Move while firing with keyboard 'joystick'

[mbleys]

Hi,
Over the years I've tried a number of Amiga emulators, but never with much consequence. Install, wow, forget.
This time I've installed FS-UAE 3.0.2 (macOS) just to play Blood Money, whose far inferior PC version was my companion during a lot of the early '90s. But the PC version let you choose the input method, whereas apparently the Amiga requires a joystick. Can someone confirm this?

And not the least because my fingers still remember how to play the game and that's part of the fun, I've tried to do it via joystick emulation using the keyboard, which I assume is the standard way everyone uses their FS-UAE. And I can confirm that the arrows and ctrl work pretty much with the same feel that the keyboard option does on PC, which impressed me. However, there's a major issue: while the arrows can work simultaneously to achieve the intended movement, they don't seem to work when ctrl is pressed, either continuously or not (this is regardless of the autofire setting). You're moving, you hit ctrl, and your movement continues, but any new movement key you press while/when you're hitting ctrl is ignored.

Is this a known issue? Can it be solved? I find it strange that there would be such an issue on such a polished work as FS-UAE otherwise is.

This happened with the single-disk 'Majestic' version, the only one I could get to run.

[FrodeSolheim]

Hi, this does not happen for me. I tried the version mentioned, and it works as you would expect, here.

One possible explanation is a hardware limitation of your keyboard, preventing these key presses to be registered at the same time. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, most keyboard only allow a few keys to be pressed at the same time. How many can also depend on exactly what keys are pressed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(key) for more information.

If this is the case, then there is nothing FS-UAE (or indeed any software on your computer) can do about it. Your options include:

- Try using another key for fire. The right alt key is also automatically mapped to fire when using keyboard emulation, since some (laptop) keyboards lack the right ctrl key.

- Try mapping a completely different key to fire. For example, put

keyboard_key_q = action_joy_1_fire_button

in advanced settings in the launcher. (This is not the best way to reassign the fire key permanently, but is fine for testing this)

- Try using another external keyboard.

- Connect a USB gamepad or joystick and use that.

Does any of these options fix the problem for you?

EDIT: There is also an FS-UAE option you can try which swaps the left and right control keys. Maybe your keyboard allows for the left control key to be used in combination with the cursor keys. Wikipedia notes that "Many computer games and console emulators use the control, alt, and shift keys by default. Computer keyboards typically are designed to detect these keys being activated in addition to others from the character matrix, and this may prevent key jamming." - This might very well apply to the left hand side keys only.

[mbleys]

Thanks for a very quick response!

It seems `keyboard_key_q = action_joy_1_fire_button` did the trick. Space works too (which makes it match the PC controls I used to use). It's perfectly fine for me. Now if only the game didn't seem a good deal faster than on the PC!

(I had never heard of that keyboard limitation, I tried this on a cheapo Asus wireless, which otherwise I'm almost happy with (I can't make its fn work like the Apple fn). Ever since I've had two Apple keyboards just out of warranty suddenly stop working for no reason, I've been unwilling to pay for more, and I liked the old chiclet keys better than what they have now.)

[Solo Kazuki]

Just buy any joypad. Works well even as CD32 one (if have enough buttons to map).