Left-Handed Keyboard Layout

Hey left-handers, I’m trying to get some idea of how others are mapping their keyboard for left-handed play in Star Citizen. I decided to go ahead and create an Excel file that showed me my layout in a visual manner. I felt the need to do this because of the extremely complicated controls in SC and there didn’t seem to be any sign of help from CIG for a default layout. So take a look at the shared Google Doc ([url]Star Citizen Keybindings.xlsx - Google Drive) and see what you think. I’m looking for advice on the general placement of important functions (i.e. how far of a distance from the arrow keys). I haven’t actually played one second with this configuration, it’s just a theory at this point, but I wanted to prepare for 3.0. Here are some general assumptions and other rules I used in approaching this.

  1. The 3.0 patch may change a lot of the default layout or even the functions that are available for keyboard shortcuts, but nevertheless going through this process now will help me get going faster when 3.0 is released.
  2. My playstyle and role in SC is not planned to be a combatant, so I have not highly prioritized the button placement of things like weapons and fine shield control. I’m planning to be more of an explorer.
  3. I’m actually planning to use my joystick for flight, but I wanted to come up with a basic keyboard layout for flight as a starting point and then when I get more experience with the joystick maybe I’ll deprioritize the button placement of functions that are duplicated on the joystick.
  4. When creating this I started with the controls for on-foot because that’s what I’m most picky about from my years of playing FPSs. Then I copied that same key translation to the flight controls as a starting point. This is because for the most part I’m trying to keep the translation consistent between modes (Flight, Foot, EVA) because CIG has probably grouped the buttons together for a good reason and it helps to keep similar items together (i.e. Stafe Up is similar to Jump and Strafe Down is similar to Crouch).
  5. One point that is non-negotiable for me is that I’m using the arrow keys for movement. I’m too old and there are too many years of muscle memory to change that. So assume that those keys are the center for all of my bindings.
  6. For low-priority functions my preference is to keep them at the default keybinding location, but they can be moved to make room for more important functions
  7. I started to write down the Director Mode (DR) keys, but then decided to just ignore them for this project.

I’m open to suggestions for the color scheme and organization of the keybindings. This still a draft. My plan is to fix the fonts, etc. so that I can print it as a handy guide while learning SC.

Does anyone happen to have the new default layout for 3.0? Internet searching is failing me. I know there are some changes including the use of the mouse wheel to change your walk/run speed.

Also, feel free to use my template to organize your own preferred layout and share it here. I’d like to see what other left-handers are doing. Thanks.

I’d recommend waiting on any updates to the binding defaults. They made changes for each of the last 3 patches, and there will surely be more changes.

Wait until 3.0 is closer to actually releasing to live. Contrary to some interpretation of recent CIG posts, 3.0 is NOT close to release, or at least it shouldn’t be. A lot still need to be addressed, but that still wouldn’t necessarily stop them from release for the holiday anyway. If they do, I’ll eat my words, but it will probably be a mess.

Corgan0 - Welcome to the left-handed club. I found years ago that swaping to UHJK from the arrow keys made my gameplay better, had a far smaller learning curve than I had expected, and allowed me to react quickly.
Since all of my key mappings are closer to UHJK, than the arrow keys are, I can react just as quickly as any right-hander.
In short - I only remap the buttons I need the most in a mirror of the defaults toward the left-side of the keyboard.
If you PM me later. I can share my LEFTY XML with you, for reference.

@CrueOndanet
Thanks for the advice. I actually spoke to you about this a while back but since then I’ve changed my username so you probably didn’t realize it was me. I’ve tried your method in another game for a short while but didn’t like it too much. For me I don’t see a reason to switch because I like the layout of the keys on the right side of the keyboard better than the alphabet letter layout.

For the left-handers, I would try both methods, but one assumption I’m making up front for my controls will be the use of the arrow keys as the base for all bindings. I’ve uploaded a new version of the spreadsheet with controls for 3.0 (see original post). I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got to far. I decided on a different approach for the flight controls because I decided that if any command already resided on my joystick then I wouldn’t prioritize it’s placement on the keyboard. So depending on how your joystick looks (how many buttons, etc.) will depend on if my flight keybindings will be good for you.

Of note, I’ve moved the Interaction Mode to one of my mouse thumb buttons. This has worked very well for me. I think I’m getting close to a “final” layout as far as 3.0 goes. However, I know the spreadsheet needs some cleaning up to do. First, the default right handed controls are not even exactly correct. This is because the documentation in the game wasn’t exactly correct. I didn’t think it mattered that much because nobody should be looking at this file for right-handed controls so I just kept it for now. Also, some of the left-handed controls are not optimally labeled. For example, Camera View Mode for On Foot controls should be relabeled as Freeview.

I’ve updated my original post with a link to the latest file. Let me know if anyone is interested in using the basic layout and if you have any suggestions for improvement.