Sticky keys for manual thrusters

[Bugbear]

I've had an idea for creating sticky keys for the manual thrusters (I'd suggested this in GitHub previously but Brianetta shot the idea down...). This time I will try to implement my idea for myself*.

At the moment, the keys u, i, o, j, k and l operate the Up, Forward, Down, Left, Reverse, Right thrusters. These keys fire the thrusters for as long as you have the key depressed. What I'd like to do is set the Shifted-key to act as a toggle for each thruster, so I don't have to continuously hold down the key.

The reason for this is because of another alteration I had made where the distance to stop from a given speed (relative to your nav target) is displayed on screen. The Set Speed mode in this case is no good to me because Set Speed is relative to your current frame of reference, not your nav target. Sometimes there can be a discrepancy of tens of km/s between these frames of reference. This can be annoying when trying to intercept with an orbiting station.

(An alternative to sticky thrusters would be to have a second Set Speed mode that sets speed relative to nav target. I may take a crack at this after looking at the sticky keys idea).

My rate of progress will likely be slow (the distance to stop calculation took two years!!!) so I'm wondering if anyone else has planned something like this. Would any of the devs be able to point me in the direction of the source files that define the controls? Would this be something that would be better implemented in lua?

* And that's why I love open source games. It doesn't matter if someone else disagrees with something you're trying to do. If you have the skill and knowledge, you can please yourself without impacting anyone else.

[nozmajner]

Would be useful for some kind of hover mode too, on planets.
But:
- Shift+thrusterkey is used for low thrust, and I think it should be left to that.
- There's Set Speed mode for current target. You have to select it with ctrl+leftmouse, and there you go, it's your frame of reference as far as your fligh computer cares. It works even on ships, which can be useful in combat.

[Bugbear]

OK, thanks for that - I'll see what success I can have with the Set Speed for current target. All going well that will save me a lot of hassle.

[FluffyFreak]

I didn't realise it had been suggested before, we do have a set speed mode but that's just for forward thrust.

Could be good idea for hovering.

[Bugbear]

I'm probably doing something wrong but Ctrl+Left Mouse on the F5 icon only gives me Prograde, Retrograde and Manual.

Prograde and Retrograde merely orient the ship towards the current frame of reference velocity vector (i.e. the white vector icon).

What I am after is a Set Speed mode that thrusts the ship such that the Nav Target velocity indicator is aligned with the forward view target reticle, at least, that would one implementation approach.

To put it another way, I point my ship at my target, then I thrust appropriately so that the Nav Target velocity indicator is aligned with my ship's orientation (Prograde and Retrograde do it the other way around - they orient the ship with velocity; I want to orient velocity with the ship. Maybe I'll put together a short video to demonstrate what I'm doing...).

So right now I have two questions:
1. Am I doing something wrong with the Ctrl-Left Click on the Set Speed icon?
2. I forgot that Shift-Thruster is already allocated. I may still investigate implementing a sticky key modification. Is Ctrl-Thruster a reserved keystroke?

Cheers.

[nozmajner]

Not on the button. You target your target with ctrl+leftmouse.

Ctrl+ stuff isn't used I think.

[Bugbear]

Ah got it. That could do quite nicely. I'll do a bit more play testing...

[Bugbear]

Play testing done. Ctrl-LClick select nav target works excellently. I've now got a good procedure for getting from A to B. I think I'll keep the autopilot though - sometimes I can't be bothered with the tedium of docking. One of these days I may put a video up...