Fencer Archive

Since we've been discussing hotkeys and macros, i thought i'd post here the little write up i did for the Kettemoor server. it's somewhat rough and may have flaws. if it doesn, please tell me! i want to improve this.

i thought it might get more scrutiny here, on a slower moving board, with a more descriptive title.

one fellow tipped me ten thousand credits for writing this. help me make more money! tee hee!

Hotkey Quick Response

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Firstly a disclaimer: this type of play is very, very customizable. So all the examples I give are how I choose to do them. You must, and I repeat *must*, customize to your own play style. Otherwise, if you have better ideas, *please* share them here. We can only make this better through team effort.

Step one: Turn on modal chat
When modal chat is off, every alphanumeric key you press goes to the chat bar. If you turn on modal chat, this requires you to his a specific key to begin entering into the chat bar. For instance, mine is set up as the space bar. If I want to say “Hello”, I hit the space bar first, then type my message and hit enter. If I merely type “Hello” nothing will occur.

Note: Be familiar with macros
I won’t cover macro making here. I may add that later, or include it in a separate guide if this is received well. You should know how to change toolbar panes, and address all 24 toolbar slots. That should let you do everything I cover here.

Step Two: Hotkey Binding
We’ve got modal chat on. We want to change weapons by pressing one key. I want to press the number 1 key and equip my scout blaster. I want to press the 2 key and equip my polearm. This is very simple.

However, let’s think ahead. We have 6 toolbars of 24 panes. So the entirety of toolbar one will be my scout blaster and all its related attacks. So first, I set my first toolbar to have the blaster in the first slot, and all the specials in other slots, filling the whole thing up (assuming I’m a master pistoleer).

Then I set up toolbar two (control+F2) for my polearm in slot one, and fill this toolbar with my polearm attacks. So now when I want to fight with my pistol, I would normally hit control+F1, then hit F1, then do my attacks; it’s the same thing with polearm (control+F2, then F1, then attacks).

Well, let’s equip our pistol every time I press the 1 key. Create a new custom macro. Here’s roughly what it should look like:

/ui action toolbarPane00;
/ui action toolbarSlot00;

(Be sure to capitalize the correct letters: these commands are case-sensitive, and use semi colons)

Done! How simple was that? Now we just have to bind it to the 1 key, and we’re set. We open the game options (control+O) and go to the Controls section, and hit the keymap button near the bottom of the window. This brings up a window with several tabs. We go to the custom tab, scroll down the list and find our newly created macro. Once it’s selected, we hit the rebind key, and when the window pops up, press the 1 key, then click OK. Be sure to click on the OK and not hit enter, otherwise it might bind the macro to the enter key.

Now, hit OK on the key-mapping window (or the binding won’t stick) and then hit done on the options window. Now try your macro. Hitting 1 should equip, then un-equip your pistol. It’s a toggle. You can easily put weapons away now when you’re ready to dance, or heal, or whatever you do and you don’t want your huge rifle puncturing your audience or patients.

I’m sure you all can grasp the process for your polearm or secondary weapon, but here’s the macro anyway:

/ui action toolbarPane01;
/ui action toolbarSlot00;

Now bind that to the 2 key. If I press 1, I have my pistol out, if I press 2, I have my polearm. It will also set me to the proper toolbar so that after I press 2, my F2 key is my polearm sweep, and if I press 1, my F2 key is my Overcharge shot. That way you can have “modes” for weapons with all your specials ready to go.

So I meet a Meatlump. I have nothing equipped, and he starts attacking me. All I do is hit 2, then F2, in rapid succession, and the thug is on the ground. Very fast response time, since it doesn’t matter what toolbar I have up, it’ll automatically go to the proper toolbar.

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Part Two: Non-combat commands

I often find that as I’m in a group with several people and need to quickly aid them in tough battles, or get to them so they can heal me. This can all be accomplished through remapping.

Again, Modal chat must be turned on for any of this to be effective.

For instance, my group leader picks a target and we all fire after he’s attacked. That way only one person (usually) gets aggro, making it easier on the doctors. Instead of tabbing through the targets to find the one in combat, there is the /assist command, that many of you already know about. So this, coupled with the Control+2 ability to automatically target the group leader means we can very quickly assist the leader (or any other group member who is attacking).

By now you know how to remap. But the target group leader command isn’t a custom macro. It’s in the target tab of the key-mapping controls, and is called "target group member one." If you’re not the leader, this is where the group leader is located. So I bind that to the G key. Then I also create a macro for a /follow, and bind that to F. so when my leader starts taking off, I just hit G then F (right next to each other on the keyboard) and I’m following without any delay.

I also assign /assist to H, so when I see my leader get his battle indicator on my group bar, I would hit 1 (for my pistol remember?) then G, then H, all very fast, and then I’m attacking faster than any mouse user can. I don’t even have to know what’s going on (though I recommend you keep your head in the game).

I set the peace binding to P instead of control+P, and the attack to K instead of control+K. It’s faster to hit one button than two.

So as you can see, you can bind your most frequently used… well, anything to key commands, making your game play faster, and more intuitive (since you’re the one who designed it).

To wrap it up: modal chat is the key to expanding your quick-response abilities. Turn modal chat on, then key-map to your heart’s delight. You can always reset the defaults if it gets too confusing, and start from scratch.

I also command my pets by pointing, and i get several questions on how I do that. When i point at a creature, my pet attacks. I don't have to shout, filling the chat boxes with shouting. Here's how I do it:

/tellpet attack;
/pointat;

now, my command goes to my pet verbally, but no one can hear that, they just see me point, then my pet goes gallivanting off. I do the same thing with follow:

/tellpet follow;
/beckon (Sirius);
/beckon (Menexenus);

And if I have Sirius out, it'll beckon only him, and I'll be the only one who gets the message about Menexenus not being available, and vice versa.

i bind the attack to the "[" key, the follow to the "]" key, and by pointing and beckoning, i can control my pets in a more unique manner than shouting "FOLLOW!" twenty times. Granted, instead I'm pointing twenty times. To fix that, create another macro and bind it to another key which only has the /tellpet command and no pointing. Mash it all you want, and no one has to listen to you shout twenty times.

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Still have questions? Give me a scenario, and I'll gladly show you how to write a macro and keybind it.

Excellent work! I can cross making one of these off my to-do list now. One command you might include is the: /ui action toolbarPanePrev

It returns you to the Pane you were at previous to going to your current one. It's very helpful if you aren't always in the same Pane before switching to a new one, and you don't have to worry about it if you follow up with this command.

~Lyahpar~

La Femme Fencer

"Thrust if you love Fencers!"

Bingo! what a good day. i got an "Excellent work" form the hardest working correspondent there is... schweeeeeeeet.

i had no idea that command existed. adding it to my datapad now. if i can get about five more great suggestions like this, i'm gonna rewrite it specifically for fencers and really put some time into it.

thanks!

Is there a command to make you go overt without seeing a recruiter?

I'd be tempted to use some of these, if only modal chat wasn't required... typing like that in halflife mods annoys me enough. >_<

Nice work though.

And, and LLORD this is a feature being considered by the developers, to allow you to declare from anywhere within 50m of a recruiter. No button right now could do that, you have to converse with the recruiter.

yeah, i'm sure there's a / command for it. the problem is, we probably can't execute it. it might be nice to be able to declare anywhere, but have to get to a recruiter to un-declare.

But it could be abused, if people had complete control over exactly when their weapons are activated... perhaps if you declare more than 50m away from a recruiter, You are vulnerable for 30 seconds before you can attack enemy overts?

yeah, i would accept that. or what if as soon as you declared a message popped up on every other overt's screen? that way friends and enemies alike can now target you.

may both the timer and the announcement. but 30 seconds should delay not only your attacking, but also being attacked.

whatcha think?

Wouldn't work. it would allow 20 covert imperials to line up and declare, and they would just sit there invincible positioning themselves by the overt rebel , waiting for the timer to go up.

Nice work on the guide. /tellpet was a great command, I'm glad they added it.

Modal chat is nearly required in this game with the number of buttons you need to have acess to.

And T-900 is right. As was brought up in the "whatcha guys think about this" dev post about declaring, you would need some kind of delay on a /declareOvert command so that you couldn't have covert groups go in and /declare and start ganking. Really, any kind of delay (10s - 2m) would be fine, so long as you were vulnerable to enemy fire during the time.

*nods at cruseydr*