New hot key to assign Transfer order when clicking station

[thesasgeek]

I've had a look through the suggestions and this was not on the first few pages of the forum when I searched for 'transfer'.

I would like a new hot key to be assigned when you are in the vehicle orders window, you have clicked 'GO' and when you click a station you press the hot key to assign a Transfer order to that station.

The behaviour would be the same as the full order hot key when clicking a station at the same time as holding down CTRL.

I know that there is the hot key 'T' when you highlight a station in the orders list and it'll change the order to a transfer order but I think it would be better if there was the behaviour to assign a transfer order when you click the station.

Thanks,
GC

[Eddi]

there are 3 main problems with hotkeys:

• how do you communicate to someone that is not you that this key exists
• how do you, with limited numbers of keys available prioritize which functions get hotkeys and which don't
• if the answer to the previous is "let the user decide", how do you present the options without overwhealming the user?

[LaChupacabra]

• how do you communicate to someone that is not you that this key exists

1. Type in google "ottd hotkeys"
2. Complete the (very useful) "Manual" project and put the hotkey information in it
3. Create a tab in the settings to change hotkeys ingame - this is one of the first places someone might look for hotkey information and definitely the first place someone might look for a way to set or change an existing shortcut.

Hotkeys tab.gif (31.24 KiB) Viewed 1593 times

• how do you, with limited numbers of keys available prioritize which functions get hotkeys and which don't

Most hotkeys are already set. There is no point in worrying that the layout of hotkeys will not be perfect, because it will never be perfect for everyone. I currently use shortcuts that have almost nothing to do with the default ones. I don't even think all hotkeys should be predetermined. Many games give you the ability to assign hotkeys but they don't specify them (not all). And that makes a lot of sense! Because it's better if the player himself determines something according to his own preferences than if he accidentally presses a key and something happens that he didn't want. I had this many times and it is related to the fact that the same key can have different functions depending on which window is active. For me, assigning predefined hotkeys is annoying, and I think it's best to keep the number of predetermined of it to a minimum. Let the rest be determined by the players themselves according to their own preferences. They will do it when they really need them - then they will know how they want to assign them and no one will have to make decisions for them.

• if the answer to the previous is "let the user decide", how do you present the options without overwhealming the user?

Same answer as above: don't try to specify all hotkeys, keep it blank - the player will only use it when he really needs it and knows how to use it.

[Eddi]

let me skip that lengthy essay of irrelevance, and get to the actual request:

i read this a dozen times now, and the resulting idea that forms in my head is:

there isn't actually a new hotkey needed. what is needed instead is that after you added a new station to the order list, it should be treated as the active station, and pressing the existing hotkeys should modify that new entry.

[odisseus]

This would clash with the "Quick creation of vehicle order" setting, which has become enabled by default some time ago. If the newly added station became the active order, clicking on another station would place it before the first one.

[jfs]

Don't make it really selected in the orders list, but only implicitly selected, for the purpose of the hotkeys. So when you press one of the hotkeys, and the window is in "Add Order" mode, and the "Quick creation" setting is enabled, and one or more orders were added since the window was put into "Add Order" mode, then apply that hotkey to the last added order instead of the selected order if any.

[thesasgeek]

Thanks everyone for the discussion.

I was thinking that after selecting GO on the orders screen, that like the FULL LOAD hotkey of CTRL when you click the station, you would have a TRANSFER hotkey of CTRL + SHIFT when you click the station.

Maybe not SHIFT as I’ve just been told it is reserved game with for estimation.

[Eddi]

, you would have a TRANSFER hotkey of CTRL + SHIFT when you click the station.

we definitely have way fewer available MODIFIER keys than hotkeys, and they're much harder to make configurable, as they depend on all sorts of context