From: rjones@dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp)
Subject: Re: the endless quest for the perfect keymap
Keywords: keymap
Reply-To: rjones@dsd.es.com
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 23:03:45 GMT

In article <fortony.714334246@murphy>, fortony@sonne.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>rjones@itchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp) writes:
>
>>In article <fortony.714287599@murphy> fortony@sonne.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>>At least I have the ability to say "I'm ogging" and still *do it*, you
>>scumming little showboater.
>
>Hey, it's still scoutbombing.  Just two armies at a time, is all.

You're supposed to bomb their armies, not trade two of ours for two of
theirs repeateedly...

>>You obviously run too much, if you are able to always be going that fast
>>before they're even near you.  Try to stay and fight sometime.  :)
>
>Stay and fight?  With my little "I'm a Toys'R'Us scout" ship against
>those big sleek savage metal things?  Even I'm not that imprudent.
>Besides, if you *want* me to scoutbomb, dammit, you won't put ideas
>like this in my head.

It never stopped you before.  Countless times, I'd find myself this -><-
close to killing one of those BIG, BLOATED, ARMY CARRYING ASSAULT SHIPS,
with my tiny, weak little DD, but I'd be out of fuel and very hurt.  I'd
tractor with all my tractor's strength, with the hope that when I gave up
the ghost, I might pull him with me, when out of nowhere, SUNSCREAMER and
his LOVE TORPEDO OF ANGST would uncloak, kill the carrier, kill me, kill
the 3 BB escorts rushing to save the carrier, ogg the SB, and then take a
planet!  All before I've had time to click on the team selection box again.

Sure... claim not to be able to fight.  

>>That being the case, though, I can see why you'd need to waste such a nice,
>>BIG, SLEDGEHAMMERy key on such a wimpy, weak, depressingly boring action.
>
>Well, I couldn't very well map it to 'maRAY JONES IS A FISHHEADED CUR',
>now could I?

You could try... hmm.. my keymap would become:

keymap:tT ma@$#%^@^$#@^$#% sunscreamer! bomb! don't take!Tt`dsdfdgfaD1D2DrwRRwR

(@%$#@%$#%@$# is my standard ANGRY noise on the team board, when I can't
figure out the exact words to phrase said anger...)

>>I personally prefer to wait for them to *try* and grab hold of my slippery
>>DD of Death, then hit that crowbar for all it's worth, cross their T and
>>dot their I with a stream of torps, and the added bonus of a tractor.  BBs
>>and CAs are just tooo slow to react when they see those marbles of death
>>rolling their way, while I nimbly dash away to take a planet, leaving them
>>wounded and wondering just who was that masked man.
>
>But, but, ray, if you tractor me in a DD, you're coming towards me at
>like warp 5.  My phasers are sending your crew back into the stone ages.
>My torps -- and they're not all going to miss -- are crushing your little
>ship like the blazing hammer of God.  You think you're getting out of
>the gravity well alive?

I'm moving away from you.  Crossing the T, you know?  ummm.. actually, it
*is* a dogfighting tactic, so I guess not.  You think I'm going to actually
move closer to one of those smelly, phasering sons of dogs?  Nonononooo...
If I'm ogging, maybe, but why ogg when you can just play "How many torps
can you land on the BB?"  You phasers will be doing nothing more than
trading 3 points of damage for half a tank of fuel.  After the tank's
empty, I can come over and phaser you to death at my liesure.  If I'm in a
scout, I'll definitely phaser you.  (Nothing more humiliating than death by
SC phasers.)

>>Hey now, don't try to out-low-rating me, my tiny-shipped friend.  I have a
>>double 0.4 on most servers, and for the INL I can drop them down to 0.3...  
>
>Ha.  I made Captain on quad DI, and I *still* don't know how to planethook
>automatically.

You made *Captain*?  I *barely* made Commander!  And I still don't know how
to cloak or lower my shields.

>>But seriously, have you considered that you might dogfight better with a
>>key *specifically tailored* for the smaller ships' abilities?  Such as
>>their amazing accel/decel rates?  I rest my middle finger on 4, my thumb on
>>space, and my index on tractor/pressor, and I'm raring to go.  [...]
>
>You seem to be laboring sweatily under the misapprehension that all my keys
>are mapped to pressor, or something (though, now that you mention it...hmm).
>I have 'v' mapped to maxwarp, so my hands are resting on q/s/z/x/v/d/space
>and the mouse (weapons, movement).  q=shdown, s=shup, z=beam up, x=beamdown,
>v=maxwarp, d=det, space=pressor.  And if I wanna bomb, b's right there.

No tractor?  How do youy ogg?  How do you pull people off of Planets?  How
do you change velocity to nimbly dodge torps?  Do you dodge torps?

>>Constantly changing speeds is the way to go.  *Anyone* can tractor/pressor.
>
>It is we who, by virtue of our god-given keymaps which dodge, phaser, torp,
>pressor and det at the same time, will rule the universe.

I thought we already did?

>-- 
>a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
>Felix Sebastian Ortony	fortony@murphy.gis.uiuc.edu

-- 
                                          rjones@dsd.es.com