ClonesGame.com Forums

[Simon]

Hey folks,

I am currently experimenting with the morph hotkey layout that is attached to this post. It shows the left-hand letter keys of the keyboard and their morph binds.

There are two versions of the layout. One is for matrix keyboards like the Typematrix I use, the other one is for the usual keyboards with horizontally shifted keys. The only difference is GulpUp.

The design criteria were:

• Frequently used morphs should get easily reachable keys.
• Directional force are at least as important as the least-used skill. (This is the main difference from the standard layout.)
• When using directional force to give morphs, the force key and the morph key should be on different fingers. Anything else is awkward. (Common directional forced morphs are Exploder, Molder, Clobber, Gulper, Lopper.)
• Frequent multiplayer morph combos should feel nice to give. (Puff-Atomize, Drill-Clob-Drill-..., Mold-GulpUp-Mold-GulpUp-..., Drill-GulpUp, and others.) The individual morphs of each combo should be distributed over different fingers for this reason.

Some things immediately followed from these considerations. Directional force mustn't be on the index finger, because that finger covers 6 keys. Directional force should be on the leftmost fingers, because inside rolls feel nicer than outside rolls. We could also put both directional force keys on the same finger, that depends on how much they're used. I use them really a lot, that's why they both get home positions.

Morphs that are seldomly given with directional select get the same finger than directional force: Puff, Drill, Block, Spin. The nuke is fine where it is in the standard layout, that key is probably one of the worst reachable keys anyway.

The most important morphs are probably Molder, Atomizer, Driller, Clobber, GulpDown, GulpUp, Exploder (unsure of its importance in Clones), and Walker. Molder is on the middle finger, to combo better with all the index finger morphs. GulpUp shouldn't be in the top row if we want it to combo with Molder, unless Molder was placed in the top row as well. It's on Qwerty [B] now. For usual keyboards, Qwerty [T] is better maybe, and it still feels ok to Drill-GulpUp or Mold-GulpUp.

Some keys are interchangable. It's a personal preference on wheter to put GulpDown or Clobber on Qwerty [E] and [G]. I also use Walk a lot, but this really depends on the playstyle. If you don't use it that much, put something else on Qwerty [F], which is the easiest reachable key.

-- Simon

[rt]

Great analysis of the hotkey layout! This definitely belongs in the "Competitive Cloners" forum I find that i do sometimes hit the wrong morph key, since my layout spans 5 keys (A-G) and sometimes i think my pinky is on A when it's actually on S thus transposing all my morphs. It would be interesting to see a layout that is only 4 keys wide so that the hand never needs to move horizontally. Hitting CAPSLOCK with the pinky would be a good exception because the 1st finger will stay rooted on F, which has a raised texture making it easy to feel.

[CCX]

It would be interesting to see a layout that is only 4 keys wide so that the hand never needs to move horizontally. Hitting CAPSLOCK with the pinky would be a good exception because the 1st finger will stay rooted on F, which has a raised texture making it easy to feel.

I have 0 experience with multiplayer, but the simple fact of mathematics would indicate that you would have some trouble jamming all the keys in Simon's layout into a 4-key-wide layout. A strict 4-key-wide layout would have 3*4 = 12 keys, which isn't enough to cover all of the 16 keys included in Simon's layout.

Instead I think you'll have to wound up with expanding a strict 4-key-wide layout to one where the pinky will be "reused" for multiple keys in the "capslock" column (hopefully assigning the least used functions in that column of keys). And possibly make use of the thumb on the spacebar? Reusing the pinky will definitely take some getting used to, compare with reusing the more dextrous index finger in normal 5-key-wide layouts.

[Simon]

Thanks

It's a personal choice whether to use more of the inside column (Qwerty TGB) in exchange of reduced usage of the weaker fingers. People's preferences and keyboards vary too greatly to call any choice the best one.

I would've liked to use [Space] as well, but it's already timestop in Singleplayer which I use a lot. I was unsure whether to sacrifice it for another morph.

The default layout is still a viable choice as long as one doesn't use directional force this much... but the lack of directional force will become an issue too frequenty IMO, unless you bind that to the mouse wheel. The emphasis of my layout is on combinations of keypresses, which should roll easily, and many combinations start with directional force.

-- Simon

[CCX]

unless you bind that to the mouse wheel

Speaking of mice, I think there are some fancy mice out there that has extra buttons on the sides of the mouse, meant to be pressed with your thumb and ring fingers. If Clones can support mapping directional force to such mouse buttons, that could be another interesting alternative to fitting them on the keyboard.

[rt]

but the lack of directional force will become an issue too frequenty IMO, unless you bind that to the mouse wheel.

Currently the mousewheel can enable the directional force. If no clone is selected then scrolling the mousewheel up/down turns on directional force left/right so that you can select a clone facing that way. You can also do this after the clone is selected, but you must hold down the left mouse button, otherwise the wheelmouse will select clones to the left/right of the currently selected.

[CCX]

Hmm, do you have to mess with the mousewheel each time you need directional force, or is is "sticky" so that once you do it, all subsequent selections become of that direction until you use the mousewheel again to change?

Not sure how people feel about use of mousewheel vs button presses, but I'm thinking that, given the mouse wheel is also the middle button in most mice, plus they are also mice with simply 3 buttons, maybe an alternative where the middle button is "select + directional left", and the right button is "select + directional right" would be useful to some people? (left button would of course be the usual select with no directional preference) [Ignore if this is already supported, I haven't checked]