Handling more than 2 weapon fire modes?

[Mr Evil]

Many games have both primary and secondary fire modes for weapons, which conveniently map to the left and right mouse buttons. Some games have weapons with iron sights, and use the left mouse button for the single fire mode, and the right mouse button to raise/lower the weapon. But what if you want both, or something even more complicated?

Let's say that I want to have an assault rifle, which needs the following controls:

• Primary fire
• Grenade launcher fire
• Switch firing mode (semi-auto/burst fire)
• Iron sights mode
• Reload
• Reload the grenade launcher (separate from reloading the bullets)

What do you think is the best way to arrange so many controls without being too complicated for the user? Or is it already too complicated just having that many functions?

Currently I'm thinking something like this:

• Left mouse = fire
• Right mouse = iron sights
• [some keyboard key or middle mouse] = switch fire modes (this would cycle through not only single/burst fire, but also the grenade launcher)
• R = reload (would reload the currently selected fire mode, if the weapon uses multiple types of ammo like the assault rifle example)

Not perfect, because it takes several button presses to fire a grenade, but it keeps the number of keys down to 4. I suppose big game studios have the resources to do proper useability studies on stuff like this.

[HideInLight]

Left Mouse: Fire
Right Click: Iron sight (with toggable option in settings)
Q or F: Switch to weapon special function: Grenade launcher mode (back and forth)
X: Change fire mode
R: Reload
V: Melee

LeftControl, LEftShift, Spacebar is the only buttons you can hold or press without removing your fingers from WSAD

[MonsOlympus]

Well 'e' might be a good one for switching firemodes, 'r' is right next door for reload or 'mmb' could do that depending. Typically though that one could be use, are you having any use functionality in there? Id have to agree with HideInLight in that case, 'q' is a good one. 'x' seems alittle cumbersome being all the way down there, could get in the way of voice commands if there is any.

Heres an idea, just use iron sights all the time if you arnt running/sprinting etc with shift, this way u dont need a key, hell you could even toggle the mode. I find a right click iron sight blend is alittle redundant, most soldiers wouldnt lower their weapon or drop their guard because they arnt 'pressing a button'

[danimal']

I've had to deal with the same issues with my grapple because I've now switched to off-hand grapple, which means I still have to dedicate left/right mouse to basic weapon usage while still providing for: 1) shooting the grapple, 2) invoking "swing" mode and 3) allowing the user to adjust the rope length.

I decided that one extra key shouldn't overwhelm anyone, so I give the player two options for the most crucial function (shooting the grapple). You can either use an additional mouse button (mouse4 that most, but not all, players will have) or the fallback for someone with an ancient mouse is to use Shift. Obviously, you should *always* allow the player to re-assign it to whatever the hell they want. To accomplish my other two needs I just combined them into one: adjusting rope length engages swing mode. So I've just done away with weapon switching via mousewheel (I kind of feel players should use keys to call weapons anyways). Mousewheel now invokes "swing" mode, and scrolling up/down on the mousewheel causes the rope to lengthen/shorten respectively (which I felt was intuitive for the action being accomplished). At the end of the day the player has to learn 1 extra key (that they can remap to their hearts desire) and that mousewheel sets and adjusts the rope. As for your specific dilemma:

Regular Firing: Gun firing as mouse left and Grenade as mouse right. Tried and true, just don't screw with it.

Iron sights: I'm really biased against iron sights (hate 'em), but here's what I'd do. I'd have the weapon position be mostly centered, but not completely drawn up, low on the screen (to not block the view), and then when fire is invoked, it automatically engages iron sighting. You get your iron sights and save a key. Players view isn't blocked while not shooting, yet iron sights still come up when shooting.

Reload: Really should be R, it's now common to many many games, don't screw with it.

Switch Fire Modes: I'd really override weapon changing via the mousewheel (DoOverrideNextWeapon()) and just use the mousewheel to switch modes. It's intuitive and makes sense, I'm firing with left/right mouse, and I switch modes using the wheel.

Grenade Reload: The hardest one. I'd either 1) just make it automatically reload (so what if its not 100% consistent), or 2) have reload be "intelligent" in that it only fills up what it needs, so if a player shot all of this grenades and only 10 bullets, then reload would cause the grenades to be fully reloaded and only 10 bullets reloaded.

Cheers!