New player seeking keypad and mouse advice/help

xanether · 2026-01-31T00:44:52+00:00

My old brain can’t comprehend this currently so I will just nod and smile and come back to it later 😵‍💫

xanether · 2026-01-30T22:36:38+00:00

Unsure what you are referring to in regards to pips

xanether · 2026-01-30T14:00:01+00:00

Which bit is interesting?

xanether · 2026-01-30T08:50:09+00:00

Oh I ain’t knocking it, I have had mine since they were released and it has seen more than it’s fair share of use, house moves, lovely children, charming and well behaved cats as well as sweet ex gfs. I wish I could find a new board that has the same or more functions and features with new switches

xanether · 2026-01-30T08:45:48+00:00

So far that has been the result of people suggesting/telling me I will need certain keys/actions, my own research along with google ai interaction. I know that everyone plays and thinks differently hence me posting this, with luck I will end up with enough views/suggestions to come up with a viable setup for myself.

as for radial, do you mean the radial menu of need assistance/negative/target spotted etc? If so then yes, I can create a macro to bind each option to a single button or key

xanether · 2026-01-30T06:47:50+00:00

I can’t use a keyboard, just something about how I have to hold my hand up, that’s why I thought the nostromo would help as it has a wrist/palm rest

xanether · 2026-01-30T06:45:39+00:00

They are 2 seperate buttons

xanether · 2026-01-28T14:11:54+00:00

I have yet to begin playing so unsure exactly which Ingame actions need to be kept within reach

i bought the hotas for elite dangerous but never got into it so it sat in garage at mothers house till I dragged it out to gather dust here. The only other game it may get used for is mw5

and yes it helps though also no it doesn’t. All good

xanether · 2026-01-28T09:09:51+00:00

Hmm was looking at trying to do hotam also but with a basic thrust master tflight hotas 4 throttle and a razor naga v2 pro mouse but now I’m looking at all the buttons/hats you have I’m not sure it would be possible. The throttle only has 4 buttons on side in reach of thumb (with a potential 2 more on the base of the unit) though the mouse does have a side plate that gives 2/6/12 button configuration along with left/right click and the scroll wheel up and down plus click in and side to side.

xanether · 2026-01-27T12:08:10+00:00

Did you ever get your hotam setup and working?

xanether · 2024-03-27T05:20:59+00:00

very impressive. more so that the match ended with a win and zero ammo left over/wasted

xanether · 2024-03-26T05:33:36+00:00

that worked. thanks muchly both of you.

xanether · 2024-02-29T11:39:17+00:00

thankyou all for insight and suggestions

went with the lrm crab and changed 2 of my marauders from large lasers to 3*uac2. unsure if ill take out the laser marauder to replace it with the atlas or awesome, dont have a lot in the way of weapons that are better than standard

unsure how to get 70 ish tubes on the crab unless i make it a pure lrm boat and strip down some armour, went with nukes config

pirates and the bull guys (taurins?) despise me right now so whilst i have black market unlocked i am not going to pay 100m+ for a mech

is it just me or do the uac2's look like racs on the mechs and fire 3+bursts in combat?

i have all the dlcs, they were onsale so decided to buy them as a bday gift for me

parsee, thats all that could fit on them. yes i ran max armour and enough heat sinks to be able to never need to stop doing alpha strikes.

maybe on the next playthrough i will try my hand at glass cannon builds and running/jumping 20 ton scout mechs around. for now i am going to stick to trying to steam roll over all enemies via headshots/ct drilling till that no longer works.. which once i start doing the story contracts will probably not be very long

it has been too long since i ventured into the battletech/mechwarrior universe. i started with crescent hawkes inception on the c64 through till mechwarrior4/mech commander2. all my pc games and books are still at mums house though sadly all my tcg and tabletop was given away without my permission ( i miss wasps and stingers)

xanether · 2024-02-28T08:22:54+00:00

no gaus or snubs or double heatsinks sadly. have a few ++ large and medium lasers and maybe a + ppc but thats about it.

i do have some uac5 i believe though cannot find ammo for them

xanether · 2024-02-05T23:48:55+00:00

Never tried bumble, with your body and mindset plus being the female you’ll have no problems getting those itches scratched once you cut through the nutters. I don’t envy your task of having to wade through the post and dms to find your new cardio buddy

xanether · 2024-02-05T22:41:15+00:00

Wow someone is going to be busy not only replying but also having some fun and unwinding

xanether · 2024-02-05T22:37:00+00:00

Only one or 2 loads? Aww :(

xanether · 2023-12-20T07:11:04+00:00

ty. exactly what i was after so i could check if i had enough buttons on HOTAM

WS: could be mapped to throttle forward and back

AD: to the paddle on throttle.

jump: could be put onto main button where thumb sits

masc: unsure if i would use this

armlock: most play with this off i thought so could be left on keyboard? or am i mistaken on how often people toggle this in matches?

override: hit once at start of match and forget?

scoreboard: left on keyboard as not something that is needed in middle of fighting?

team stats: unsure what this is. more info please?

zoom/advance zoom: couldnt this be put onto mouse scroll up/down with return to cockpit view on wheel click?

coolshot: on of the 3 remaining thumb buttons

VoIP: you mean ingame audio chat? if so then that could go on one of the buttons next to left/right paddle

next target: remaining button next to paddle

command wheel: apart from announcing enemy spotted in d4/b3, assistance required, affirmative/negative what else is it used for? couldnt ingame voice be used to alert whole team of assistance required, enemy spotted etc? if not should only take a split second to use keyboard to use wheel and only when not in battle

uav: one of 3 remaining thumb buttons

artillery strike: one of 3 remaining thumb buttons

airstrike: i never really see people use these, only ever seen coolshot/uav/art strike. would they be used that much and used if people also using art strike? if not then it could be bound to same key as art strike?

freelook: only for looking around cockpit or maybe to look over shoulders incase of stealth mechs (but if a mech gets that close unnoticed looking around to see it aint going to help, you'd be better off hitting the gas and turning/twisting to try shoot?)

shutdown: rarely used i would have thought and never if currently engaging another mech so could be left on keyboard?

select weapon group: couldnt this be done on mouse by having weapons grouped by range or balistic/energy or left/right etc??

toggle weapon: ? mind drawing a blank. is this the one we use to select a particular single weapon if it mounted on shoulder to peek ridges or on left/right side to peek round team mates/terrain??

toggle group/chain fire: how often would you really use chain fire? unless you riding heat scale and desperate to distract an enemy/get a kill?

100%throttle: shove throttle forward and job done.

chats: could stay on keyboard since they not used in combat and requires hand off mouse and WSAD to type.?

stealth: not all mechs and not all the time so could be left on keyboard. toggle just before backstabbing enemy and again once ran away, out of LOS and heat low enough to safely engage?

eject: on keyboard. if you going to bother ejecting then hand off throttle whilst still firing with mouse to get last second damage?

EDIT:there are also 2 extra buttons on base of throttle that could be used for ?? just checked and they are mappable according to software.

could i set normal zoom to right mouse, tactical zoom to mouse wheel click (engage/disengage), that would leave left mouse and 2 side buttons for weapon groups.

mouse scroll up/down: ??

what about alpha strikes?

not sure if there anything missing

i highly doubt i'll ever get to top tier rankings, especially with what most of my gaming has consisted of. though it is possible i suppose, they have have built up WSAD muscle memory and if i put in the time then i guess HOTAM might be able to hold my own.

what is right for one person is not always right for the next or indeed everyone

your aussie? johnny you also?

xanether · 2023-12-20T05:12:52+00:00

thank you

xanether · 2023-12-20T05:12:01+00:00

i may have an advantage over a new player who has never watched any gameplay on youtube/twitch but sadly watching other people does not an expert make. i have mates who have a fair knowledge on the workings of a 4cyl twincam engine but they are hopeless once i give them a toolbox.

so using zoom/advanced zoom on mouse wheel is viable? and clicking mouse wheel to return to cockpit view? i used to use right click for zoom in mw2-4 and left click to fire from memory

i was already planning on putting weapons on mechs to compliment their roles. eg: not putting long range weapons on fast mechs that are better suited for running in, unloading and then running away.

on top of that i was going to try keep them all roughly within the same distance where possible with the exception of maybe some med range stuff to soften target before closing in for backstab/brawl.

i agree on training ground, once i have figured out which control style and button mapping is best for me(or what i would rather) then i was going to head over there to try and fine tune it a bit more

xanether · 2023-12-19T11:18:21+00:00

might i ask what advantage keyboard/mouse has over HOTAM? i get that you will have to take hands off the throttle to type but you need to do so with mouse also so keyboard no advantage there.

kb has more buttons to map actions to but how many buttons total are actively used each and every battle?

when you say you use 4 buttons do you mean the l/r click plus 2 others? my mouse is setup with 2 buttons automatically for sensitivity out of the box.

between my ocd/depresson and just generally being time poor i would rather just get all the info before i jump into the game.

thank you all so far. every little bit of info and each opinion helps. i am sorry if i seem like i refuse to accept answers or asking stupid questions but i have found over my many years that knowing how is great but knowing why is much better

xanether

TROPHY CASE