When will we be able to tie block functions to hotkeys in cockpits/seats?

This would be such a huge quality of life feature, it's hard to believe that has not been done already. It's absolutely bizarre that you can't set up the hotbar on your ships cockpit to enter a turret when you press a number key instead of having to go through the ship's menu every single time for example.

Pretty much all functions that you can control through the ship's menu should be accessible via hotkey, especially things like taking control of a turret.

 

A couple of weeks? I think that's scheduled on the software roadmap for 2/29/2021 ...

(gotta admit this is a novel way to avoid using the suggestions forum. not disagreeing in principle but starting a GoFundMe for specific features/bug fixes would probably be a better motivator; sw devs rarely feel shame but they do like beer money)

 

It's not "bizarre" at all. We can easily have a hundred "function" blocks in a ship ; how many "hotkeys" does this translate into ?

I think a more manageable option would be to be able to assing any object to a toolbar slot, by simply dragging it in the slot like we do for inventory. Keybindings are already flaky enough right now, I would not want to see a flurry of additional keys in there.

 

It would be a customizable toolbar like in Space Engineers. It's not like we need a huge amount of them.

A simple set like "Gravity on/off" "Engines on/off" "Turrets on/off" "Take control of mining turret" would be all you need to reduce the amount of times you open your ship menu by 90%.

 

Well I would gladly exchange the whole "logistics" crap with linking containers to put a glass in a closet for a few more quickbar slots, anytime.

I saw you edited just as I came back to edit my post... ^^

But yes, or at least if we have to open a menu, it could be worthwhile. All these menus piling up are the result of many players asking for "automation" and "logistics" like "they did so well in X or Y game".

The problem is that Empyrion was doing very well with constructors having slots, and managing stuff from there. Other players simply asked to get more options inside the existing interfaces to make transferring stuff easier, like grouping / shift-clicking & similar things, which didn't require making complete user interfaces and now require players to do the Rain Dance to get object A in space B or to put a nail in a plank.

This is also like some players asking for complete conveyor systems with pulleys and cogwheels, while we struggle to get a simple elevator, or we can't even send a barrel rolling with a kick (it would probably roll right through the terrain...). Sometimes I wonder what game these players are (or were) playing...

 

I find it curious for example that you can assign 4.. hotkeys I think it is, to console scripts. Basically to run a few console commands. But the console script does not close at the end (or in fact why the console even displays at all just to run the script is a bit perplexing.)

A lot of automation this does not quite go the final mile, signals and circuits stop just short for working because for example the 7 or 8 quick-buttons for engines, lights, shields, 02 etc do not have built in signal names that players can use. I know these are in reality 8 group toggles, but if they had hard-coded (implicit names in programming speak) signal names that would help me a lot because I'm terrible at circuits in the game. If these group names were merely added to circuits, and circuit "input" names could have hotkeys like the console scripts do, viola?

Is it possible to append or link this thread with the relevant existing suggestion threads?

 

I think the whole thing can be done very simply by using the signal logic function that is already in the game and just making any pilot seat contain 10 switches that correspond to hotkey buttons.

It's silly that I can wire up a lever that will turn on my gravity generator, close all hatches and power up the engines, but I can't tie that same signal logic to a button in the cockpit.

 

Well it's not "silly" we're talking about a UI which is like a webpage with "hotspots" and "devices" that are completely different game objects, accessed with their "colliders". These are different "classes" and are compiled, can't be changed during runtime.

@zaphodikus : all devices can be referenced by their IDs, so that's probably what they used to make these "quick buttons" for engines & lights in the "main" control panel.

 

Sorry, but there are no arcane rules of game objects that would prevent a programmer from calling a function that already exists in a game with any input he damn well pleases.

Programmable toggles already exist on the ship menu.

 

The API for OnTriggerEnter takes a Collider object pointer as a handle and the unity engine assumes it's going to send the call. If you do a little searching on "manually invoke OnTriggerEnter/OnTriggerExit/OnTriggerStay" you'll see a lot of discouragement- I won't pretend I write unity code but generally speaking manually invoking private APIs for "OnXXX" sorts of calls that are managed by code you didn't write can get you in trouble, create memory leaks, etc.

If you wanted to enable this sort of call in a safe way you would need to use wrappers around the scripts- if the existing code wasn't written that way then you're talking about making a complete pass through the code to define user functions for the scripts you want to allow this sort of forked call to.

 

That's not an arcane rule, OnTriggerEnter is simply a specific call that happens when a rigidbody/collider game object collides with another rigidbody/collider game object, so that's all it should be used for.

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you could use a button push to enter a turret from a seat in a ship instead of having to click your way through a menu.

 

I think you're insisting a lot on "it's bizarre" and similar expressions to try to show the developers were wrong in some way because they did not make something the way you see it should have been done. I think we all got the point now, and you can stop spinning in circles.

My reply in post #3 is all I will add to this.

 

lol.. there's nothing worse than when someone refuses to admit they're wrong, and continues to try and "talk down" on people by using 'big words' and phrases, as if that makes them somehow more believable, even though it's clearly obvious they have no clue what those words even mean, let alone how they relate everything else...

Or.. actually.. maybe, there is.. when someone refses to admit they're wrong, (still), but then stomps their feet and marches away like an upset toddler.. :'(

This reply in this post is all I will add to this.



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Ok, I lied. Ill also add this:

"Well it's not "silly" we're talking about a UI which is like a webpage with "hotspots" and "devices" that are completely different game objects, accessed with their "colliders". These are different "classes" and are compiled, can't be changed during runtime."

None of that makes, remotely, ANY, sense.

The UI, which was done within Unity, is nothing like a webpage, and nothing to do with colliders (nor do collidors have anything to do with webpages.. ughh..)

Functions! Loops! Stack Allocations! Memory Leaks!

Oh! sorry.. I thought we were just shouting out random, "impressive-sounding" words, for a minute there..

Ok for real though. This would be super easy to implement.. In fact, you could probably do it with something like dnspy and modify the game's Assembly-CSharp dll. Even hardcore each actual Hot Key to whichever function you wanted them to trigger.
I did something similar awhile back with "7 Days to Die", adding extra Keys to trigger functions which weren't customizable by default.
Things such as Vehicles having both their default headlights on/off, but also additional custom Keys for toggling modded vehicles with Emergency or Auxillary lights, and even added a pretty simple function thar would take a Vehicle's "headlight brightness" value and increase it by like, x3.. which I then named "Hi-beams"..
In all, took maybe an hour or two tops. Works perfectly fine as if it were part of the original game (which technically, I guess now for me, it kinda is)