16 replies to this topic

[scient]

I'm currently working on adding in functionality of "Quick Load" into PST engine based on BG1. I've already got the raw functionality working (Quick Save became Quick Load ) it's just a matter of setting up keyboard listening/mapping via engine. So, my question to anyone interested is what the default hotkey should be? Qwinn suggested F9 since that seems to be fairly common for quick load in a lot of games. Note, if I can get it working correctly those who really want to will be able to remap this key. I'm just looking for input as default. Well, maybe not from inside PST itself because I'm not sure how much needs to be modified to add stuff into keyboard mapping screen. But I plan to make it so it can be defined in keymap.ini.

I thought this would be a nice convenience feature.

Edited by scient, 04 January 2010 - 03:40 AM.

[Qwinn]

This is a great tweak, looking forward to it.

My testing revealed that you can't map anything to the FKeys in game. So, no possible conflicts with any existing key bindings. So, I'd recommend that in addition to Q (or whatever other key you map it to) working for Quick-Save, you also let F5 work for Quick Save and F9 for Quick Load. Those seem to be becoming the industry standard, at least among the games I play. Is there any more popular setup than that that I've somehow missed?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 04 January 2010 - 04:13 AM.

[ghostdog]

These are great news! I really wished for a quickload option in my current playthrough. As for implementing it into the game's keymaping screen, I don't know, it could be tricky. Defining it with keymap.ini is very satisfactory, anyway.

Since you're on the roll, let me suggest one other tweak that comes in mind: The option to remove learned spells. Especially useful for Dakkon and TNO mages with not very high intelligence. I'm not sure how difficult this tweak would be, but maybe you could use similar mechanics with the ones that work for removing memorized spells. I don't remember if BG had that feature, but BG2 definitely had it.


edit: F5 and F9 sound good.

Edited by ghostdog, 04 January 2010 - 04:29 AM.

[Daulmakan]

Great, great tweak. I nominate the letter "E", which I use for the BG games, or "F5" (KotOR games).

Oh, yeah, welcome back, scient.

[scient]

Bad news first, I'm not going to be able to make Quick Load assignable. The way IE hotkeys work is it has a table where 148 values are stored. The first 50 are all functions on first page of keyboard mapping and the next 99 are all spells/abilities. There aren't any gaps in this table nor can I just "add" value to end. It's part of memory IE generates with variables (globals, locals, kaptuz) and lots of other items at run time. The offsets into this are relative to each other so it would mean having to change every relative offsets after hotkey table. So, I can add in quick load functionality but key will have to be fixed.

The good news, I should be able to get F keys working. I'm also going to see about if I can add ability to assign F keys when parsing keymap.ini to have option to move quick save into that set as well.

Edited by scient, 04 January 2010 - 10:32 PM.

[Markus Ramikin]

Kaptuz?!

[Qwinn]

He meant "kaputz". It's the type of variable PS:T dedicates to tracking which creatures have died.

Qwinn

[Markus Ramikin]

Hahaha, that's an awesome name for a variable. I'll remember that. It's up there with 'masterofdisaster' as the code for the most powerful paladin spell in Gothic II.

[scient]

Done.

It's working nicely too, I just need to do some more testing but this will be in upcoming tweak pack release. I've set two hardcoded hotkeys for quick save (F5) and quick load (F9) independent of keymap.ini. So, in default configuration you'll have two keys for quick save (F5 and Q) and one for quick load (F9). I left it so if someone wants to use a separate key than F5 for quick save that's still possible via keymap.ini. But, for those (like myself) that would like to have both hotkeys in F series, well you can have that too! I'm not going to open up F keys so they're assignable inside keymap.ini because that would require a lot more work and having to take into account potential conflicts (say someone set quick save and quick load to same key, hurr durrr hurr).

Edited by scient, 05 January 2010 - 11:51 AM.

[ghostdog]

awesome news

[Qwinn]

Tested it and its working great on my 4CD version. Great work scient!

Scient mentioned that in his debugging tools F9 already has a use, so in order to avoid conflicts in his work I tweaked the installation so you can choose:

1. F5 QuickSave, F9 QuickLoad
2. F5 QuickSave, F10 QuickLoad


If anyone would like to request a different combination of hotkeys, now's the time to ask. They do have to be F Keys, but you can pick any combo of two F Keys that you like.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 05 January 2010 - 03:23 PM.

[ghostdog]

Definitely not nearby keys like F6,F7, this can easily end up being disastrous. Now you reminded me why I wasn't using qsave/load in Fallout

F5-F9 is fine.

F9-F12 is also another good configuration, IMO.

[Qwinn]

No, the FKeys do nothing in game. What I said was that scient's debugging tool - what he uses to produce all these wonderful engine fixes - has an F9 function.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 07 January 2010 - 01:27 AM.