What is your preferred method of camera control? [poll]

The aim of this thread is to see what control setups are most popular.

In my travels of introducing new people to the game, one of the things which has proved most difficult for people to get over/ have caused people to drop the game, (aside from lack of tutorial) is having difficulty with the default camera controls.

Personally, I prefer using WASD. It feels more comfortable and lots of the most important default keybinds (f, r, g, the build hotkeys on the bottom row) are all nearby.

I personally feel like the WASD setup should be made the default, with the attack hotkey being moved to 'e' (which i feel is pretty comfortable placing).

But what do other people think? What is most comfortable for you?

I think getting a more comfortable default setup should help a lot of new players pick up the game faster and easier.

middle mouse master race

All hail MMB!

MMB: Standard CAD / Modelling software controls

WASD + repeatedly slamming N, because everytime you change planets, the roulette camera orientation wheel spins again, and locking to north is just horrible when you need to attack that way.

Exactly why I love/am so used to MMB, it just feels so natural. XD

I'd recommend to try use camera save locations instead of N, it's more flexiable to get back to a "known" oritentation.

I used to get a bit confused with the changing orientation, but after a moderate number of games I managed to just get used to it, so I can deal with the changing orientation most of the time now.

Take some time during the early game to set an anchor system that covers all the relevant areas of the planet. Anything that is not covered with anchor and PiP: mousedrag.

Brain-Computer Interface.

I kinda use WASD, except moved one to the right. ESDF are the keys I use.

I think I remember hearing that someone on the forums said they used UHJK or something? That'd be... interesting.

Probably a left-hander.

Hah, I seem to be the only edge-scroller. My reason: I use a trackball and have no mmb. Camera saves and edge scrolling works fine for me.

Pretty surprising that early results so heavily favour MMB, and that WASD is so relatively unpopular. Whenever i use MMB it feels clunkier and more restrictive (I cant click things or issue orders while scrolling at the same time).

For arrow users, how do you get around the fact that arrow keys are so far away from the rest of your hotkeys?

I'm an arrow user, and I guess I don't use that many hotkeys. Mainly just "f" to select idle fabbers, and the various number+key commands (control groups and camera anchors).

My main work is CAD so I'm used to scrolling using the MMB, but in Planetary I just don't find that it feels all that good. This is at least partly cause my mouse's MMB is a little bit buggered though, LoL.

How do you move and use hotkeys at the same time? :l

WSAD all the way I only use MMB when I'm zoomed in farther, it provides more precise control. My WASD sensitivity is pretty high because I like flicking around the planet quickly.

I find that I can usually move my mouse much quicker than using keys to move the camera. I like to be able to constantly be rotating the camera to watch for stuff all around the planet. I did try wasd but it is too slow for doing this easily.

you only really need two fingers max at any one time to be moving the camera, and most of the important hotkeys are close enough that one of your three free fingers can hit them no problem.