Rotate turning wheel using mouse instead of T / Shift+T (operate ALL mechanisms with mouse instead o

1. Point at turning wheel with no tool selected
2. Keep mouse button down
=> Can now move mouse WITHOUT moving screen! (as long as mouse button down)
3. Do circles with mouse around center of turning wheel (or just drag one of the turning handles up/down in a single fast motion and repeat from 1 if you cant do a full circle or want to rotate it really fast!)

Advantages over current method:

• Much more intuitive than T/Shift + T
• Can control speed of rotation with high precision (can do VERYY slow or relatively fast)
• Can easily switch direction (or rapidly shake turning wheel back and forth, whatever you need to do)

This would be much better in my opinion.

NOTE: Just emphasizing that the screen will not move with the mouse while turning the turning wheel. This is important because if the screen did follow the mouse, it would not be very visually appealing if you try to rotate fast (it might work for slow rotation though. And we dont really need fast rotation if we use gears to change slow motion to fast motion. Perhaps we would be fine without messing with the camera.)


This applies to all current and future mechanisms! Turn lock catch block on/off by dragging the switch thing with mouse (you just need to point at the same rectangle as with T, not at the actual moving part), same with all other kinds of levers.
Drag actual blocks with mouse as well (like a timber block on the ground) maybe (since we need that ability)?

Artists illustration of turning wheel block operated using mouse:

Note how the mouse press started within the rectangular selection region and not one of the handles. This is because pointing the mouse at the handle is too goddamn difficult, so pointing it somewhere within the selection region should suffice.

The mouse should be allowed to leave the region, the operation will continue for as long as mouse is pressed. (although not doing so could be cool as well, like swiping your mouse over an array of turning wheels and they all turn )


DRAG EVERYTHING WITH MOUSE WOOOOO ITS NO LONGER SPACE AGE, doing things with the press/hold of a KEYBOARD button is unrealistic


If you own 2 mice your strength is doubled

 

Interesting idea.

I imagine just using the Y or X axis of the mouse would also suffice, instead of having to go in circles. That should be optional.

 

I like the idea a lot actually haha! Would be nice to have finer control with the mouse. Easier to fine tune mechanisms with your mouse than by tapping keys.

 

Oh please please no console style mouse wobbling. I really hate all gamepad imitating things in other games. But using mouse with some old fashioned way would be an good idea.

edit. That was used in Thief 4. There was some underground complex and a lot of turning wheels. They were so annoying. But click first and then use mouse wheel. That would work.

 

1up

 

Yeah the specific movement you do with the mouse isnt important, it just needs to allow:

• Precise speed control
• Direction control

I dont like the mouse wheel, you cant really do constant motion with it.

It could be just moving the mouse in a single direction, and how far the mouse is determines turning speed, and if you move it to the other side it reverses direction.
(so you would not need to move mouse to turn, just move mouse to change turn speed and then keep it still to keep turning)

 

Now it sounds much better

 

I'm just imagining first seige I'd be having a seizure with my mouse to get the drawbridge up. Sounds more annoying than it's worth.

 

Precise control of velocity (ANY control of velocity -.-) and direction are definitely worth it.

Its annoying only if its specifically implemented to be annoying. I dont see why anyone would want to do that.

First, the screen wont follow the mouse (which would probably gibe you an actual seizure) but you probably understood that already.

The second issue you highlight is that you would have situations where you need to do circles at 600 RPM for maximum velocity.

So, dont let people do circles at 600 RPM. Problem solved.

Actually theres two things that minimize this issue:

1. Drag and release mechanism (drag mouse in straight line, and release, and let turn wheel spin). This is what you would do in real life to spin something really fast.
2. Friction/momentum of wheel prevents turning it faster than 2 rotations/sec or similar. IF there is very little friction/momentum, you can use method 1.

Do you think these two would solve the problems?

Method 1 is used with little friction, so the wheel will keep spinning even if you dont speed it up with drags often (lets say a fast drag every few seconds)

Method 2 is used with systems that are harder to turn. So you would probably max out at like 2 rotations per second (try that with your mouse, not too bad. Could be lower too.). This ensures that everyone is able to rotate at maximum speed.

Additionally, you can engineer it to require slower rotation by using gear ratios and stuff. This alone should be good enough, because engineering is a good thing. Then its your own fault if you get a cramp because of trying to spin a wheel too fast.


I came up with a problem though: How would this work on laptop mousepads? :confused:
I guess it should be fine if tuned correctly (so you dont need to make fast circles or swipe too often). On the other hand, nothing else works on mousepads very smoothly either so should be fine.

 

It just seems overly unnecessary, sorry. I'm content with how it works now.

 

But how can you live without velocity control? :|

I personally dont like my elevators crashing down at 20 m/s when I tap 'T'.


The main reason for this is that you cant build velocity control into binary T/shift+T keys. At least not very good velocity control.

 

We need better control. If the mousewheel idea is not implemented then at least put a toggle with 3-5 speeds on a key.
Want 3rd gear? Press key 3 times.

But i like the mousewheel idea much better than my own idea.

 

Why not both?

Honestly, there's no reason not to allow both mouse and keyboard control, allowing for people to do whatever they're most comfortable with.

It's a good suggestion, in my opinion.

 

Yeah, especially for laptops it might be good to still have T and shift+T work (since this doesnt really exclude that in any way)

But T/shiftT needs a modification to offer the same features as the mouse control scheme being suggested:

Fast tapping needs to be interpreted by the game as an attempt to control velocity, not as an attempt to do many fast actions (otherwise you cannot do SMOOTH slow velocity control with T/shiftT, making it a broken feature compared to mouse control. Some contraptions might break if youre too rough.)


Also, while I only used the turning wheel as an example, remember that the mouse control scheme would be applied to ALL controllable things, not just turning wheels. So if T/shiftT is used as an alternate control scheme, it might not work for more complex controls (think some lever you can move in two dimensions for example, that just wont work with nonmouse input - of course we can just not add such blocks or limit T/shiftT to the blocks it does work with)

 

Completely useful and necessary for speed control, +1