Shenanigunner

I tend to wave the flag for the Technical Guide pretty often, but it's been a long time since I said much about its companion piece, the GABB bindfile set. So for those of you who haven't found it over the years, a brief PSA. IMVHO, the default binds for City were never very good and represent the state of the art for keyboard control ca. 2005... at best. I know many players have become very comfortable with them and routinely use things like the semicolon as the start of emote entry strings and such. But really... it's 2020 and the Homecoming era really needs a clean, updated, well-planned keyboard interface. I'm only a middling gamer, but I am a UI/UX/Human Factors designer whose career in such goes back long before the terms "UX" etc. were coined. I like simplicity, intuitiveness, self-teaching and -reinforcing interfaces that are forgiving and adaptable. Which is why I created my own sweeping bind set long ago, and updated it for the new era, and have polished it over the last year or two. I highly recommend that all players give the GABB - Gunner's Advanced Basic Bindfile - at least one good try, no matter how much it might need a little adaptation from years of "digital memory" of commanding the game. I won't go into detail here except to post the key chart for quick examination. The complete guide, which walks you through all the binds and highlights those you need to edit for your own installation and preferences, is on the website with the Tech Guide. You'll want both the manual and the little ZIP of the bind files. You can even try it risk free if you do this: Save your current bind set up with /bindsavefile [game path]\MyOldBinds.txt. Edit the new bindfile (see the manual), GABB.txt in Notepad, Notepad++ (highly recommended) or any ASCII editor. Load the new binds using /bindloadfile [PATH]\GABB.txt. Experiment with the key reference chart at hand. Keep, modify and update... or reload your old binds with /bindloadfile [PATH]\MyOldBinds.txt. Among other things, the GABB file blanks out ALL OTHER EXISTING default binds so that the game can't sneakily overwrite them. I strongly suggest NOT trying to blend the new binds and the old set, no matter how comfortable whacking ; or ' might be. 🙂 It also implements a basic system of rolling binds for toon-talk, so that you don't just say "Gratz!" over and over. All comments welcome. GABB-chart-119.pdf

Maybe we should see if Veidt Industries can help. 😄

Oh, sh*t. I should know better than to post in a hurry. All correct. For Combat Teleport, I use a double-click bind to make it instantaneous: /bind LeftDoubleClick powexecname Teleport /bind CTRL+LeftDoubleClick powexecname Combat Teleport ...and because years of using the teleport bind keep me from using the two effectively, I have a macro that swaps CT as the primary in missions and back to TP for general use and travel.

So... was your whole question about successfully finding and using the right power tray icon? I read more into it about the actual command string. Here's what I'd use, with either a bind, a plain macro or a fancy one: "powexeclocation 0:5 Combat Teleport" Activating this will 'port the target to right in front of you, handshake or devastating melee range. One click or tap, no pointing or trying to find a landing spot in the heat of battle. 🙂

Er... good point. I rarely think of the few standard GUI keys when writing binds. Documented (with credit) using keypad SUBTRACT and CTRL+SUBTRACT, which puts it right near the GABB default of using ADD as the general master targeting search or "radar." Specifically: /bind SUBTRACT "targetcustomnext base alive Sorc" /bind CTRL+SUBTRACT "beginchat /bind SUBTRACT targetcustomnext base alive " So Ctri+Subtract brings up the bind rewrite and Subtract fires it. I put Sorc[erer] as a loaded default but you don't have to. Works GREAT for "Mysterious Gifts" if you're hunting Christmas gifts, too. 🙂

Wow, that's really nice use of both the targeting function and a clean "quick update" bind. 💥 My only improvement would be something like use Ctrl+V to call the update string, and then V to search. Keep it on one easy to remember key.

The null string of probably better for erasing binds. When you nop them, it becomes a permanent entry in the bind file, which could lead to exceeding the file size limit of about 240 lines. Use ”" to delete binds and "nop" to blank them out (especially to null out default binds the game night otherwise restore).

For those who don't know, yes, binds can use the three shift keys to multiply the number of useful bind keys. But I just finished checking a behavior I've suspected for a while, which may be new at some point in the Homecoming arc or go all the way back to the beginning. If you do not specify a bind for a SHIFT+KEY operation, it will work exactly as if the root keybind and the shifted keybind are the same. That is, if for example you bind F to follow: /bind F "follow" ...pressing F will, gosharoonie, make your alt follow the selected target. However... pressing ALT+F, CTRL+F and SHIFT+F will also make your alt go a-following, basically ignoring the shift key. If you want to prevent this behavior, you have to bind the shifted alternatives to nop, so that they have a specific do-nothing (or do-something-else) action and don't defaullt to the root key: /bind F "follow" /bind CTRL+F "nop" /bind ALT+F "nop" /bind SHIFT+F "nop" Note that binding a key to "nop" and to "" (a null assignment) are NOT the same thing. The empty bind leaves interpretation open, as above; the "nop" puts a solid "do nothing" command in place. This is a pretty subtle problem and maybe a non-problem if, say, you want F to work pretty much no matter what shift key you might be accidentally pressing. But in more elaborate bind sets, it can be useful to make sure ALT+F isn't interpreted as F. And so forth. Guide updated with all this info.

I really, thoroughly appreciate the help but — I know more about binds and macros than probably 99% of the community. I HAVE a solution that goes "up" on one key and stops rising on another. I don't need another. I want a solution that works the way the commands USUALLY work in most combinations: to start with one (1) jump up and then do no more "up" movement except as I otherwise command, without having to cancel a latched "up" state. While we're at it, the same dev fix will probably cure the NEW problem of each mouse key producing "up" when only the combination is supposed to... a condition that did not exist until the last week or two, sometime post I27. Your very detailed answer simply gives another variation of what I am already accomplishing and don't want to. I may be cursing the darkness of a bad parsing problem, but I already have a candle. 🙂

Thanks for all, but changing +up to up 1 just perpetuates the basic problem. What I WANT from the bind is for the alt to jump up before starting forward-fly. it should work. With one flaw, it DOES work: the alt jumps I(up and away from obstacles) but the +up is then being interpreted as up 1, a latched "go up" command instead of a "jump once" command. I maintain that this is a new bug because my longstanding bind of +up on MouseChord has always worked perfectly (rise or jump whenever I chord)... and now, whenever I zone, pressing either mouse button triggers a jump until I press both. New (flawed) behavior, and I suspect at the root of it is why the simple "jump to fly" bind isn't working right. As it is, I already have to hit the "Fly travel" button and then do a quick MouseChord to stop the perpetual rise. Alternate means of doing all that don't really solve the issue.

Thanks for the input, @Bopper. I've considered most of that and have to spend a while doing back-to-back tests of the same teleport under various conditions, but the bottom line is that CTP seems to be blocked more easily/frequently by objects than TP. I can TP up into a pillar perhaps 50 feet away and drop onto a catwalk; the same attempt with CTP "bounces off:" the railing or catwalk edge and I drop back to the ground. And so forth. More when I have time to test, and yes, the short range does bite me when I forget which TP mode I am in, but I'm definitely seeing a fault in how CTP actually executes. Stay 'tooned.

And just another update, ALL of my alts now exhibit the "up on one mouse key" fault every time I zone. Something has changed/gone corkscrew with the parsing of up/+up in binds, and I think the fault was somewhat after the first I27 rollout.

It is on a bind - doubleclick to point and go. Very fast and effective way to use TP powers. I did some experimenting and there is definitely something "resistant" about CTP taking you to spots that TP does easily.

Is anyone else finding Combat Teleport a little... glitchy, buggy, unpredictable? I've had TP on my main since early days on live and use double-click to use it fast and smoothly. In integrating CTP into the alt, I put that on doubleclick for fast accessiblity and regular TP on CTRL+doubleclick for travel. Besides never being able to remember to use CTRL while traveling or trying to get somewhere vertical, I've found that Combat Teleport never quite does what I want. It seems to be easily blocked by any object in the way, and trying to get up on a catwalk or such is nearly impossible. I am used to TP'ing at, say, a pillar and then dropping onto a surface. CTP simply won't do that, 9 times out of 10; I materialize outside the railing or low wall or whatever and drop. Unlike TP, which can go "through" openings, CTP seems to treat windows, openings, railing spaces etc. as solid. So other than for moving around a more or less flat area, it's been a real PITA and not of much use. Comments?

And just an update to an update, on a poke from AboveTheChemist, I completely reviewed, revised and extended the emotes list. V2.85 now the current version. (The wiki pages have good information but IMVHO it's aw'fly jumbled, trying to maintain the distinctions between which Issue and add-on pack brought them. Mine is a cleaner, completely integrated list, while the wikis have lots more info overall and sample animations. Collect the whole set!)

And an addendum: I don't know if it's just my client/setup or not, but +UP is bugged in several ways now. I have used the following for years, both on Live and since first days on Homeecoming: /bind MouseChord "+up" ... and it's terribly useful for one-handed zone travel, jumping or rising over obstacles. Now, every time I zone (including mission entry./exit) my right mouse button, bound as default to CAMLOOK, triggers the bind and I jump until I at least click the left button. So something has gone sideways in parsing +UP. A look-see would be appreciated...

Huh. Must go 'speriment, here. I wonder if these are any kind of defined action or just a bug of the parsing operation. You know, combining to become an action code that's not normally available to player control. That is, a lot of things in the UI and CI are controlled by hex values, which can be built by stacking defines or entering the conjured hex value. These may be "mooshing" together to form such a raw action code. Cool. And ETA, yeah. I think that's it. These act very erratically. You have to clear the emote before the next one will work, and doing the same paired command or any other back to back produces an unpredictable result. I'll bet one wooden Inf it's an artifact of how these emote keywords stack. Still fun. Always great to find new actions, especially the weird ones above. 🙂

I've never heard of hybrid emotes... 😛

Or a grand compliation using "Zorba's Dance."

And vice versa. I try to keep an eye on other lists but I generally rely on the 'dumps' available from the game itself. Some users are okay with looking up things individually and kind of one piece at a time; my preference has always been one complete source. Both work. 🙂 Only since about 2009. See the sig. 🙂

Complete, annotated and up to date list of emotes in the Guide. 🙂

K, thx.

...and it's good for at least IP South to North, about as far a zone distance as there is. Nuf sed.

(Searched but found no answer; haven't been able to team yet to test... sorry!) Does Teleport Target retain the range of Recall Friend for teammates? The info tab gives only the range for enemies (about 240 feet for me). RF was able to pull teammates from across most zones... does TT still have that range?

Yeah, I dunno why it's not persistent, or at least saves with Options. Grmbl.