty sure all of that isn't all that viable anymore with many changes. Anyway, I'm just curious about his spacebar keybind and what, if any, changes I should make to it for use today.

Answers

  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    Was horrible then, is horrible now. Basically, if you bind everything to spacebar, the ability activations will start to disturb each other and you end up with an incoherent mess where nothing activates when you want it. Leave spacebar to weapons and *maybe* (although even that is not preferable) to couple of very core abilities you always want to have active, like Attack Pattern Beta or Scatter Volley/Fire at Will.

    For even further explanation, watch this:
    https://youtu.be/HHgxJ6fb3Qw?t=15m35s
  • sharpfangjr#5006 sharpfangjr Member Posts: 31 Arc User
    He made some good points. I agree with his concepts, but the reason I liked using a keybind is because of the pain in my joints. Moving my hands and fingers around a lot gets painful after a while.
  • node31#9773 node31 Member Posts: 39 Arc User
    as soon as you start binding anything to spacebar, its starts to mess with firing cycle of your weapons... I have much buttons on mouse, so I bind core abilities to them, and others to rest of keys on keyboard that are easy to reach out... But spacebar is only for firing weapons...
  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,951 Arc User
    Thanks tune for posting that video. Would never have believed how badly BtSB can mess things up until seeing it demonstrated there.

    54:20 "Believe me. Why would you believe me? Well, I'm the guy who does the most damage..."
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    trendor77 wrote: »
    He made some good points. I agree with his concepts, but the reason I liked using a keybind is because of the pain in my joints. Moving my hands and fingers around a lot gets painful after a while.

    Alright, how about this solution? Leave one key (for example, spacebar, cause it's that by default) to weapons only. Make a bind for another key where you put your offensive abilities on that you'd want to cycle all the time (Emergency Power to Weapons, Tactical Team, Attack Pattern Beta, Scatter Volley or Fire at Will, maybe some captain abilities too). If your joint condition is really bad, you can also try to make a third one where you put all of your heals (and remember not to mash that one!).

    That still gives you much more control over the game, as opposed to clumping everything together to spacebar and then wondering why your weapons aren't shooting.

    Another video for inspiration, to show you a keybind combination example that actually works:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdu3AWuDLko
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    The main reason the Hilbert Bind is so bad is because it's set to redistribute shields every time you press the button. This is what interrupts your firing cycles and makes it so bad. You can probably get by just fine with that bind by just removing the redistribute, that's similar to what I do.

    I use a space bar bind that just contains things that I always want to fire off as soon as they're available. Usually I just slot my Emergency Power to X and launch carrier pets to this. I like to go through my abilities manually, but you could put all your tactical stuff here too. If you really want to do it this way, make a bind that just fires a certain tray, for this example we'll say tray 7 when you press space. Make sure the bind does not redistribute shields.

    You would then set up tray 7 with tactical abilities that you will always use. For example something like Emergency Power to Weapons, Emergency Power to Shields, Attack Pattern Beta, Kemocite, Tactical Team, Fire At Will. If you run Aux2 Bat, then you would put the A2B abilities last so that they fire after everything else, lowering your global cooldown. You could then just use space to keep this rotation going and as long as you don't just mash space over and over it would work well enough. You could move re-distribute shields to something like Shift or Ctrl and just hit it when you need it.

    If you don't know how to create binds, just download STO Keybind. It's an easy to use program that lets you make your own binds. Just remember, re-distribute shields is the killer, keep it off your bind and you should be ok.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • wildcard#0935 wildcard Member Posts: 15 Arc User
    $$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields

    Delete that and you're set.
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    Question: WHY is "distribute shields" manually triggered by player interaction interrupting firing cycles and NOT a billion other things that trigger off automatically?

    I can not remember what it was called, maybe it was a console thing from my Pilot Raptors....where I had a little missile trigger off every few seconds while in combat no interaction from me, the program did it by itself. Turn the Other Cheek triggers off the immunity...the program keeps track automatically sets it off. Or Pedal to the Medal...automatic.

    Why doesn't THAT interrupt firing cycles?

    And how does one actually SEE it in the game when and if your firing cycle IS interrupted? Can you even tell?

    How do we know that "distribute shields" interaction is one that is easy to see....but what about all the rest of the stuff that has been added since?
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    Ok, so people are saying that Distribute shields is the main culprit. I fully agree, but... Every time you add something to your "fire all weapons" key, the more likely it becomes that you activate something *other* than weapons (that you really want to have blazing all the time). So yes, I agree that if you don't care about ultimate optimization, then putting few offensive powers you'd want to cycle all the time anyway to spacebar is good enough.

    But add too much filler on it, and you'll still end up losing valuable seconds activating something you don't need at all. Picture a situation where there's only a weak enemy left, but in order to actually kill it, game cycles through all of your long CD captain powers, or worse, heals or consumables, just because you have bound everything on the same key. That seems like an awful waste.
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    How would I see this???

    It makes no sense...it can't just be manual activation messing with firing cycles.
    Anything triggered at the wrong time could potentially push your firing cycle off.

    And it doesn't just have to be the firing cycle being messed with. I wonder if things with animations are being messed up. I vaguely recall someone talking about problems with Rock and Roll while I was on Risa..and I wasn't interested in looking into it closer att...because RISA!!

    I wonder if immunity from Rock and Roll is tied to that animation??? If it is and animation gets shut off, you have no immunity from Rock and Roll. Still have not had time.... so distracted by everything else these days.

    OOps sorry, off topic.

    Anhoo... I have to see it to believe it. How would I test this firing cycle thing?
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    where2r1 wrote: »
    And how does one actually SEE it in the game when and if your firing cycle IS interrupted? Can you even tell?

    Your weapons stop shooting. That's it. Look at the first video I posted in this thread. They are highlighted, but won't actually shoot.
    where2r1 wrote: »
    it can't just be manual activation messing with firing cycles.

    It is. Every time you manually activate an ability, everything else goes to a 0.5-1s (depending on the ability) lockdown. Nothing else, including weapons (since those count as abilities too), simply can activate during that period. As for how could you see it? Just look at your weapons. Do they all activate at the same time or subsequently, with small gaps before another one fires? (Spoiler alert: it's the latter)
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    Hmmm...well, highlighted? Interesting. I will look at the vid, again. Tomorrow.

    Why only on manual activations? Because everything is an activation, why would the program differentiate between auto or manual? It all gets lined up in the order that they came in? Don't they?
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    I am going to sleep. Thanks for everything. Catch up with this in the morning.
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    where2r1 wrote: »
    How would I see this???

    When you fire your weapon it will start to cycle. When you look down at the weapon tray you will see a little bar over the weapon spinning clockwise back up toward 12:00. When it reaches the top of the circle, that cycle is complete. I ideally, you want to have all your weapons firing their full rotation on the same cycle.. that is ideal, not always possible. When you activate a disruptive ability, the cycle resets itself and when that happens, the weapon stops firing. Being perfectly honest, it's one of the more difficult things in STO to manage and you can drive yourself a little nuts worrying about it too much. but what tunebreaker said is completely accurate. The biggest culprit is just trying to fire everything all in one shot which is why binds can often lower overall damage. Also, the scenario he mentioned where you are activating all your powers just to take out one last Borg Sphere and putting everything on cool down going into the next fight.

    Ultimately, the best way is to play around with your own binds. Find what works for you and do that. Personally, I bind my emergency powers and do everything else the old fashioned way (I click it manually.) I also have a separate button (left shift) that distributes my shields. I do have some builds though where I use cannons and build to keep Scatter Volley at 100% uptime, I tend to bind more powers on those builds then I do on my beam builds. I also like to bind my throttle controls to my extra mouse buttons to help make those quicker ships 'dance' when trying to hold narrow arc weapons on target.

    It's all about what works for you.. you just have to play around with it until you find a setup you like. :smile:
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    Thanks guys....

    I remember something about circles and lines designating cycles on the weapons in the video...but what I forgot is today is the Hubby's B-day...soooooooo, yeah, studying is going to have to wait. Again. LOL!
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • darpinkdarpink Member Posts: 340 Arc User
    I still use it and it works just fine. But keep in mind that "binding everything" you use in battle is not necessarily the way to go. You only want to bind the skills that have short cooldowns. I've had no issues whatsoever with the Hilbert Guide key binds.
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    Re: Watching weapons cycling...very difficult during combat. LOL!

    When Ryan says he is "spamming the space bar"...what does that mean, because to me it says: repeatedly hitting the spacebar continuously.

    If that is what he means by spamming space bar, I don't have to do it. Because of my targeting settings. I have not looked at what those are, yet, exactly. I only have to hit space bar once to acquire closest target, twice to start firing. Once in a while I have to hit it again because, for some reason, everything stops. ??? Even when target is still alive and acquired and in firing arc. ???

    Although, because I was looking at the weapons cycling, I saw in my BoP, I have just as much time with weapons not firing because target is out of my firing arc. I always considered this a problem with turn rate...hence always looking for more sources.

    But, now, I believe it may be a setting with my mouse. Is it "mouse sensitivity" that allows slight movement with my mouse to translate to more movement on the screen? I have to go fiddle with this. And I am not sure if that is a Windows setting or a STO program setting issue.

    So, I need to fix my mouse, before I can actually see this weapons cycling thing. OR teach myself to use the keyboard keys to assist with turns, if I can not use the mouse effectively.

    Frtoaster put a bug in my ear that I should try using the keyboard. When I used the "A" on the keyboard, I noticed sharper turns from the ship on screen. That is how I figured out this thing with my mouse! So, yeah, I really have to fix that first.
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    Mouse thing turned out to be just a mouse thing...

    There is no restrictions to movement when using a keyboard stroke. Whereas, my mouse movements are restricted by how far my wrist and arm can move around and if the mouse is free from obstructions.

    Also, learned that Windows has a setting that is assisting user cursor movements. "Enhanced pointer precision" is, now, turned OFF on my computer. Hopefully, I will have better response from the game when interacting with my mouse.

    ++++++++++++++++++NOTES...I want to write all this down while it is in my head...I am going on 3 hours of sleep, and I am fading fast.....

    Back to the main question: Is weapons fire interrupted by player inputs or by automatic inputs?

    Set up BoP: all same type of weapons fore...remove all weapons aft. Just for ease of observation.
    Don't forget to turn on the flying combat numbers.

    Watch Distribute shields, Pedal to the Metal, Turn the Other Cheek, Scratch the Paint activate...watch for firing cycle changes.

    Test with Distribute shields on space bar with FirePhasers. Check if it makes a difference what the order these are in the keybind text.

    Try with AutoFire on and off.

    +++++++++++++++++++++

    Also, while I am at this, I will be checking "Rock and Roll". For immunity.

    I already know that stray torpedo from off the screen will interrupt the animation if it hits during the barrel roll.
    Just like any animation in this game stops on any interaction.

    I am going to assume that anything targeted at the ship BEFORE it goes into the barrel roll will continue on the trajectory and hit the ship. Interrupting the roll animation. I believe same problem exists with Pilot maneuvers, now. If I am remembering some posts I read way back when I was on Risa.

    What I am looking for is: immunity canceled by animation being turning off?

    Animations being on or off as the indicator to the program as to when player is under immunity, when it can be turned on and off with any interactions, is kinda odd. I am hoping this is not happening. But seeing how cloak (immunity to targeting) works...I am not hopeful.

    HMMMMMMM...I should probably start all this in a new thread.

    NAP TIME
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited September 2018
    More notes: Only item I am aware of inside the game that blocks animations from effecting characters is the anti-discoball Nullifier thing. And that is always ON, only the disco ball aura. And on ground, of course.
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    Hilberts bind is fine. Just remove the distribute shield. Even if you don't and you're not into hyper dps it's fine.
    Tza0PEl.png
  • darpinkdarpink Member Posts: 340 Arc User
    nikephorus wrote: »
    Hilberts bind is fine. Just remove the distribute shield. Even if you don't and you're not into hyper dps it's fine.

    Can you please tell us how to find the correct file so we can delete the distribute shields command? I just want to be sure that I'm not deleting the wrong thing.
    Thanks in advance!
  • charon83charon83 Member Posts: 96 Arc User
    Here's an optional suggestion which requires a bit of hardware to work (or software solutions really) but this might be a more "modern" approach:

    Just google (or any other search engine) "STOKeybind tool" and clear up 6 Action bars in space (the way i do it - so explaining it this way) - now remove all keybinds from the 6 bars and start the tool. Next setup custom button presses for the toolbars - that way if you press 1 you can press it multiple times to hit the next slot on the bar. To give you a better picture: Actionbar 1 = button 1 slot 1 - 12. Each successive button press will, if ability in slot 1 is already in use/on cooldown jump to the one after that and so forth. Now comes the fun part, if you own a logitech/razor or any other keyboard that comes with software or extra buttons, you can assign Button 1 to a macro and then automate it - have it press multiple times per second to basically spam that button, therefore spam activate all abilities and THIS is where it gets somewhat complicated because you have to figure out how far you can go with which abilities to not TRIBBLE up the firing cycle - always make sure you still have control, this is however VERY useful to run Aux2Bat + abilities that should be on cooldown at all times to automate a large part of it all. My favourite being an automated small bar that just runs aux2bat twice + Emergency power to aux right after the a2b. Never ever automate an entire bar though, that will tank your dps by a large margin, always make sure you retain control over all of your abilities.

    If you do not own a keyboard like that, there are software solutions for it out there, but i'd recommend doing a search yourself. Now even if you do not want to automate it all, the tool itself lets you assign any button to multiple slots which can save you some fiddling around even if it means you're just pressing 1 a couple times yourself to use abilities in sequence. Figuring out the right balance for your build and abilities is where it CAN get tedious but the outcome is a lot better than having to resort to the mouse since keybinds are always faster than that.

    The tool itself should also come with a tutorial on how to use it and set everything up correctly if i recall it right. Hope this helps out a bit.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    darpink wrote: »
    nikephorus wrote: »
    Hilberts bind is fine. Just remove the distribute shield. Even if you don't and you're not into hyper dps it's fine.

    Can you please tell us how to find the correct file so we can delete the distribute shields command? I just want to be sure that I'm not deleting the wrong thing.
    Thanks in advance!

    You can just use this tool to make your own. It's really easy to use.

    If you want it just like hilberts, just set the space bar to fire tray 7. Should be really easy, but if you have any problem let me know and I'll make you one and email it to you or something.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    Do you use "auto fire" at all? Or should that stay off?
    "Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK

    “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
  • charon83charon83 Member Posts: 96 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    where2r1 wrote: »
    Do you use "auto fire" at all? Or should that stay off?

    since there was no answer to this i'll answer it: It depends. With a Beam/Cannon + 1 torp setup, use autofire for beams/cannons to synchronize your firing cycle, that 1 torpedo should be either on a seperate macro (so it only aufofires IT + it's related abilities (like kemocite/spread etc) so you maximize it's usefullness. If you're on a torpedoboat you should have either macros for them or do em manually since as far as i am aware some different procs and abilities can overlap a lot with torpedos.

    One thing to keep an eye out if you use say 1 torpedo - make sure that your binds are queued in a way as to not reset your Torpedo cooldown timer/cycle timer which can happen with at least some tactical boff abilities.

    in short: Beams/cannons, use autofire and keep them in synch. Torps = manually or via controlled macro.
  • tiekosoratiekosora Member Posts: 325 Arc User
    Aside from keybinds, has the OP considered using a programmable keyboard or game pad, like the Logitech G13? I have everything programmed into the G13, which I rely on to game due to some physical limitations. I only have one thing set to repeat, distribute shields evenly. Though you could easily program several commands onto one key using the macro software. The same can be done with the different brands of programmable gaming keyboards.

    I rely so heavily on the G13 to be able to play, I am on my second one, and even now, I have a button that has stopped working. Just some food for thought.
    18EOWbV.jpg

    They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part.
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