PeterW wants to have it on Z/C, which would be as slow as the current system. A second direction doesn't change much, imo. Number keys could be a bit faster; but since you have to move your hand away from the main controls, it would slow down the much more important movement. Right now, I can do mouse action simultanuous to regular movement actions.

If the mouse is used for throwing (and also aiming, so you can throw in different angles), also selecting the item by mouse might become slower. I'm not sure. That's something which should be tried out in a real-world setting, i.e. by allowing the configuration.

I really like the concept :) (and the nice, well structured overview you give, too)

> however he can run faster if the keys are pressed repeatedly. This is another element from popular Jump'n'runs which would add some fun to controlling the Clonk.

Perhaps it's because I'm used to the old control style, but I don't like the idea of having to press (fast) repeatedly keys to achieve a certain single action... (and I disfavor it in any other Jump'n'Run, too).
To me, it just looks like a method to create hectic when real gameplay is missing...

> It neither added more control possibilities nor strived to replace the keyboard.

Uhm, no? It allowed more control, as - for example - the bow works much better than with keyboard control. And yes, it strived to replace the keyboard. But it never quite managed to pull it of.

The main point is, imo, that the first one was always kind of an afterthought and we made sure it didn't give too much advantage over players playing with pure keyboard configurations. Where I'm kind of following you is your second point: Striving to replace the keyboard is a silly idea.

> W, A, S, D - used for left, right and jump.

And Stop? You are using J'n'R as basis?

So, just to clarify: The old default control position for a player was "three fingers on YXC/123", now we have "three fingers on ASD, other hand using mouse". This obviously makes split-screen impossible - you can't place two mice and still play comfortably. So if we do this, we should first commit to killing it completely.

> however he can run faster if the keys are pressed repeatedly.

Huh? Don't we have to press the key all the time or the clonk will stop? I don't get what you're trying to picture here.

> the closer the mouse to the clonk the less power is used

Hm, I kind of like the idea better to scale power by click length. On the other hand, we should really implement a trajectory preview - and that works better with your solution, I guess.

> This easies the digging a lot. Especially Newbies would often dig themselves a hole where they couldnt' get out anymore

I always thought the problem was that digging was too easy. Newbies often dig to much and without thinking first.

Just a quick idea because you're mentioning shovels later on: Maybe we could make the second mouse key the universal "use what is in your hand" key? That's far more useful than just digging. Plus it goes naturally with bows.

> S

Hm, maybe we should add "enter building" to that list, PeterM-style? S should be the universal "use what is behind you" key.

> he inventory is switched through with the mousewheel (as before).

Please have mercy with those of us that don't have a mouse wheel :(

> CAPS-LOCK

Uhm, no. I don't know what kind of hand you have, but my pinky finger can't reach that far easily. From my Soldat experience with WASD, I think that there are only two keys this finger should be allowed to press: Left Shift and maybe Left Ctrl (though this key might move, for example, for laptop keyboards).

I'd also rather use X in this case. We have now three extra keys you can use with your best fingers without moving your hand - why not use them? Plus it makes sense as "S" seems to be some kind of use key for your system, too.

>To use [Space] might suggest itself but I think some players want to assign space for jump instead of W. The same key would be of course used for vehicles and buildings.

And it makes more noise.

Nice idea^^

But what is with more players using one PC without a joypad? This was the most important factor for me to buy clonk. Now being unable to play splitscreen because of rearragned controls is aweful.

Nice ideas so far! I do like the idea of making more use of the mouse (and thus making it obligatory). Throwing and digging with mouse buttons sounds nice as does moving through the inventory with the mouse wheel. Also I agree to more accessible menus and bigger buttons.

I'm sure all of us agree to reduce complexity, which is why I dislike the following things:
* I don't like the idea of different kinds of inventories, the knight and the cowboy already show that they are intransparent and difficult to use.
* Attaching the cursor to the clonk is also a bad idea in my opinion, as the clonk is already kind of "attached" to the middle of the screen. The landscape changes its position and not the clonk, so why should we make the cursor attached? IMO attaching the cursor only when standing is confusing and reduces the possibilities.
* Caps-Lock as a standard key is indeed a bad idea. Some people configure it to be used by the OS for special actions and nearly all keyboards have lights turning on and off when pressing Caps-Lock. IMO that's too confusing.

Alternatively to the idea of a new key replacing double-dig, we could use the left mouse button as a standard "use" button. Aiming with a bow, casting a spell with a wand (or opening a menu first), building a construction with a hammer (this would make construction kits obsolote, which is not a bad thing IMO), digging with a shovel and of course throwing a flint or stone – IMO all of these actions could perfectly done with the left mouse button. Who wants to throw a bow or wand anyway? The right mouse button could be used for alternative actions (quick spells) or throwing in general (for those wanting to throw their hammer ;)).

I think this system of a more flexible left mouse button would ease things a lot. The old double-dig thing was quite complex and this way we would have a wonderful simple control system: WASD + left/right mouse button + mouse wheel

So let's compile a list of controls that we could assign. I could then handle integration into the engine for these individual controls:

Basic Movement:
Left, Right
Jump
Swim(/Fly?) Left, Right, Up, Down
(Left, Right Accelerate?)
Move to target position
Stop movement

Basic actions:
Throw (+angle?)
Drop (+angle?)
Start dig
Control dig direction
Dig to target
Dig out material
Start chop
Start build
Start fight (automatic?)
Stop action
Open context menu for more actions?

Specific actions - may also work as activating items:
Aim weapon
Use unaimed weapons (e.g. pistol)
Cast spell
Special Clonk actions (e.g. disembowel, indian crouch, assassin turning invisible, etc.)

Generic object interaction in landscape:
Open context menu?

Generic vehicle interaction:
Grab ("/Start controlling")
Ungrab ("/Stop controlling")
Push left/right
Push rotate?
Push up/down?
Push into building
Open context menu (automatic on grab?)

Specific vehicle interaction:
Vehicle fire weapon
Vehicle aim left/right (e.g. cannon)
Vehicle aim power up/down (e.g. catapult)
Vehicle control left/right/up/down/stop
Put items
Take items
Produce (e.g. Anvil)
Other special action (e.g. tent pack)

Basic building interaction:
Enter building
Exit building
Open context menu (automatic on enter?)
Put items
Take items
Activate items and vehicles (put in front of building)

Specific Building interaction:
Buy, Sell
Produce
Move left/right/up/down (e.g. wagon attached to steam engine)
Other special action (e.g. fire cannon tower)

Inventory interaction:
Use (I've never seen any object really needing more than one important action)
Aim weapons?
Context menu?
Select active item: Scroll left/right, select specific item

Dialog (/Menu) interaction:
Select (highlight) items
Activate items
Close/Cancel dialog

Crew control:
Select next/previous Clonk
Select specific Clonk
Select all Clonks
Select a subset of Clonks
Select toggle

Game control:
Open player menu
Other non-player-specific keys (music on/off, abort game, quicksave, etc.) probably OK for now.

We may also change the control sets to be more like "Standard keyboard + Mouse", "Standard Gamepad with aim stick(?)", "Classic keyboard without mouse", "Classic gamepad without aimer", "Second player keyboard", etc., so the mouse will not be activated as a seperate control any more.

The list is rather inclusive. Many of those will be set to the same key or some may not be set at all because we decide to not have them at all (e.g., Crew Select toggle?). I doubt it would be a good idea to just e.g. say "let's drop the blimp and elevator so we don't need up/down controls". Because sooner or later, there will be an aircraft, even if it's not the classic blimp. And it will need good controls. There will probably be vehicles that have special controls needing fast access. It's better to plan this ahead; otherwise, we end up with awkward controls like triple-down for aiming in the Hazard pack. Some actions may also be put into a menu of course, though that is usually not an option for fast-access commands like casting spells, unless the menus suddenly become much, much more efficient.

I am a bit sceptical of assigning so many things to the up/down-keys. There are many cases - when swimming or controlling vehicles like a blimp/submarine/elevator - when you need the direction keys. Also, e.g. on my gamepad, pressing up or down to do an action would be pretty awkward, because it's just a directional cross.

[edit: Forgot some controls]

I don't like this idea. It really sounds and looks like you want to make it perfect for gamepad playing.

I would prefer this method:

*the mouse should be optional, but more usable in openclonk. New pathfinding and better controllways (maybe there should be patricle showing the flight path of a object you wanted to shoot or throw)
*a special action-button, the new version of DigDouble()
*a inventory object 1 and inventory object 2 button (like dig and throw, but you can change the objects behind the button)
*a next inventory item and a previous inventory button
*a next crew member/previous crew member button
*a menu button
*old movement keys

So instead of the old 11 buttons there would be one more.

Things I think would be very upset of, because I don't think they would be very clonk-alike:
*an extra jump button: Maybe some Shoot'em Up use this stuff, but normal 2-D games don't use crap like this
*keys split up along the whole keyboard: Numpad and the wasd-block have enough keys.
*the requirement of a mouse

Here btw how a building menu could look like to be more clear: Components are shown directly, objects which can not be build because of lacking ressources are grey. Perhaps on the left, a standard contents-menu is shown to show just how many components are available.

My suggestion for the get/store and sell/buy system:



You have three categories (equipment, content, buyable objects). Now you can put the items in the wanted category with simple drag and drop. If you want to sell an item, you just pull it in the "buyable" section by the mouse.
I think, this would be a rather intuitiv and fast way of controling.