I really really REALLY hate pole spawns, with pole lock on it makes it a nightmare trying to navigate around a pole constantly. Even worse when you get two poles spawns as your only option ! Do you guys think spawns should be limited (where available to only one pole spawn option and not force the player to spawn on the pole?
Typically, in my experience, pole spawns tend to have a ton of metal around them so I don't mind. I know it's all randomly generated, I guess I'm just lucky.
Pole lock really helps with navigation, moved too many times around the planet and the enemy base is no longer to the bottom of your screen but to the top of it. Can really throw you off. I'm just going to resign dual pole spawns in the beginning from now on.
You know, there is an option to orient to the North Pole without pole locking, it's even a handy hotkey
It's annoying to use since I always want north to be facing north. Probably the best option is to just play on metal planets. =P
It would be nice if you could change the axis used for pole lock. I mean, if you spawn on a pole, you could just lock some arbitrary points on the equator instead. (I wonder if this is moddable?) It would also be nice to have pole lock shortcut key, for when you have to temporarily manouver armies over the pole. (This is moddable, but it should be standard feature.) With these implemented, the pole lock should be turned on by default, and I believe that would help new players immensely.
i've been enjoying the pole lock shortcut ever since I drunk the mod KoolAid and installed hotbuild. good, good. stuff! do try. I like your idea of changing your "pole lock" to put your spawn on the equator. will that get screwy once you zoom out to solar system level, though? and then zoom back in? would def. be handy. i'm one of the people that require pole lock, get too disoriented otherwise.
Another idea might be to just have, instead of pole lock, a plane lock and have a key when you want to actually tilt the planet. Since really it's not that we're in love with "pole lock" per se but as wheele says we just get dioriented when the damn planet goes every which way with out it. If the plane is just guaranteed to maintain orientation then I dont think it being the pole or something else actually makes a difference. (Though each planet should save your orientation settings.)
This is why you should play with pole lock off. It takes getting used to, but is well well worth it when you do. I just tap the align north hotkey from time to time during gameplay, but even then, I'm used to keeping track of which direction is what. All of the top players play without pole lock. I'd highly recommend not playing with pole lock.
Either that or do it as I do: Download Hotbuild and set up a hotkey to disable pole lock and reenable it. Now you can have both. Also there is a key in hotbuild that allows you to automatically align yourself with the north pole.
What do you mean? There is no built-in shortcut to toggle pole lock, is there? Or then I just failed to find it when I was looking for one... Is it called something else? I did play without pole lock at first, kind of got used to it. Then I noticed the setting, and, well, playing is just easier and less annoying with it.
It's a default keyboard shortcut. Can't remember what it's called. Playing without pole lock is just better.
After a new look through the list... No, I think you are just wrong. On both counts, obviously, but the latter one is pointless to argue.
There is a inbuild shortcut for "align to north" but the second you move the planet will just wobble back into a random position; I believe most of us who use pole lock use it for the scrolling. Moving the planet around and then having it rotate 180 to correctly align to north is not desirable. Anyway, I believe the shortcut is unassigned by default or 'n'. If you're not seeing it it's likely because of recent patches. Every time they make a semi-major patch they mess up all the shortcuts (somehow!) for those of us who tried actually assigning shortcuts. It's like they want you to use only hotbuild if you want shortcuts =P
Yes, I can see that one. (It is "Align to pole" actually.) But brian claims there is also one for toggling pole lock on/off. And that doesn't seem to exist outside of mods. Your explanation is a bit confusing; the 'align to pole key' obviously doesn't do anything if you already have pole lock on. It's useful if you have it off, but I find it more practical to have it on and only disable it when it gets in the way. Much less clicks on average.
I didn't mean to imply you would use it with pole lock on. That key predates pole lock as I recall. I've also personally tried no pole lock several times even; went back to pole lock each time after it was implemented.
I'm not wrong about the align to north key because I use the align to north key in game without a mod. The pole lock keyboard shortcut I'm not so sure about because I don't use that.
