A few days ago I opened a ticket regarding shortcuts. I was advised to post my concerns here for further discussion so here goes. Literal paste of my ticket:
Hello,
The last couple of days I’ve been experimenting with shortcuts. I’ve realized that using them to their full potential can greatly improve control. There are already some great ones implemented (d-scan!).
However, there are some inconsistencies that imo border on being bugs.
Directional Scanner has hard coded number(#) shortcuts to switch to filter presets. Since the directional scanner is constantly used and has focus, this has to be a bug because it effectively eliminates the use of number keys for any other shortcut. Please make this configurable or just remove those shortcut altogether. I don’t think having the ability to quickly switch between scan filters is vitally important.
Shortcuts for navigation (orbit, approach, keep at range, etc.) ONLY work after mouse clicking a target in the overview. Notably they do NOT work when:
Overview has focus via focus overview shortcut.
Clicking on the locked target widget (the ones with the health bars)
When the target is in the Selected target window.
It’s so highly unintuitive that again I think it borders on being a bug.
I suspect that inconsistencies like these contribute to the perception that the eve-ui is clunky and to the players not embracing shortcuts more, which is a shame because it could be (and already is) a powerful feature.
Kind regards,
‘F1’ is a meme. It’s probably the single most used ability. I think because of inconsistencies mentioned in my ticket people just don’t even consider remapping it to something more sane like ‘f’ or ‘1’. Not to mention overloading. You can remap that to something like mouse4-f to makes life so much easier. I see experienced streamers still using their mouse to click on the tiny green light on the modules icon in the heat of battle. Also highly useful controls like ‘ctrl-space’ etc. The list goes on. If shortcuts were a robust, consistent, intuitive feature it could really be a game changer.
I hope this issue gets some traction. I strongly believe using shortcuts to their full potential can greatly improve control, reaction time and enjoyment. That is if CCP commits to it, fixes the mentioned issues and just do a quality pass on it in general.
I agree the hotkeys system could do with some attention.
For me the hotkeys sometimes get stuck in a toggled state when I just press them briefly, which is very annoying.
CCP Please consider an option to disable the toggled state of hotkeys.
Also hotkey scope is a bit messed up.
On the in-space scene, hotkeys only work as mouse modifiers so there’s no point taking hotkey focus from the overview/selected item windows.
Ideally, the hotkey scope should always be focused on the selected item window and the selected item should always be in sync between the in-space scene, overview and selected item windows.
About the selected item window - it would be nice to be able to bind the dynamic buttons to hotkeys.
Hotkeys held down as mouse modifiers should behave the same as they currently do on the main scene and overview window.
If you want to chat then click the chat window or make a bind to focus the chat window as normal.
If you think you’re chatting but accidentally blow someone up then suffer like in any other game.
That was my input thanks for any consideration.
09.09.18 EDITS
Disregard what I said about disabling toggle state - there is no toggle state, it was a hotkey polling issue and I’ve made my own workaround.
Also, selected item and selected locked item can be different, so ignore what I wrote about the three selections being in sync.
Man, I cannot explain how frustrating this was when the Dscan menu first came out. I’m a lowsec pvper and lost a couple ships because of this exact thing… The Dscan menu was in focus and could turn on/off my modules. The clicking on target portraits bug is real! I wasn’t sure why sometimes it felt like my commands wouldn’t work, this must be why.
Constructive feedback:
I really wish I could unbind, or at least “LOCK” the Dscan filter.
Obviously shortcut key commands should work on Targets, and not just on bracket/icons and overview.
Personal Setup:
1-6 top row (offensive modules ~ guns, tackle, neuts)
shift+1-6 mid row (engineering modules ~ prop, booster, sensors)
ctrl+1-6 low row (defensive modules ~ reps, hardeners)
alt+any of the above to toggle heat
for moving around, I tried to map flying to moving in other games:
w = full speed, shift+W = warp to
s = stop, shift+S = keep at range
a = approach
d = orbit
e = use (dock, activate gate, etc.)
F keys are now for other meaningful things ~ F1-3 Tac Dessie modes, F4 broadcast target, F5+ tagging