News – 2009.09.06
I just uploaded a few hundred new images, but also a brand new guide to binds! This guide will explain how to use binds, provide a lot of samples and give you an idea how to do some really cool character customization.
I just uploaded a few hundred new images, but also a brand new guide to binds! This guide will explain how to use binds, provide a lot of samples and give you an idea how to do some really cool character customization.
There are much more complete and detailed references out there already, but here are the most common and most useful bind commands with examples.
By putting these special variables in your binds that involve chat or talking, the variable will be replaced with some information (depending which variable you use).
The name of your current target. This could be someone on your team, an enemy, or an object (anything that can be targeted).
/bind f8 team "Look out guys, there's a $target over there."
This bind will call out your current target to the team. This is very important if you find a problem enemy or just want to play around. As with all chat binds, don't over-use it or you get annoying.
/bind f7 "local The great $name is ready for battle!$$team Ready!"
This works if your character is the kind to speak in third person. I always replace the F7 "ready" bind with custom text of my own. I found that it was both confusing and annoying to say your custom text in the team chat, but you need to keep the game standard "READY" so you don't confuse people. This bind does both by saying some custom text in local chat which people can still see, but can ignore while still saying "READY" in the team chat channel like normal.
/bind + "request Level $level stone/fire tank LFT"
Sends "Level 38 stone/fire tank LFT" to the request channel (if you were level 38).
Okay, okay, i think you get the point. The rest are:
So one more to bring it together
SHIFT+ENTER "beginchat "/send "freedom badges" [$name $level $archetype] ""
This is a channel bind that loads my chat box with "/send "freedom badges" [$name $level $archetype] " and puts the cursor at the end waiting for my text. When I hit ENTER, something like this shows up in the "freedom badges" channel:
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@Jordan Yen: [Screaming Gale 50 Defender] Anyone know if Kraken is out?
@Jordan Yen: [Screaming Gale 50 Defender] Anyone?
@randomdude: Blob sighted south PP
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The main advantage of doing this is that normally when you talk in channels, all you see is the global chat name which doesn't tell you anything about the character they're currently playing. Doing it this way, you broadcast your current character's name level and type which is far more useful when forming teams and such.
There are some seriously specific target binds available to help you target exactly what you want. I can't list everything here, so I'll just cover some examples that I use so you get the idea.
v "target_custom_next friend defeated$$powexec_name Fallout"
B "targetcustomnext friend alive$$powexec_name speed boost"
One of these makes a hard to use power simple by putting it on a bind. All you have to do is make sure that there is a dead teammate in your view. Then press the V key first to target said dead teammate and again to launch the power. It won't launch both at once, but at least you don't have to use two different keys.
The other works the same way first targeting a teammate and then hitting them with Speed Boost. This bind is very useful for powers like shields or buffs that you have to apply to your team one at a time.
/bind lshift powexecname teleport
Binds the left shift key to the telport power. It's far faster and more efficient to teleport using a keybind rather than to click the power, click your target location, and back and forth.
/bind f12 "team $target, come here$$powexecname recall friend"
Tells your team that you're going to teleport someone. This is useful so they know they're about to be teleported, but also as a way to signal to others who have recall friend not to bother trying to TP the same target as you.
/bind v "target_custom_next friend defeated$$powexec_name Vengeance"
Just like the above two examples, this takes two key presses to work, but is still faster and easier than trying to target the dead guy manually and then launch the power in the middle of battle.
CoH key list – This is a list of the names for all the keys. For example, G, H, and U are pretty straightforward, but what should you use to bind the enter key for example? This list will give you the names that are used for non-letter keys.
The Incomplete and Unofficial Guide to Binds – This is a great in-depth guide to binds from the beginning to the advanced. If you want more depth and detail, go and read that one first then come back for examples. If you think it's a little too heavy for you now, finish this page first then check it later. Either way, it's an excellent reference.
Mantid's Animated Emote Guide – An excellent resource that lists all the game Emotes with animated examples. This is a critical page for when you want to attach fun emotes to your binds.
For Kheldian specific binds, check here:
Ok, that aside, here are a set of bindfiles that I use. At the end, I'll show you how to combine them all together for supercool bind awesomeness.
These are my basic binds that I use for each character. Of course I change the specific things they say and the emotes that go with them based on the character, but the basic idea is the same for everyone
ENTER "afk Thinking…$$startchat"
CTRL+ENTER "beginchat "/send "gameamp.com" [$name $level $archetype] ""
` cc 0
f1 cc 1
f2 cc 2
f3 cc 3
f4 cc 4
F5 "team Welcome$$em bow"
F6 "local
F7 "local Let's do it!$$team
F8 "team There's a $target"
F9 "nop"
F10 "nop"
T "beginchat /bind f targetname "
\ follow
pageup powexecname Force of Nature$$powexecname Geas of the Kind Ones
pagedown powexecname Demonic Aura$$powexecname Eye of the Magus
home powexecname Mission Teleporter
end powexecname self destruct
If you press ENTER to put the cursor in the chat box so you can start typing (as most people do), adding this bind to your enter key will do the same thing, but set your status to AFK with a custom message. When you see people who have the grey thought-bubble things over their head while they're typing, this is how it's done.
This is a combo bind that requires two key presses at once to activate (CONTROL and ENTER). When you do, it puts the cursor in the chat box like normal, but by using the "beginchat" command instead of "startchat", it writes "/send "gameamp.com" [myname mylevel myarchetype] " and puts the cursor at the end.
The cool thing about doing it this way is that all I have to do is type a message and hit ENTER. As soon as I do, it sends my message along with some information about my character to the channel I chose (where "gameamp.com" is a global channel I want all my characters to be able to quickly send chat to).
Also f1-f4 and cc 1 through 4. These are simple binds that change between the original costume and the next 4 (which you have to unlock). Note that you can do a LOT more here like custom text, costume change emotes (new with the magic and superscience packs), but I'll save that for a little later (see the Advanced Costuming guide)
One more thing. If you can't see the character very well, it's the backtick (which is also the tilde character). I used to use the 1-5 number keys, but I found that when dual-accounting, it's best to leave the number keys for powers.
The F5-F8 keys are very simple binds that say a little text and use an emote animation. There's not much more to say there.
The "nop" command stands for "No Operation" and clears a keybind. Because F9 and F10 have default commands when you start a new character or reset the keybinds, I use this to clear them. I need F9 and F10 to be cleared so that the utility I use for screencaptures and video work properly.
This is a seek bind. What it does is start the chatbox with the first half of a bind so I don't have to type it over and over. As soon as I press "T", my chat box is loaded with "/bind F targetname ". All I have to do is type a name or part of a name and hit ENTER. Once I do, the F key is bound with a command that targets anything where the name is a full or partial match to whatever I typed.
In case you haven't made the connection yet, this is a great way to find special enemies or objects. Things like sappers (which everyone hates), crates, hostages, or named bosses.
The F key is follow by default, but I use F for my seek bind (listed below) because of how easy it is to tap the F key while running around. Also, since I dual-account, it useful having the follow key one of the larger, easy-to-find keys on the keyboard. Backslash has worked great.
This power launches an accolade power that I sometimes forget is there. Binding it to a key makes it far easier to use in battle. Note that this tries launching two powers at once which should always fail, but because one is the hero version and one the villain, it will work for any of my characters (since the other power will be ignored).
Even more than the last one, I'm am constantly forgetting to use this power. What this does is give me great resistance and defense and works like a "holy crap!" save-you-butt move. The problem is finding the power in your tray before it's too late. That's why using the keyboard is way better. Also, this power lowers your attack power in return for increasing defense while the Geas/FoN above does the opposite. Thus, Page Up to increase battle strength, Page Down to lower it. It's easy to remember which key does what that way.
Granted, you can only get this power by buying the Mac Edition addon pack, but I love this power for the time it save (which I have precious little of). I bound it to the "home" key because I often use missions as a way to set "home" locations for day jobs. In other words, play a mission or two then set my "home" mission that I only keep because it's in a zone where I want a day job badge, teleport there then log out.
This works especially well for zones that are normally hard to get to (like Cimerora).
Again, an addon pack is required for this power (Cyborg), but since I have it, I want to be able to use this cool power. Not only does it provide some cool travel capabilities, but it does a lot of damage to nearby enemies in exchange for your life. The key here is that you get no debt even if they kill you before you're done self destructing as long as you start the power before you hit 0 life.
Considering that, you can use self destruct as a get-out-of-debt-free card as well as thumbing your nose at the enemies that tried to kill you by blowing them up. But none of that is possible if you can't remember which tray you stuck the power in and can't find it with your mouse in time. So instead, I bound it to the "end" key (because it's the end for you, wa ha ha).
SHIFT+ENTER "beginchat "/send "triumph watch 2.0" [$name $level $archetype] ""
ALT+ENTER "beginchat "/send "triumph watch 2.1" [$name $level $archetype] ""
These two are channel binds, but just for my characters that play on the Triumph server. I have one of these files for every server that I play on and load them as needed.
V "target_custom_next friend defeated$$powexec_name Vengeance
Due to timing issues, this doesn't work in a single button press. You have to press it once to target the next defeated ally and then again to actually launch the power. This is very useful to quickly launch Vengeance during battle since it can take some effort to manually target their body versus just tapping the V key twice.
Note the very useful and interesting "target_custom_next" command. It can do a lot of things and will be very useful to you for various powers (like Vengeance) that are normally harder to use manually.
By the way, I have a bunch of binds for specific powers that are normally hard to use like this in the \pow subfolder. For now, I'll just show this one because I'm going somewhere with all of this.
1 "powexec_slot 1"
2 "powexec_slot 2"
3 "powexec_slot 3"
4 "powexec_slot 4"
5 "powexec_slot 5"
6 "powexec_slot 6"
7 "powexec_slot 7"
8 "powexec_slot 8"
9 "powexec_slot 9"
0 "powexec_slot 10"
This resets the number keys to launch powers 1-10 in your main power tray (remember what I said before, with two accounts it becomes important for speed reasons to keep certain powers at certain numbers where I don't have to use a mouse to launch them). Why bother resetting this? You'll see in a sec.
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Above this point are bind files that I use for all my characters, but the magic comes next! After this point, the bind files are customized by character which in this case (for the sake of demonstration) will be Doctor Kev, my Necro/Dark Mastermind. | |||||
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ENTER "afk Be patient, death comes for you soon enough$$beginchat "
SHIFT+NUMPADENTER "e stop$$petcom_all Follow Passive$$petsay_all YessssMaster…"
f1 "local The darkness consumes!$$cc 1"
F5 "petsay_pow Z <em welcome>$$petsay_pow G <em bow>$$petsay_pow L <em fancybow>Your presence is appreciated"
F6 "local GRATZ!$$petsay_all <em thumbsup>"
F7 bind_load_file c:\binds\kev\ready1.txt
F8 "team A $target. Dissection is in order…"
F12 "team $target I demand your presence!$$powexec_name Recall Friend"
Though I use the same keys, this file over-rides many of the binds that say stuff with text custom to Doctor Kev (shortened to kev in the file structure to keep the path short). As a villain, he says dark, evil sounding things that are relevant to his particular story. You'll also notice that I've introduced something new which is the ability to make your pets participate in your binds, but that's for a different guide a different day.
You'll notice that on the F7 bind, it loads a file called ready1.txt. There's also a ready2 and 3 (an example of a rotating bind). Also beware that while some of my long commands wrap here, they shouldn't in your files. Binds must be one per line.
1 bindloadfile c:\binds\base_binds.txt
2 bindloadfile c:\binds\triumph.txt
3 bindloadfile c:\binds\pow\veng1.txt
4 bindloadfile c:\binds\kev\kev_binds.txt
5 bind_load_file c:\binds\mm\all.txt
6 bind_load_file c:\binds\mm\necro.txt
7 bind_load_file c:\binds\kev\all_attack1.txt
8 bindloadfile c:\binds\numbers.txt
This is it! This is what brings it ALL together. Pay close attention now and I'll go through these in order. Say I just created Doctor Kev OR somehow the binds got messed up (it happens sometimes). I do this in the following order:
So essentially, I set these up one time and then I can set or rest the binds on any character by pressing the number keys from 1 to 5 or 8 or however many of my pre-built bind files I need for that character.
Best of all, the only bindfiles that aren't shared are the ones that list the bindfiles to load (charname.txt) and the one that lists the custom text binds (charname_binds.txt). All others are used in various combinations by all my characters and I never have to type them again.
As Paris Hilton would say, "That's HOT!"