Visor Control scheme

[Quote58]

Soooo, since I made that contest hack it's public knowledge that I have a visor system incorporated into my HUD(s).
What I want to know however, is what the best button combo for switching between visors is.
Thing is, I use the default super metroid control scheme, so that's what I coded around, but a lot of you use different ones. So I think it'd be useful to know what the best combo could be. Or maybe I should make different versions? Idk, lemmi know.
Hope this is in the right board.

[Quietus]

Would it be possible to have it toggle when Item Cancel is held for a time?  There's never a need to hold that button, unless you're some weirdo that actually uses the one-time missile / Power Bomb technique.  It then wouldn't interfere with any of the buttons you use.

[Lunaria]

Hold item cancel and then cycle with aim up and aim down.

[Quote58]

Crys, that's the one I was using, but some people put aim up/down on inconvenient buttons.
I like quietus' idea, and I think that might be the best option.

[Zhs2]

You can put Aim Up/Down on any buttons but L/R without Control Freak? Or is it just that nothing else can be assigned to L/R? Either way, I've never heard of people that assign Aim Up/Down on anything but L/R, personally. People can feel free to prove me wrong and I will be oddly surprised.

[MetroidMst]

I think there was more confusion with what "aim up/down" meant. As to me, up means up. As in, straight up. Probably should word it angle up/down instead to avoid that confusion.

[aliceif]

I feel like it would be better to toggle visors by hitting Item Select and Item Cancel at the same time.
It is virtually impossible to trigger accidentally but easy enough to input when you want it.
(Me not having Aim Down assigned to anything is also a factor ...)

[Lunaria]

I feel like it would be better to toggle visors by hitting Item Select and Item Cancel at the same time.
It is virtually impossible to trigger accidentally but easy enough to input when you want it.

It's virtually shit to do on a SNES controller too!

[passarbye]

item cancel+aim up or down would be fine as a trigger method.
as Zhs2 said, i've never heard of someone using L/R for anything but aiming.

[Quote58]

"(Me not having Aim Down assigned to anything is also a factor ...)"
ya, some people are in that situation. For example my brother assigns run to the R button, so a universal option like Quietus' is best I think.

[Quietus]

For the shoulder button thing - a lot of the top speedrunners have the shoulder button (usually R) assigned to run.  It's so that you essentially always have it held, and have your thumb free for all of the other buttons still.

[Lunaria]

"(Me not having Aim Down assigned to anything is also a factor ...)"
ya, some people are in that situation. For example my brother assigns run to the R button, so a universal option like Quietus' is best I think.

How the hell is that universal in comparison? People could possibly unbind item cancel too in that scenario, not to mention it's a faulty one from the start; If people decide to not bind keys at all then that's hardly the fault of the game or any hack creator. :/

If a hack uses buttons for new/different things then it should go without saying that the information that should be available either with the hack or in the hack.

And even if people rebind one of the aim buttons to another button I still don't see the problem with using aim up/aim down to cycle, yes it would be slightly bit more inconvenient, but I was under the impression you won't be cycling visors too often. 

[Quietus]

I think Quote is talking in general terms.  There's no way to please everybody, but most players will still have item cancel bound to something.

[Quote58]

The fact is, in the way you suggested and I originally had Crys, there were 2 button variables, this way there is only one. If you were okay with using item cancel + something else, then you'll be fine with holding it instead. If you have run on a trigger, you can still do it as long as you have item cancel somewhere.
As quietus said, I'm trying to have it work for as many people as possible.

[aliceif]

The thing is, if you bind something that is not Angle Up/ Angle Down to a shoulder key, you lose one button in standard Super Metroid because the game forbids you to assign those buttons to A/B/X/Y/Select, or in other words, assigns one or both of them to nothing if you set something else to L/R.
Which is a fault in Super Metroid.

Oh, and you can not unassign Item Cancel. It automatically gets assigned to an unused button, just like Run, Shoot, Jump and Item Select do.

[Quietus]

you can not unassign Item Cancel.

I'm guessing Crys was talking about within the emulator, so just not having a key mapped to that SNES controller button.

[Nikoshiba]

For example my brother assigns run to the R button, so a universal option like Quietus' is best I think.

I assign Run to the R trigger...  :nuhuh:

[Lunaria]

Holding it in for X amount of time for it to automatically switch over sounds bulky as fuck though.

I realise there may not be an universal or simple solution to this problem, but I'd suggest looking into several methods and beta test it over your entire hack demographic in order to figure out exactly what works the best.

[Quietus]

I can't really see how it'd be any different.  Surely if you're holding one button, then pressing another, it's less hassle to just hold the button and NOT press another button? :O_o:

[Lunaria]

I can't really see how it'd be any different.  Surely if you're holding one button, then pressing another, it's less hassle to just hold the button and NOT press another button? :O_o:

Because if you press another button to cycle that means the player actively decides when it happens. If it cycles just by holding the button down that means it must cycle based on time, that should be per definition more clunky; Even if you know how many cycles you want to do it's the same amount of wait time regardless for it to cycle. Compared it to if the item select function the same way if you need visualisation.

Really though, I thought this line of thinking was pretty obvious though. :/

[Quietus]

I think I see what you're getting at, in that it would continually cycle on and off until you release the button?  Would it not be relatively easy to incorporate a safety measure into the code, so that once activated / deactivated, it cannot be changed again for, say, two seconds?  It'd be similar to the cooldown times on the missiles / power bombs.

[Lunaria]

I think I see what you're getting at, in that it would continually cycle on and off until you release the button?

Assuming it's only two visor modes? yeah. I was under the impression that this would be used for more though, like three or possibly four different visor modes.
->Standard
->Heat
->X-ray
->whatever other crap people come up with

This is where there clunkyness comes in. If it's just two visor modes then it would simply be a matter of mapping it to one button and clicking that one turns it on if it's off or off if it's on, no need to even have any holding in that case.

[Quietus]

Yes, if it's not something that can be toggled, then it's going to need a more complicated control setup.  I'm now imagining visors with 20 modes, and people trying to remember whether the one they want will be reached faster by cycling up or down. :^_^:

[Quote58]

I was planning on only have 2 extra visors actually, so to get to say xray you will have to get through say, dark visor first. We'll see.