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Author Topic: Enter is a bad retreat key  (Read 481 times)

Yunru

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Enter is a bad retreat key
« on: September 17, 2019, 07:34:28 AM »

Having recently started again and not done as well, I've had to experience retreating quite often.
And let me tell you, Enter is the single worst key that could of been picked.
It's the furthest away from your left hand which is on wasd to control your ship (and thus needs to stay there), and your right hand is going to be on a mouse (and heavens forbid your keyboard has a number pad :P ).
The retreat key needs to be close to the WASD region for it to be viable when you're narrowly escaping pursuit.

sotanaht

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Re: Enter is a bad retreat key
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2019, 08:29:32 AM »

In order to retreat you need to face the edge of the screen, and once you begin retreating (pressing enter) you can no longer move or turn manually.  As such, you can pretty freely take your hands off of both WASD AND the mouse once the "press enter to retreat" prompt comes up, because there's nothing left you can do with either.

If your retreat is so close that the .1 seconds it takes to reach enter is enough to get you killed, then you are 99.9% likely to die in the 5+ seconds it takes your ship to actually leave the screen anyway.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2019, 08:31:19 AM by sotanaht »
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Wyvern

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Re: Enter is a bad retreat key
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2019, 08:31:49 AM »

If you really need that extra fraction of a second, use space bar to pause, then re-arrange your hands as needed?  It's maybe not optimal, but it's not bad.

Now, what's a -bad- default keybinding is 'd' for direct retreat.  I can't count the number of times I've been flying my ship, hit tab just to check the map, and accidentally ordered something to retreat because my fingers were still on the keys for maneuvering my flagship.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.