I think it's not the keyboard but me; it gets tiring holding that key down for minutes at a time. I find myself only intentionally releasing after a screw up. Often, if I don't let anything flank me then I don't need separate control of the shield. I'm sure this probably depends on ship setup as well but I've been running into long stretches where there is no need to swing the shield off to the side.
Maybe I just need to move it somewhere else. It's just awkward to hold a key continuously with my pinky - works great for typing but then that's only brief presses. Maybe I'll switch space and shift.
Fair enough. I think I'm just very used to it, from the general shift = sprint bind in FPS games, and from having it be the "show loot" key in Diablo 2
Space won't work, btw - it has to be a modifier key, i.e. shift, alt, or ctrl. I can see potentially pressing right-alt down with your thumb, though that feels a bit awkward for me.
There's also an
"autoturnMode":false,
setting in data/config/settings.json. It's not officially supported and I don't quite remember what it does if you set it to true.
Looked at it... if you bind turn left/turn right to shift-A/D, and set "autoturnMode":true, you'll always turn to follow the mouse unless you're actively turning or holding down shift. So it's the opposite of the current behavior.
For those of us who prefer that control style, we're just not popping back and forth a lot, I suspect. If you've mastered the default style, I'm pretty sure you end up feeling the same way: "why give up shield turning" vs. "why give up intuitive nose control".
But the only time I quit using mouse-steer is when I'm briefly cutting with a small shield on an Omni shield ship. I.E., it's an edge case thing, and I'm still puzzled why it's the default, since steering is so much more important than cutting.
Personally, I end up using both about the same. Auto-turn for tracking a target with hardpoints or strafing around it, manual turning for other maneuvering, unless a non-maximum turn-rate is needed (such as when you want to keep pace with circling Salamanders, to ensure your PD stays right on target). Larger ships tend to see a lot more manual steering for me, too.
More importantly, at least from my perspective, I *do* end up popping back and forth all the time. I feel like that affords me very responsive control, which wouldn't be the case with a toggle. Another key reason to pop back and forth is wanting to move the mouse to pan the view, without having that also turn the ship.
Honestly, I wish that we could just set Omni shields to auto-maneuver if we set nose-steering and use nose-steering all the time. It'd be the best of both worlds. I wouldn't even mind if it did it poorly occasionally, it'd get rid of a hassle and my hands would be happier.
I suspect you'd change your mind when a Hellbore shot tore apart your Tempest as it tried to block a Swarmer coming in from the side
I'm not saying an AI toggle for shields is necessarily a bad idea, but having it
always kick in when you're using auto-turn mode seems like it.
