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Completed

Menu Navigation

yuhoo_chin 7 years ago updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 7 years ago 6

It will be a lot easier if we can navigate the menus using WSAD if not having some mouse control. My hands are on the mouse and WASD all the time and having to move between either of them to the arrow keys is not game breaking but extremely annoying.


Also having the esc key to exit the datapad is useful too and will make gameplay more efficient.


Thanks!

Under review

Thanks for the suggestion. This is something I'm definitely investigating. The reason it currently operates this way is so that players can manage their inventory or navigate other apps while they are exploring the terrain. Here is one proposed solution:

While the datapad is open, left click would have the same function as the Enter key to select the current highlighted button. The WASD keys would navigate buttons just as the arrow keys do currently. Pressing down the shift key would cause you to walk forward and the mouse could still be used to rotate your view. So with this setup, you would still be able to completely keep your hands on the mouse and WASD keys while operating the datapad and moving your character forward in any direction at the same time. The only downside to this would be that you could no longer walk side to side or backwards while the datapad is open, but I think that's probably not an action that many care about while viewing the datapad anyway. I could include this as a toggle between two control options. The current datapad navigation method could be called "Dedicated Datapad Controls" and the new method described above could be called "Efficient Datapad Controls".


As for the esc key exiting the datapad, are you suggesting that the main menu screen would then only be accessible if you were not currently viewing your datapad? Because the esc key currently opens the main menu regardless of whether you have the datapad open or not.

Thanks for your reply Tyler!


In terms of the esc key, from my experiences with games usually the main menu screens (for save, load, settings etc) are accessible when you are not in an in-game menu so it's quite a common solution. That way you just need to double tap esc to access the main menu from the datapad which is less cumbersome.


In terms of the datapad navigation, I would like to suggest an auto-walk feature, something like double tap W or W + Caps Lock, and you'll just walk in a straight line. Like you said, when you're viewing the datapad you're not too bothered about movement but you want to save time by multitasking. Since the landscape is so large and usually you won't be running and wasting oxygen while using the datapad, so I suspect players will close the datapad before the hit anything or reach any cliffs. Besides, they can always use the map to navigate and use the mouse to steer.


Hope these are useful.

Planned

I do like the idea of just having forward movement while viewing the datapad be a toggle. I will try to incorporate some of your suggestions in an update soon.

The alternate datapad controls are now available in v0.51 which you can download via your Humble library. They must be enabled in the Controls options menu. If you have a chance to check the changes I'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks!