Is it possible to make F8 cycle modes?

[Keeper]

Instead of having the F8 key bring up a menu of thrust-limiter percentages, would it be possible to make it cycle through the available modes? ...and then would it be possible to make that a controller option to bind it to a button? Seems like it shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm no programmer; I just tweak stuff here and there sometimes.

I suppose the ultimate ideal situation would have the thrust-limiter settings bound to an axis (e.g. throttle slider on a controller), simply changing between the available modes at certain points. (Even better: Have the game automatically activate the limited thrust mode as you adjust the throttle slider -- as close to mimicking throttlable thrust without actually doing that.) But I'm getting too complicated there. Just having the button act as a cycler instead of bringing up a menu is fine -- especially if it then can be bound to a controller button.

[impaktor]

Hi, and welcome!

I noticed the other day that the thrust button is in the new pigui, but the menu it activates is still in Frontier-clone oldUI. I'm thinking that button press should open a slider or something.

[nozmajner]

Yeah, an increase/decrease shortcut would be nice.
You can already adjust the setting with the mouse wheel if you hover on it with the mouse.

[impaktor]

You can already adjust the setting with the mouse wheel if you hover on it with the mouse.

Oh, really? Then all that is needed is a graphical slider that shows what's happening as well, right? Or just remove the oldUI menu that shows up when clicking it.

[Keeper]

The new UI (I think the old one did too as I recall) simply shows the percentage number on the button itself, so there really isn't need for a visual slider unless you want to get into cockpit elements rather than HUD, but that's another whole can of worms!

I didn't notice it was adjustable with the mouse wheel when hovering. Maybe then it wouldn't be so tricky to map it to an axis as well (then again, a mouse wheel is a rotary encoder rather than a potentiometer).

The main point of the idea is to make it possible to change the partial-thrust modes hand-on-stick, whether via button or axis, without having to reach for the keyboard or mouse, which during a landing procedure isn't exactly something that one always has time to do (and when not in a landing procedure, isn't something one really would need to do very often). Currently, set-speed adjustment can be made hand-on-stick, but partial-thrust adjustment can not. (For that matter, it'd be nice to map the manual/set-speed toggle to a controller button as well.)

ADDENDUM: I just tried the mouse wheel adjustment and was surprised to see it actually doesn't just go 1, 5, 10, 25, etc. like the menu options; it's a smooth adjustment. In that case it's practically begging to be bound to a controller axis for throttle control, or two controller buttons for up/down adjustment the same way as the set-speed mode can be. (Heck, it even would make sense to eliminate the "partial-thrust" button altogether and just have adjustable thrust constantly available.)

[The-EG]

I think it would actually make some sense to keep the slider. If you click on the button or press F8, it would show the slider which you can use to change the low thrust setting. Otherwise, you can also use the mouse wheel.

I've implemented it that way in this PR: https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/pull/4261

[Keeper]

Come to think of it, perhaps an ideal way to do this is to have the same keys/buttons used to adjust speed in set-speed mode also change the thrust percentage in manual mode, depending on which mode you're currently in.