As I plan to eventually make it possible to have more than 2 Hands or just one single Hand, there will be Keybinds for “primary Hand” and “secondary Hand” and all the etc Hands.
During Player Body Creation you will be able to select if you’re Lefthanded or Righthanded (or whichever of the Hands are the Primary/Secondary/etc), so you dont have to change your Keybinds whenever you decide your Player uses their other Hand for whatever reasons you may have.
There will be separate Keybinds for each Hand, available actions being: whack which is essentially an attack with whatever you have in that Hand. Also used for Mining if you have the right Tool, and only if you have a Tool, no Fistpunch Mining unless you happen to be strong enough to punch Holes into the Wall. use is using Items and solidly places Blocks (so they are attached to whatever you place them at), Melee Weapons like Swords, Spears, Pikes etc usually block using this. put just lays an Object at the Location or loosely places Blocks without attaching them (so they will be affected by gravity and other forces). chuck will just throw the Item or Block at whatever is in front of your Crosshair. Some Items like a Spear or a Bucket may have a special behaviour when chucked. rotate will rotate the Block you are about to place into the direction you want, which is important as many Objects are made up of multiple Blocks. There will be a hologram displaying what you are about to place, and this does have forward and backward rotation bindings.
This makes 12 possible Bindings for a Two-Handed Person.
Default for the primary Hand are: Leftclick = whack , Rightclick = use , Left Ctrl or Right Ctrl = put , DEL or Q = chuck and Mousewheel Up/Down = rotate .
The Secondary Hand (usually the Left Hand) has: Forward (the 4th Mousebutton) = whack , Backward (the 5th Mousebutton) = use , and put , chuck and rotate are not assigned by default, so you don’t drop your offhand Object by accident (but you can ofcourse assign them yourself).
As I plan to eventually make it possible to have more than 2 Hands or just one single Hand, there will be Keybinds for “primary Hand” and “secondary Hand” and all the etc Hands.
During Player Body Creation you will be able to select if you’re Lefthanded or Righthanded (or whichever of the Hands are the Primary/Secondary/etc), so you dont have to change your Keybinds whenever you decide your Player uses their other Hand for whatever reasons you may have.
There will be separate Keybinds for each Hand, available actions being: whack which is essentially an attack with whatever you have in that Hand. Also used for Mining if you have the right Tool, and only if you have a Tool, no Fistpunch Mining unless you happen to be strong enough to punch Holes into the Wall. use is using Items and solidly places Blocks (so they are attached to whatever you place them at), Melee Weapons like Swords, Spears, Pikes etc usually block using this. put just lays an Object at the Location or loosely places Blocks without attaching them (so they will be affected by gravity and other forces). chuck will just throw the Item or Block at whatever is in front of your Crosshair. Some Items like a Spear or a Bucket may have a special behaviour when chucked. rotate will rotate the Block you are about to place into the direction you want, which is important as many Objects are made up of multiple Blocks. There will be a hologram displaying what you are about to place, and this does have forward and backward rotation bindings. swap will remove the Item in your Hand and put it back in your Inventory. If used with an empty Hand it will draw whatever Item is on your “Belt” Slot for that particular Hand (like a Sword for example). Some Items may be on your back if large enough, like Shields, Longswords or Spears. action will bring up a Context Menu for you to select one of multiple Options for the Item in your Hand (more on it further below). If you have a Swiss Army Knife for example, it will bring up a List of all the Tools you can select from it, like a Mode Switch. If you have a Bow, you can select what Arrows to prioritize, etc.
Default for the primary Hand are: Leftclick = whack , Rightclick = use , Left Ctrl or Right Ctrl = put , DEL or Q = chuck , Mousewheel Up/Down = rotate , END or E for swap and F or NUMPAD4 for action .
The Secondary Hand (usually the Left Hand) has: Forward (the 4th Mousebutton) = whack , Backward (the 5th Mousebutton) = use and the rest are not assigned by default, so you don’t drop your offhand Object by accident (but you can ofcourse assign the bindings yourself).
Action Menu
A lot of times there is the Problem of Mods adding Keybinds for random junk you’re rarely using without even asking you if you wanted that Keybind to exist in the first place, then the Keybind eventually conflicts and everything feels shitty to use, and you never know if a Key you never used is bound to something already or not.
That is why there will be “Action” Keys, which will present you with a list of Options for the Block you point at or the Item you are holding in your Hand. It will be populated with all the rarely used Options, Mode Switches, Ammo Select and similar Stuffs.
The Menu itself can be either just a Text Box with multiple selections, like the Rightclick Menu on your Computer, a Box with just Icons to select from, or a Radial Menu, depending on what you like more.
One binding will be for “Block you point at with Crosshair” specifically to show all Options for that one, and all other ones are depending on your Hands Keybinds.
If you use the Hand based Action Keybind with an Empty Hand, it will prompt you with a few “Emotes”, like waving, pointing, whistling and such. Simple non-verbal Communication for the most part, no Dances of the sort.
When using the Keybind with a Weapon in your Hand there might be strategy selections for those Weapons. Also some Items might have specific Emotes, like “waving your sword around” or “bashing your sword against your shield to look threatening”.
The Action Menu will also give you the option to bind a Key to a specific Action, like a shortcut, ingame so you dont need to bring up the Settings Menu to search for some obscurely named Keybind. Things selected that way are usually saved on a per World basis, but you can also make it be saved globally from within the same Menu. Will also work for Emotes ofcourse.
Similar to the Action Menu, the Instinct Menu will suggest a LIMITED amount of things that make the most sense to the Character you are controlling. (NPCs will have the same type Data for their own instincts too)
The Instinct Menu will mostly “skip” Items you already hold ready in your Hands. It is more a “do something unrelated to Items, or quickly grab something fitting from your Inventory” Menu.
This can for example be the option to roll on the ground to extinguish yourself, while you are on Fire. A useful thing when you dont want to navigate the Menu until you find that Action. Obviously this would also suggest options like Fire Resistance Potions.
Same could go for quickly equiipping a Gas Mask, Sun Glasses, Ear Muffs or Nightvision Goggles when the need arises, since those are often buried somewhere in your Inventory.
When hungry/thirsty/addicted, it can also suggest consuming the (available/closeby) Items that you would be most in the mood of consuming (depending on taste, smell, nutrition and other factors). With a small Submenu if you want to select a different Consumable. This particular Action may also just point you to where said Consumable is, if you dont have it yet.
It could also suggest doing things that make sense, like lighting a Lantern while you are at a dark place, and extinguishing it when it is bright again.
If someone waves in your field of view, you will for example be given the prompt to wave back! Useful for quick communication! There is also the opportunity to add this sort of thing to Combat Tactics Gestures. Or it just helps you select the correct Dance at a Party.
One of the “benefits” of this very convenient Menu is, that it is often capable of psychologically manipulating other Players, like if something smells delicious, the Instinct Menu will prompt the corresponding Food Item, which the Player then might want to buy from you. Ideal for running a Bakery!
But it can be even worse, if something is “scary”, then the Menu will only show options like “cower in fear” or “beg for mercy”, which clearly are not always good options.
When you are in Rage, it might also just be filled with various forms of “SMASH!”, “MURDER!” or “DESTROY!”, often directed at the source of said Rage.
This Menu can also look on your History and might suggest things you have done in the past, and sort the List in favour of the things you do often or did most recently.
It can even result in a sort of Training, where you try to “mentally” prepare for Situations, by doing certain things often enough. Though at that point I would suggest you to just add yourself some proper bindings to said prepared Actions, because that is a LOT easier.
Hey, it only made sense to revive this specific Thread for it after 2.5 years!
Someone decided to link a Space Station 13 Review on my IRC, so I ended up watching a few Videos on that one, which gave me the Idea for this Menu, while seeing a Player roll on the ground to remove the ON FIRE! status. XD
I am specifically waiting for @OvermindDL1 to be done with having to deal with a toddler. XD
There is Aspects of all of this that I am not comfortable doing without his help, because I dont want to lock myself into a bad subsystem that cant be replaced easily…
The Instinct Menu can also be useful for if you have a Scenario with actual Goals, and need to subtly tell your Players how to achieve said Goal, by just saying things in that Menu like “I should be working on crafting more of this Item” or “I need to reach the Flag, which is 420 meters left of me”.
Note, that these Entries would NOT be this much Text, rather their Mouseover would show the longer Version I just “quoted”.
This Menu could even suggest you what to do, if you have a Clipboard with a TODO List on you or so. There is many options on how to add/remove things from the Menu.
Sticking Notes all over a Desk as reminders could also be a nice way to prompting a Menu Entry to appear.
Also, unrelated but being drunk or on drugs could distort the options in the Menu too, just to realistically mess with your real life Mind. XD