What Are the Important Functions?

Hey all, I'm new to I-War and am setting up my key bindings.

I like EgoSoft's basic philosophy of putting all the most important controls on the stick and left hand "home row" on the keyboard.

I-War has a great many functions, and I'm trying to figure out which will be most important so I can put those on my left hand. I've got the EgoSoft A/Z for throttle, Q/W for roll, and there's CapsLock for afterburner (called "thruster override" I think?) and Left Shift for reverse thrust.

Obviously strafe is going to be of critical importance, so I've got that in the "HardWar position" atop the joystick hat.

I'd like to manipulate the HUD by clicking on its options with the mouse, but that doesn't seem to be possible.

Now we come to things I need help on: are LDSI missiles useful enough to get Joystick Button 2, or are they not really all that important? Conversely are the non-LDSI missiles worth the added inconvenience of their not having a separate launch key?

Does the manual LDS work like a "super-afterburner" and thus deserve the left-hand "D" key ('D'rive) or is manual LDS of only marginal importance, thus relegating it to one of the lesser righthand keys like 'L' ('L'DS engage)?

Joystick button 3 is for "Target Nearest Enemy" (an X-Wing convention, and a darn good one). Joystick button 2 is "Fire LDSI Missile" (Wing Commander style) unless the LDSI missiles aren't very good. Out of curiosity how does one fire a non-LDSI missile?

Joystick button 4 ... countermeasures? Are countermeasures important enough to assign to a joystick button?

What other important controls belong on the left hand home-row and joystick buttons (mine has 4)? What controls might seem important but really aren't? Any advice?

Hi Ugly Angel, welcome to the board

are you new to I-War or to Edge of Chaos (I-War II)?

For EoC I may be helpful, for original I-War not.
(Too long ago I 've played it)

You should read the ingame encyclopedia for valuable information about missiles and weapons.
Usefull missiles: disruptors, seekers/deadshot up to a certain degree, REM-Missiles for the bigger punch and these LDSI Missiles.
As far as I know it is not possible to attach a seperat key to every weapon or missile you have in your loadout.
But within 48 hours you'll get an expert statement about that, I'm quite sure...
There are two kinds of weapons: energy based particle beam cannons (PBC's) or ammunition based missiles/projectiles.
You have to be able to switch between them and circle through your loadout.It's handy to do this with your stick.
LDSI missiles are as useful as all the other missiles - they do a certain job, but I guess you'll choose them for your loadout.

For dealing with some flightcontrols or changing some keybindings have a look into maindirectory/configs/default. Here or in your manual you'll find the keys attached to the different controls.
If you want to change them do it here but try the original layout first (L for manual LDS!). It depends on your flightstyle and your joystick weather it's necessary to change the keybindings.

LDS is similar to WARP (:Dto all those trekkies in here) - your weapons are disabeled in LDS and you have to slow down to basic thrusters (Impulse) for dogfighting. Now you know what these LDS Interruptor Missiles are good for...
And there IS a key for LDSI missiles: hit "i".

There is a key for "Target Nearest Enemy" ("r") and it is attachable to your stick if you prefer this. I don't use it...

Your vessel will be quite good with dealing in countermeasures - you don't have to care about that. If you want to do it manualy there is a mod available. (Not sure for this)

Important controls? Most of them are if you want to have some control over your ship.
Read this encyclopedia - you'll get a benefit out of that.
Jump into your cockpit and have some fun - you'll get used to your controls with a little help from an old toaster called Clay:D.
Changing keybindings is simple if necessary...

Oh - you'll going to find out this game is not really comparable to wing commander or x-wing stuff. Choose Isaac Newton as a father of your spaceship if you want...


Edit/
Your joystick may be a bit simple for this game.
A throttle is not really necessary, most of the time thruster override will do. But the stick should be used for up/down - turn left/right and roll left/right. Steering and weapons attached to the stick and thrusters via keyboard.
Edit.

Throttle is basically useless in a combat situation. If you try to do anything then fly by override, you'll almost definitely end up dead. Expect to play this game more along the lines of 'descent' then x-wing, as the newtonian physics means the game is vastly different then a typical flight sim, unlike most other 'space games'.

LDSI aren't important enough to merit joystick button 2. They are useful, but you won't be using them constantly or often.

Manual LDS is more like hyperdrive then an afterburner. The ramp up time is signifigant, and LDSi fields are too common. In combat, expect to use it only as a way to quickly kill your velocity, by double tapping it. Trying to actually go into LDS in combat not only prevents you from using you weapons, but will usually get you inhibitied immediately.

Non-LDSi missiles function just like any other weapon. Switch to them as your active weapon, and hit fire.

Countermeasures can't be assigned a joystick button without modding. The computer controls countermeasures.



My personal setup is for an odd gamepad/mouse akimbo style that only I really use. I'd have to say though, I heavily recommend you have the forward/backward thrust overrides on the joystick, and probably have on keyed as an alt to make your axises strafe instead of turn.





But in all honesty, the best advice I can give you is to gain experience flying using only your overrides, with your throttle set to zero. You'll be far, far more nimble that way. The physics is purely newtonian, and while ship will try to make the experience like a plane on earth if you let it, you'll eventually be much better off if you learn to fight as if you were in space instead of the air.

Heh, I've tried to be a "Newtonian Pilot" from day 1 and disdained the "flight assist", which obviously is for sissies or it wouldn't contain the word "assist".

However, the bad guys were unimpressed and shot me up with depressing regularity ... until I started using the lateral drive ... NOW I'm a hotshot pilot! I can actually close range on an opponent without getting shot to pieces!

The flying is a lot like HardWar, interestingly enough, except that lateral drive is even more important in IWar than it ever was in HardWar ... and there's no atmospheric drag, of course. Those lateral thrusters have such powerful acceleration it's practical to fly sideways! I'm the scourge of the tugs! (Maybe I'll fight something tougher soon, eh?)

You're right about the throttle: it isn't very important because LDS and flight assist mode aren't very important. (I wish I could make my ship default to flight assist "off"!)

Are you using the mouse for attitude control and the stick for lateral?


Funny story:

My "hotshot" LDS piloting got me into a little trouble ... I tried to use the LDS to zip through the Nav points on the way to Lucretia's Base, but noticed I wasn't going very fast.

"This is slower than thrusters! Maybe it's throttleable?"

So I tapped the throttle a little, and started moving. Yahoo! I bore down on the throttle, ready to get some serious speed!

What I didn't realize was that the throttle setting was logarithmic, with just enough latency between throttle and drive to make it dangerous ... as the LDS dutifully deltaed its way up to my maxxed-out throttle setting I saw the waypoint scoot by, then lots of waypoints, then I shot out of the nebula, in a panic as I realized my acceleration was exponential!

Distances were flicking by at ever-increasing orders of magnitude, each successive digit taking its turn at spinning frantically, as my brain finally un-froze and I hit the "throttle down" key. I was on the other side of the solar system before I finally got the thing stopped, some 24,000,000 km off course!

It was with great humility that I hit the autopilot and watched it take me home.

My setup is actually kind of weird. Both the mouse and the gamepad typically control the attitude, but mouse button 3 is a set up as a shift button, so that when I hold it the joypad becomes lateral while the moust remains as attitude. I'd just leave the pad as lateral all the time, but using the mouse for normal flying always gives me trouble. I prefer to use the pad for making hard turns, and the mouse more for fine flight control, a habit I picked up with playing descent freespace. Mouse 2 turns off flight assist when pressed, and the joystick shoulder buttons are the forward/backward thrust overrides. It lets me use the flight assist for simple flight manuevers when they're is no threat around, while still being able to react with full control if a fight comes up.

I thought my "hat thruster" setup, borrowed from HardWar, was the "ultimate", but hit a small snag with respect to stealth: using binary controls for thrusters means you're either at full burn or cold soak.

Lighting myself up like a Christmas tree then winking out again several times per second seems much less stealthy than simply easing the thrusters to 10% and leaving them there ...

"Flight Assist" is good for nulling your velocity relative to I-War's "universal fixed point of reference" (God-zero?) that really shouldn't be there. And what's with the cockpit jitter when your velocity relative to God-zero hits around 3k mps? Is God shaking your ship because he's angry you're over the speed limit? Ol' Issac's been fudged a little ...

Homeworld fudged it terribly, FYI: all ships oriented themselves "upright" to an "imaginary floor", and would always try to "right themselves" relative to it after planing up or down to change their "depth". In other words Homeworld space ships are submarines!