Shenanigunner

I found a stupid alt trick. If you run up the angled supports at the rear of the train station, you sllooowwwwwwlllyyyy slide down. It's weirdly addictive. I don't know of any other surface in the game that behaves this way.

Just a quick note/reminder that the default view can be improved by setting the 'visual scale' factor higher. It would be a non-issue if the persistent default wasn't 1, which means nearly every step your alt takes makes new map element fade into view in several stages. (I find that VERY distracting.) Use /visscale n, where n is 1 to 20. A setting of about 5 gives good results, 10 is better if you have some video horsepower, and 20... well, 20 pretty much hammers even powerful video cards down to a ratchety framerate. Experiment to find the optimum on your system. And then put the command on a convenient keybind, such as /bind SHIFT+F10 "visscale [your number here]" — something that will be needed, since the game resets to the default of 1 in every session, regardless of whether you save options, window settings, or anything. Arrgh.

When AUTORUN 1 and +UP are combined in a bind string, the latter is interpreted as ++UP and a flying alt continues to rise. (And a running alt will continue to jump.) I have done extensive testing of command ordering and combination, and it comes down to this pair, in any order or combination. Any attempt to have an alt "jump" and then start flying results in a continual rise from a latched UP command. I hope a Dev has time to look at this and see if it's a simple parsing error that can be corrected. Thanks! My example strings: BUTTON4 "emote flypose1$$autorun 1$$powexectoggleon Fly$$+up" BUTTON5 "autorun 0$$up 0$$powexectoggleoff Fly" Clicking the mouse button 4 makes the alt jump into the air and then begin flying forward, a very useful travel-start. (It does require a second click to set the pose, but that has nothing to do with the problem—I've tested.) Button 5 cancels all motion and can drop the alt at a pinpoint location, also useful. However, the first button creates a "continual rise" problem that requires a very specific "UP" command, alone, to cancel without disturbing the auto-fly setup.

God, no. Anyone playing this game who can't type in the odd smiley face needs to... something.

My kids were just of keyboard age back when I was a seasoned 2-year vet, and all four of us (even my non-gamer now-ex) played many times. My son is now almost 21 and we team a couple of times a week. It's not a problem.

Yep, it's the combination of AUTORUN and UP in one string. Either by itself (or with other commands) works fine; combine them and +UP turns to ++UP. Will submit a bug report. Maybe it's some easy parsing fix. In the meantime, using a second command to cancel UP. Oh, well.

My blaster on Live was Sgt. Glory B because the base name was already taken; now she's just Glory B. My redside blaster is Triton Jaded, thanks to Dee Snider. I had a huge controller (poweset forgotten!), done all in yellows, named Mean Mr. Mustard. And a grav controller named Grav Bent Diebstall, thanks to the Stainless Steel Rat. My first stalker, hat and Guy Fawkes mask and all, was named V. Endetta but got genned in a few weeks, so he became Count Q. (Count coup? Look it up.) He's back to the original name now. My Rorschach was Walter Kovacs and got genned. They wouldn't let me rename him KOVAX. So he went under the monicker Mr. Celllophane. I think I'll name my next stalker Behind You, if someone doesn't steal it. ETA: B'Hind Yoo now exists on Excelsior shard. 🙂

So yes, I of all people have a bind problem. ("Get looser underwear!") Here are my flying binds: BUTTON4 "autorun 1$$emote flypose1$$powexectoggleon Fly$$+up" BUTTON5 "autorun 0$$powexectoggleoff Fly" MouseChord "+up" SPACE "+up$$autorun 0" Y "powexecname Fly" The two spare mouse buttons are supposed to put me into fly/forward/pose with one to two clicks, and then drop me out of fly and autorun with one. They work great EXCEPT that I invariably hit some obstacle in the first ten feet, which means I have to hit SPACE to jump over it, which breaks autorun. (Using MOUSECHORD doesn't always clear the snag, either.) So I want to start the sequence with a jump ("Up up and away!") and then start flying/forward, hopefully missing the railing, trash can or fence in front of me. Doesn't work. That "+up" on the BUTTON4 bind is read as "++up" or "up 1" and I keep rising until I hit space (which again breaks autorun). I've fiddled around with various second keys so that I hit "Fly away now" and then "stop rising, dammit" but that's clumsy. Short question: Why is "+up" toggling on up-ping in this string? Bug, or something I am missing about the command, the + modifier, or what?

Just a heads-up that the CoX Technical Guide has been updated to incorporate all the little stuff of the last year AND the I27 changes. The Guide is 95 pages of technical reference to the game, including binds, macros, window names and management, button names, base editing and much more... half reference tables, half very straightforward "how to" that even novices can follow. And a few tips from a day-one player. 🙂 It's paired with Gunner's Advanced Basic Bindfile (GABB), a completely revamped button-mapping suitable for 2020, not 2007. 😛 Grab yours — and don't forget to bookmark City of Zeroes while you're at it — at www.Shenanigunner.com.

No, but he threw some tasty bits my way... the whole 'toon archive. It's back up. See post in General Discussion!

Hey, all, especially those of you that remember our very own webcomic from back in the day.. — City of Zeroes is back! — This 'toon ran for almost five years, until about a year before Live went down, and then the artist moved on to other things. I tracked him down and got both the archives and permission to put it all back up. Yeah, it's static, as I couldn't convince him to draw even a few new 'toons (such as the Great Collapse and the Greater Return)... but it's funny, funny stuff anyway. Life as a citizen in Paragon City, beaten silly by villains and heroes alike. Give it a look... and a bookmark! (www.CityOfZeroes.net, if the image link doesn't work.)

And... found him. All I had to do was leave bait all over the net. 🙂

And five minutes after posting this, I found him on search. Only old Twitter and FB pages, though. Anyone know how to contact him in Calgary? He's been a standup comedian for the last ten years or so.

Does anyone remember the fabulous webcomic "City of Zeroes"? It was done by a player who really got the nuances right, from the poor citz's perspective. He dropped it for something else about a year before the game went down. There are no useful traces left on the web, just a few stub entries here and there. Mainly... does anyone remember the artist's name? I'd love to get ahold of him and see if he'll put the archives back up accessibly. I exchanged email with him a number of times but none survives and I can't bring his name to mind. Maybe Derek Sweet?

So it's all just a marketing scam to get us to buy more enhancements and keep the Enhancement-Industrial Complex in business. Figures. 😄

If you pay attention, the purse-snatching animations have been improved so that the bad guy actually does end up with the purse for a few moments, in between the struggle and being whacked on. I'm pretty sure I've seen the purse on the ground after the fight begins, too. Never seen the animation you describe; I will watch for it, though!

In one of the office missions where the workers have been turned to androids or whatever, you'll hear, "Have you seen the new TPS reports? They're fantastic!" There's also a redside chatter from one of the cops, "I said, 'Don't run, you'll just die tired.' He ran."

Just noting that /showtime 1 will pop up an OSD for in-game time (a 30-minute day/night cycle)... which, given the number of missions and hunts that need to be at (game) night, would seem more useful than, well, an onscreen realtime clock.

Perfect. It would be cool if it were a discrete sound clip, but the general ambient works well. Was never able to find a place where it was by itself, without other city/foe noises. Big thanks. Look me up on Excelsior!

I'd like the clip for use on my desktop. 🙂

Is there some PIGG unpacker out there who can pass me an extracted sound file? I want the long, long, mournful factory whistle you hear in parts of Skyway, if anyone has it or can yank it from a PIGG's guts. Thanks.

By the way, there's a simple mapping bind file set on the Guide site. If you have a different controller, you can load it to do a full readout of what key and stick is mapped to what bind keyword.

Just possibly, using a shoulder or secondary key to swap trays might emulate a shift button. Load up, say, Tray 8 with your standard attack icons and macros, and use left-shoulder to swap it with Tray 9 and a different load. Bottom line is that the game just wasn't designed for controller play. But it's kind of fun to do basic travel and combat with one. Not sure I'd limit/bog a team trying to do so, and the first thing I learned was that not having fast-fire buttons for Insps was B*A*D.

A quick test says... yes. I think there are issues with using both keyboard and controller to manage powers, but if you're fast enough (or have three arms, Zaphod), it WILL work. Good question, and one I didn't think to check. I might have tested it with the old code and it did not work then - but it does now. Next up: can a shift key be bound to a controller button... Hmmm...

The recent patch FINALLY made it possible to use a controller fairly well with CoX. Kudos and thanks to the devs. (There were controller keymap commands, but they were erratic and did not address dual-stick controllers like the DS4 well.) This guide is for folks using (1) a DS4 controller with (2) a driver like DS4Windows. Everyone else will have to figure it out themselves, although the base mapping in the game is to an emulated XBox-360 controller, so much of this can be translated easily to those with those controllers. Further warning, this is VERY MUCH a "tinker until it works for you" kind of setup, so be prepared to fiddle around a lot until you have a setup you like. But the good news is... it finally works well! Unless you are a major controller maven and will never go back to WASD+Mouse, I recommend that you use save/load keybind and option file features. Create one set of files for keyboard play, and a new set for controller play (and use a basic set of binds to load/save them easily, so you can switch and experiment). Details in the Guide, or ask for basic help on this. I am ASS/U/MING you've saved your tweaked keyboard mapping and are ready to mess with the overall keybind and tray setups. DS4 Keymapping Map Here's the visual map of DS4 keys to keymap commands: Mapping Controller Buttons in Options If you are relentlessly against hard and confusing things like editing bind files (that's a joke, kids), you CAN go to Options and set each button in the Secondary mapping column - just click the related setting and press the controller button. Easy-peasy and it even uses sensible names for the button names. But this is slow, will overwrite other choices you might have made for secondary control keys, and doesn't let you use multiple commands like a bind or macro. I really don't recommend it. However, you WILL need to go into Options and select/enable the correct controller type. Otherwise the controller may not be recognized. But then, go back on out and do your controller mapping this way... Mapping Controller Buttons via Bindfile I will keep this part simple; if you don't know how to manage load/save bindfiles and such, I point you to the Guide and move on. Here is a basic DS4 controller bind file set, which should map well to an XBox 360 controller as well: JOY1 "follow" JOY2 "target_enemy_near" JOY3 "target_enemy_next" JOY4 "powexec_name Fly" JOY5 "powexec_slot 4" JOY6 "powexec_slot 3" JOY7 "powexec_slot 2" JOY8 "powexec_slot 1" JOY9 "++autorun" JOY10 "+up" JOY11 "camreset$$camdistadjust 20" JOY12 "powexec_unqueue" JOYPAD_UP "powexec_slot 6" JOYPAD_DOWN "powexec_slot 8" JOYPAD_LEFT "powexec_slot 5" JOYPAD_RIGHT "powexec_slot 7" JOYSTICK1_UP "+forward" JOYSTICK1_DOWN "+backward" JOYSTICK1_LEFT "+left" JOYSTICK1_RIGHT "+right" JOYSTICK2_UP "+lookdown" JOYSTICK2_DOWN "+lookup" JOYSTICK2_LEFT "+turnleft" JOYSTICK2_RIGHT "+turnright" You can cut and paste this into a file, then load it for each alt using /bindloadfile [path][filename]. Highly recommended to keep the path and name simple, or even include a keybind for quick-loading it, so you can edit/load/test/repeat easily. Here, include this line somewhere in the file: SHIFT+F12 "bindloadfile [path][file]" Basic Controller Mapping Now, let's look at that mapping. Most of it should be a good start for any alt. The only specific or tricky thing is that I included one or two keys that apply only to a flying alt; feel free to remap these to suit other purposes. But... Left joystick controls movement - forward, back, strafe-left, strafe-right. Pretty standard. Left joystick click toggles Autorun. Right joystick controls camera - look-up, look-down, turn-left, turn-right (you may want to reverse look-up/down from my choice). Right joystick click activates Up/Jump. Big triggers are mapped to tray slots 1-1 and 1-2; little triggers are mapped to 1-3 and 1-4. This should allow you to position your basic four attacks for quick activation. The "Joypad" buttons at left are mapped, clockwise from the left, to tray slots 1-5 through 1-8. This should put all your secondary combat powers at the ready. The Symbol buttons at the right are mapped to targeting - target near, target next, and follow. The top button is mapped to Fly; you might have another use for it. And finally, the "system" buttons on the upper edge are mapped to (left) power-cancel, and (right) camera reset. The last is pretty essential as your alt will frequently end up turned away from the camera view in combat. The PS button is not mapped; the touchpad is mapped to mouse function but is so scraggy I haven't been able to use it for much. Advanced Control & Fine-Tuning And there you go. Start with this setup, with maybe a tweak on that Fly button. Then try these advancements: Reorder your powers in the first tray to make the best, most natural connection between them and the controller buttons. Better, put your "controller" powers in the tertiary tray, or even an extra tray, so that you can have separate keyboard and controller mappings. Use macros in that controller-power lineup to do fancy things without writing them into the key mapping. Adjust /speedturn (the argument is degrees-per-turn for each click of turn_left or turn_right) to adjust joystick turning speed. And share your tweaks, complete mapping sets, etc. This is just a start. Honest, I'm not a big controller maniac and CoX is not really-really set up for controller control. But the interface has finally been tweaked to let us use controllers... and I plan on playing with one for a while to see if there are advantages.