Novel idea to switch between any settings

[syllabear]

First of all, if this is already widely known, then thats great, but otherwise, here you go.

So basically, I was fooling around with my user.cfg and then I had an idea. Since I spend a fair amount of time defending in fort, yet can also find myself in attack or sweep an increasing amount of times, I increasingly required 10-20 instant chats. This isn't great, since I use my f1-f12 for their laptop buttons, so I only really wanted to use maybe 1-8 number keys.

So I made two additional .cfg files in my armagetron/var file, each just with a list of instant chats, one for attack (such as "I'm holing, attack needs attackers, is defence OK?, etc.) and one for defence (Defence down, defence in trouble, defence needs one sweeper, defence needs no sweepers, etc.)

There are also two more things that I did, to help me change between them, instead of typing include <file> into console each time.

First, to know which was which, I put one last command into the files, saying Console_message 0xff0000 Attack Chats in the attack, and the same for defence in the other.

This means I know which setting I am using when I switch between them, since I'll be doing it at the tap of a button.

Then I set one of my instant chats to a largish button that I don't use (the one below backspace), and for each file, I used a different instant chat for it. In attack, I used /console include defence.cfg and in defence, I used /console include attack.cfg

Now I have a different set of instant chats running from 1-7/8, a button which changes between them, and a little notification that says which I'm using.

So, this is pretty useless for some people, but don't forget, you can also put any settings in these files. This means you can change keyboard configurations for different game modes (singlebind/doublebind), camera settings, zone height settings, anything.

And thats pretty much my idea.

[Word]

Nano has like 20 of such files

[epsy]

Use SINCLUDE instead of INCLUDE, it won't produce "X was changed from Y to Z" messages.

[Tobe]

Have the attack.cfg assign the instachat key 1 to have "/console SINCLUDE defense.cfg" then have the defense.cfg assign instachat key 1 to have "/console SINCLUDE attack.cfg" This way, you only need one key to switch between the two.

EDIT: Ah, nevermind. I think you already did this. Didn't read it right the first time.

[sinewav]

Thanks for reminding me about SINCLUDE.

[gawdzilla]

you really dont need 20 instant chats

[syllabear]

hmm sinclude is quite useful! Forgot about that!

And yeah, tobe I did that

[Phytotron]

I want to see the "changed to" message to assure me it actually happened.

Heh, I have it on good authority that sinewav uses different configs to change his cycle colors (or colours, for syllabear).

[syllabear]

phytotron, thats what my second technique was for: include a line like "console_message Settings have changed" or something like that, and it'll show on the console.

I use specific ones for attack and defence (console_message 0xff0000 Attack Chats for my attack.cfg for example)

[sinewav]

Heh, I have it on good authority that sinewav uses different configs to change his cycle colors (or colours, for syllabear).

It's true! I only use RANDOM_PLAYER_COLOR in team games because I inevitably end up with mauve in single player games. And it's a bother to keep changing my color every few rounds in Player Settings (so many keystrokes!). So, I put my favorite bike colors in separate cfg files to call them up when I need them. It's much faster to type "bikered.cfg" or "bikeblue.cfg" than to go through the menu.

[Tremor]

I am really do not think you need so much instant chats for Fort. 5-10 max.

That is just my personal opinion. Good find and share though.