Optimized binds for human team

[zybork]

I hope this is the correct subforum for such a purpose, and hereby present some binds for human weapons and equipment that will save you some nasty troubles and hopefully make your playing more efficent. They help you with the following tasks:

- PREVENT YOU FROM ACCIDENTLY GRENADING THE BASE
- are as failsafe as possible and always use fallbacks
- save you a lot of keystrokes when using your equipment, also
- allow you to switch between armour+helmet+equipment and battlesuit with one keystroke
- prevent you from carrying a battery pack when not needed
- offer you a pretty intuitive interface for weapon selection

First, there are nine weapons and a construction kit in Tremulous, summing up to ten "weapons", suggesting to use 0 to 9 for weapon selection, on a German qwertz-Keyboard, there is a ' key next to 0, this key will be used aswell. This list of bindings assumes that following keys are used for the following purposes:

1 ... spawn with rifle/use rifle
2 ... use painsaw
3 ... use shotgun
4 ... use lasergun
5 ... use massdriver
6 ... use chaingun
7 ... use pulserifle
8 ... use flamethrower
9 ... use luficer cannon
0 ... spawn with/use (advanced) construction kit

a ... "armour", get a helmet+light armour, or just armour in stage 1
s ... "suit", get battlesuit

Second, you need to understand that if you enter a command in console and it does not work for whatever reason, it will be ommitted and the next command will be executed, for instance, if you have a bind like

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bind a "do1thing; doanotherthing"
and if do1thing fails, doanotherthing will be executed nonetheless, however you MUST TURN OFF warning dialogs (found in Options/Game in Tremulous' ingame menu), or otherwise Tremulous will prompt you with a dialog each time such a command fails, and this is out of the question.

And last but not least, something about the value of time: a splitsecond may be the difference between a marauder eating the reactor and that nice "aliens win"-message consequently, and the marauder going down and the builders still be able to recover the reactor, with other words:

In the heat of battle, a split second may be the difference between life and death. Good bindings do a good job in getting you more of those split seconds. They enable you to concentrate on fighting and building, and not waste time blocking the armoury or just standing in the way otherwise.

So, let's start with the binds. If you have no idea how to set up a special config for humans or how to create bindings at all, look it up, for I will not cover this here. However, these are the main bindings for weapons:

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bind 0 "class ackit; class ckit; sell weapons; sell battpack; buy ackit; buy ckit"
bind 1 "class rifle; sell weapons; sell battpack; buy rifle"
bind 2 "sell weapons; sell battpack; buy psaw; buy rifle"
bind 3 "sell weapons; sell battpack; buy shotgun; buy rifle"
bind 4 "sell weapons; buy lgun; buy rifle"
bind 5 "sell weapons; buy mdriver; buy rifle"
bind 6 "sell weapons; sell battpack; buy chaingun; buy rifle"
bind 7 "sell weapons; buy prifle; buy rifle"
bind 8 "sell weapons; sell battpack; buy flamer; buy rifle"
bind 9 "sell weapons; buy lcannon; buy rifle"
Mind the following things about the builder-bind, 0:

The class-command will cause you to spawn as a builder. If in stage 1, the advanced construction kit is not available, so this command will fail, and you will get the "unadvanced" construction kit. If it does not fail, you will get the advanced construction kit, and the "class ckit" command will fail, because you already have a "weapon" and can therefore not buy any other. This ensures that you always have the best construction kit available with just one keystroke when spawning, also, if you carry a weapon, and want to build now, the class-commands will both fail, your weapon (and any battery pack you bought for it) will be sold, and the best construction kit available will be aquired.

About the weapon-binds please mind that the bind for the rifle also allows you to spawn with a rifle, but there are also a few other things about those binds that in advance straighten out certain problems. For instance, you may realize that there is a "sell battpack" in front of every bind for a non-energy weapon. So if you do not need it, the battery pack will be sold, giving you an additional 100 credits. If you went out with a battpack and died, those credits would be lost, also, you may fail to buy the weapon you want with the 100 bucks still "blocked" by the battery pack you have.

To prevent you from running around "naked", there is also a final "buy rifle" at the end of every bind, if you should have not enough credits for whatever reason, you won't end up with a blaster in your hand. If the aliens are already in your base, this may be the difference between lose and not-lose.

But now to the maybe most important bind:

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bind g "sell gren;itemact gren;buy gren"
With one keystroke, you can buy or use a grenade, but YOU CANNOT USE IT NEAR THE ARMOURY, for if you are near it, you will be able to sell the grenade, consequently, the "itemact gren"-command will fail, and after that, you will buy the grenade again. Nothing happenes to the base.

If you are not near the armoury, the sell- and buy-commands will fail, and you will drop the grenade. This is a perfect bind for making sure that you do not nade the base by accident. Did you ever see what happenes in such a case? Yes? Then you realize how important this is.

Now to the equipment:

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bind ' "sell upgrades; sell weapons; buy rifle"

bind a "sell upgrades; buy helmet; buy larmour"
bind s "sell upgrades; buy bsuit; buy helmet; buy larmour"

bind b "sell jetpack; buy battpack"
bind j "sell battpack; buy ammo; buy jetpack; itemtoggle jetpack"
There is our command for turning you into a naked rifle-man, useful for "resetting" your equipment, but you may adjust this bind to your personal habbits as well.

The binding for armoury equips you with a helmet and light armour, selling everything else but your primary weapon, the binding for the battlesuit ("s" may also stand for "strong" I guess ) gets rid of any battery or jetpack that would prevent you from buying a battlesuit, and attempts to buy the suit instead. If this fails because you are out of credits, you will be equipped with a helmet and armour to provide you the maximum protection available. Another thing to mind is that "buy ammo"-command. If you are selling your upgrades while carrying an energy weapon, you might also remove a battery pack. But if you do, your weapon will end up with no ammunition! Not good, go buy ammo.

I am aware that both the armour and the suit-bind get rid of your grenade, this makes sure that you have the equipment you want, "freeing" the money used for the grenade. If you still have 200 bucks, go buy that detonator. In the heat of battle it is very important to know what you are carrying around without having to check your equipment screen.

The bindings for battery and jet pack should be obvious, the only thing is that the jetpack-bind also activates the jetpack the moment you buy it. I had a "sell bsuit"-command once in that, but I found that it was against my playing habbits, so I removed it later. Also, the jetpack-bind toogles that device on and off, of course.

So, this would be it, I hope you learned a thing or two, and that those binds will make you play more efficent and enjoy a great game even more.

[Hendrich]

I think it may help having these binds, except this is based on a German Qwertz Keyboard, right? It won't help those with QWERTY unles they fix it up themselves. Thanks for these binds, cheers.

[Geni3]

yes, those of us with qwerty's use WASD to move, what do you use?

[gimhael]

Usually WASD too, but the movement keys are not that important if you intend to camp on a turret for the whole match anyway.

[zybork]

I realize you may not have a qwertz-Keyboard, but not being US-American, I take it for granted that people have an absolute minimum amount of brainpower, enabling them to figure it out for themselves how to replace a "bind a dosomething" by a "bind b dosomething" etc, if they use other keys in the game then I do, however the important stuff are things like:

• bind 6 "sell weapons; sell battpack; buy chaingun; buy rifle"

or, first and foremost:

• bind g "sell gren; itemact gren; buy gren;"

I actually do not use g for the grenade-binding, in my bind-definitions, you find:

• bind g "sell weapons; buy rifle; sell upgrades; buy helmet; buy gren; say_team I try to run and nade their base now."

You get the point: If I push the "g"-button, I turn into the cheapest possible "running grenade", with nothing but a basic weapon for self-defense and a helmet that I see the enemy and that I do not die that easily, ensuring I can deploy the grenade in the alien base, without any intention to return. This is a tactical issue, and I did take down quite a number of alien structures or deliver the final blow that brings down the overmind with these "banzai"-runs.

But this is a "tactical" bind, not a "technical" one, if you understand what I mean. The "technical" aspect is something like adding a "sell battpack" to any bind for a non-energy weapon, the "technical" aspect has to do with things like switching on the jetpack the moment you buy it, et cetera - ideas useful to everyone.

About what key to use for which purpose, well, this is moreless a matter of taste or of your gaming habbits, things like getting rid of unneccessary battpacks and being able to use the same key for spawning with a rifle you use for actually buying it is a good idea, no matter which exact key you eventually use for that purpose. Also, mind that I completely left out the builder-binds, maybe I post them here later.