Why are there only two solutions per firegroup?

[Strange Orange]

Although I haven't run into this problem yet (I'm pretty new and haven't even changed out the weapons on my stock Sidewinder and my slightly-upgraded Hauler) I'm sure I will and it will bug me. At least 3 would be nice.

For those of you who have mice with not enough buttons, I personally recommend the Perixx MX-2000II. It may be listed as 2000IIB, 2000IIR, etc. The letter on the end denotes color. Anyways, it is very good quality for it's price, has upwards of 9 buttons, has adjustable DPI, and it's made by the Germans- because you know the Germans make good stuff. Oh, and it's only $30!

On the subject of making a better firegroup system, I would recommend not only making a third, fourth, even fifth firegroup, but also making a mapping for cycling through firegroups. This way, players disadvantaged by their lack of buttons only really have to use 2 buttons at the very least- fire, and cycle next firegroup. Heck, there might already be a button for that, I don't know. If this route is taken, I would also recommend making the function skip unassigned firegroups to make things more efficient.

EDIT: It's been made known to me that there are more than just two firegroups, and there are indeed keymappings to cycle firegroups. In my defense, the posts before mine were misleading! (My mouse recommendation still stands).

 

[Moritasgus]

But that's the point, how many player will be turned off if its impossible to play without a specialist mouse/control pad/hotas?
The devs mostly play with x360 controllers or at least they did, DB plays on the train using a laptop and game pad.
The way they have it suits 99.9% of the casual gamers equipment and gives no unfair advantage to those who do have top of the line.
That's a good thing and works towards attracting new players and keeping them playing.

 

[Tarman]

Although I haven't run into this problem yet (I'm pretty new and haven't even changed out the weapons on my stock Sidewinder and my slightly-upgraded Hauler) I'm sure I will and it will bug me. At least 3 would be nice.

For those of you who have mice with not enough buttons, I personally recommend the Perixx MX-2000II. It may be listed as 2000IIB, 2000IIR, etc. The letter on the end denotes color. Anyways, it is very good quality for it's price, has upwards of 9 buttons, has adjustable DPI, and it's made by the Germans- because you know the Germans make good stuff. Oh, and it's only $30!

On the subject of making a better firegroup system, I would recommend not only making a third, fourth, even fifth firegroup, but also making a mapping for cycling through firegroups. This way, players disadvantaged by their lack of buttons only really have to use 2 buttons at the very least- fire, and cycle next firegroup. Heck, there might already be a button for that, I don't know. If this route is taken, I would also recommend making the function skip unassigned firegroups to make things more efficient.

I have the L/R on a 4way hat for next and previous firegroups (the U/D is mapped to my sensor scaling).

 

[Valethar]

Heh, wasn't that invented before dinosaurs died?

It was my understanding that Windows was the extinction level event that killed them all.

 

[Goilveig]

Although I haven't run into this problem yet (I'm pretty new and haven't even changed out the weapons on my stock Sidewinder and my slightly-upgraded Hauler) I'm sure I will and it will bug me. At least 3 would be nice..

They're not asking for more firegroups - you can have up to 8, and you can easily cycle through them.

Each firegroup, however, can only bind whichever weapons or utility gear you choose to either the primary or secondary trigger - you can't have more than two trigger buttons in the same fire group.

Personally, I don't mind. My HOTAS setup only really has one trigger accessible at all times - the secondary fire requires me to take a finger off maneuvering thrusters, which I won't do for my real guns. I bind primary fire to guns and secondary fire to utility items like scanners, which I'm OK canceling if I need to be more maneuverable.

I just bind my anti-shield weapons to the primary trigger of fire group 1, my anti-hull weapons to the primary trigger of fire group 2, etc. and then tap the 'next fire group' as needed. I find it a lot more palatable to quickly take my finger off thrusters to tap a cycle button, rather than keep my finger off of the thrusters for a long time while I kill. That's my setup, though.

 

[DaveB]

Just for clarity, I'll say up front that in this post I am not using the MW definition of "firegroup" (a bunch of weapons assigned to single fire key) I am using the ED definition (an assignation of some of your available weapons/modules to a primary fire key, some to a secondary)

I'm not short of buttons but I don't have a problem with how it is now. Between configuring the primary and secondary fire in multiple firegroups I can, with "next firegroup" bound to a quickly accessible button on my HOTAS, pretty much always have a "reasonable" primary/secondary combo available. Having said that, I'd certainly not object to having a tertiary or quaternary fire available to bind in each group too. Given that it does work pretty well now (provided you are just a teensy bit creative with creating your sets of assignments) to do that would not disadvantage folks with fewer buttons available.

My current setups..

Asp:
FG1 - Beam lasers primary, KWS secondary (once I have a scan I switch to FG2)
FG2 - Beam lasers primary, missile racks secondary (my "usual")
FG3 - KWS primary, missile racks secondary (the "pirate special" for when I've negotiated with a PC pirate and he doublecrosses me and opens fire even if I'm dumping cargo)
FG4 - lasers only - the 2xsize1 primary, the 2xsize2 secondary (I have my X52 configured so the "secondary trigger" generates a keystroke that is bound in-game to secondary fire, in addition to the button mapped on the stick. With this fire group selected I am firing only the lower-heat smaller lasers on a light pull of the trigger, all 4 of them if I pull it all the way)
FG5 - beam lasers primary, one missile rack secondary, one missile rack unassigned.
FG6 - same as FG5, but with the missile racks swapped (these two allow me to ripple fire from one rack at a time, useful for defeating ECM - if the target employs ECM, by the time I'm firing from my second rack, his ECM will be in cooldown)

Cobra:
Same as FGs 1,2,3,5,6 that I use on the Asp - no need for FG4 since the Cobra only mounts a pair of size2 lasers

Chaff, shield cells, heat sinks all bound to hotkeys and never assigned to a FG.

 

[Zylark]

Some make it complicated...

My Asp and Cobra (well, no Cargo scanner on the Cobra):

FG1: 1: Beamers 2: MCs
FG2: 1: Beamers 2: KWS and Cargo Scanners (plus FSD Interdict thingie in SC)

K.I.S.S.

 

[Goilveig]

(I have my X52 configured so the "secondary trigger" generates a keystroke that is bound in-game to secondary fire

Really been meaning to do that, once I figure out how to use the profile editor was confusing and I was too lazy to figure it out last time I tried.

 

[Zhang]

This is why I want FD to take a good hard look on MechWarrior Online's weapon interface, or at least the part where you bind firegroups. Very simple and easy to use.

Not only the firegroups, but FD could learn a thing or two from MWO about how camouflage, paint, mech (er ship) customizations, and paintshop 3D view/implementation could be done.

I just re-upped there after two years away. Six firegroups ftw. The binding is a billion times better than the old days where it was all in-match. Man that sucked.

Yeah, came a long way. Control settings and such are now such a breeze to configure.

Just a wild guess but I'm thinking it probably has to do with trying to keep things at least reasonably competitive for KB/M users that only have a 2 button mouse, i.e. the simplest configuration.

Not really, in MWO we can juggle with 6 firegroups plus a ton of hotkeys AND anyone who wanted to maneuver/aim precisely and fluidly uses a M/KB. Which meant almost 99% of the players. You can spot the ones who had HOTAS joystick setups because they usually are torso locked and can't hit the side of a 40 storey building.

 

[WalterHWhite]

Not sure there's really an 'advantage' to anyone with a joystick and more buttons. KB/M users still have a 100+ buttons at one of their hands.

I think it's more of a simplicity thing, as you can appreciate it may already be difficult to figure out all the controls and map keys/controls to your liking.

 

[OBoile]

But that's the point, how many player will be turned off if its impossible to play without a specialist mouse/control pad/hotas?
The devs mostly play with x360 controllers or at least they did, DB plays on the train using a laptop and game pad.
The way they have it suits 99.9% of the casual gamers equipment and gives no unfair advantage to those who do have top of the line.
That's a good thing and works towards attracting new players and keeping them playing.

How does adding extra button options on a fire group make it impossible to play? You don't have to use them.

 

[Derath]

almost nobody still has a two button mouse, also there are so many keybinds already it hardly seems like its for kb/mouse users lol.. I mean look at that control list! Tertiary fire would be make me a very happy camper as i had having scanners on buttons.

 

[feroce]

Yeah at the moment being limited to 2 groups really dumbs down layouts

what if i want to run missiles, lasers and cannon on three triggers? NO you will have to switch mode sacrificing flexibility and speed


dumb just dumb

also, urine

 

[kelticfury]

IN WHAT UNIVERSE do mouse nowadays have only two buttons! Left, right and wheel button, that's like...industrial standard, right?

In the apple universe.

 

[Zed]

Yeah at the moment being limited to 2 groups really dumbs down layouts

what if i want to run missiles, lasers and cannon on three triggers? NO you will have to switch mode sacrificing flexibility and speed


dumb just dumb

also, urine

They could have gone with only 1 per fire group.

 

[bassman]

My logitech g700 has a left and right tilt on the mouse wheel which as use for FG cycling, works great as its really easy to nudge with the side of my finger without affecting by ability to do anything else.

 

[kelticfury]

I do not want 3.1 as my ship's computer. It'd be nice if my HUD worked for longer than an hour before freezing up completely.

As you wish! *upgrading to DOS*