Introduction | Controller Type | Mouse | Keyboard

Most gamers nowadays have adopted the mouse and keyboard combo for maximum control in first person shooters. Back when Doom was released though the mouse didn't seem to be much cop - keys did very nicely thank you. When Duke3D came along and added aiming things still didn't change too much - after all we can still use these keys very nicely. It's Quake that produced the realization in gamers that a better control system was needed and it's all because of the noble art of 'Rocket Jumping'. Without using the mouse rocket jumping is an uncontrollable nightmare.

Now the benefit of enlightened controls can come back to Duke3D - if you are willing to do some advanced configuration. I'll be avoiding setup.exe here so open up duke3d.cfg in notepad and get typing . . .

Firstly we need to show Duke the controls we're using:

ControllerType = 1

Will set the controls to keyboard and mouse.

Now onto configuring the mouse. Usually the mouse will move you around in Duke3D rather than make you look around. There are three things:

AimingFlag = x ; set this to 1 to set the mouse aiming on by default.
GameMouseAiming = x ; set this to 1 to set the mouse aiming on by default.
MouseAiming = x ; set this to 0 to set the mouse aiming key to toggle aiming modes, rather than only be active whilst depressed.

Second step is inverting the mouse:

MouseAimingFlipped = 0 ; which works fine for the Atomic version.
MouseSensitivity = x ; where if you add a '-' before it the aiming will be flipped if you're using 1.3d. And if the mouse is too sensitive you can reduce the number a bit to adjust it and vice versa if it's not responsive enough.

Now all you need do is decide what the buttons do:

MouseButton0 = "" ; left mouse button
MouseButtonClicked0 = "" ; double clicked left mouse button
MouseButton1 = "" ; right mouse button
MouseButtonClicked1 = "" ; double clicked right mouse button
MouseButton2 = "" ; middle mouse button
MouseButtonClicked2 = "" ; double clicked middle mouse button

Inside the speech marks you enter the text that describes the action you want performed. You can see the possible actions in the keyboard listing the next section. I recommend 'Fire' on the left button and 'Open' on the right.

Now we've covered the mouse next the keyboard. The basic keys used for a mouse/keyboard combo are the 'aswd' keys for movement. Myself I use an extended 'qerfcv' for other movements as these keys are easy to reach. Here's a suggested list to use which covers all the actions that can be bound. Most keys can be bound - if you want to adjust this list it'll be easiest from the SETUP.EXE program.

Move_Forward = "W" ""
Move_Backward = "S" ""
Turn_Left = "" ""
Turn_Right = "" ""
Strafe = "" ""
Fire = "" ""
Open = "" ""
Run = "LShift" ""
AutoRun = "CapLck" ""
Jump = "R" ""
Crouch = "F" ""
Look_Up = "" ""
Look_Down = "" ""
Look_Left = "" ""
Look_Right = "" ""
Strafe_Left = "A" ""
Strafe_Right = "D" ""
Aim_Up = "" ""
Aim_Down = "" ""
Weapon_1 = "1" ""
Weapon_2 = "2" ""
Weapon_3 = "3" ""
Weapon_4 = "4" ""
Weapon_5 = "5" ""
Weapon_6 = "6" ""
Weapon_7 = "7" ""
Weapon_8 = "8" ""
Weapon_9 = "9" ""
Weapon_10 = "0" ""
Inventory = "Enter" "KpdEnt"
Inventory_Left = "[" ""
Inventory_Right = "]" ""
Holo_Duke = "L" ""
Jetpack = "K" ""
NightVision = "J" ""
MedKit = "H" ""
TurnAround = "" ""
SendMessage = "T" ""
Map = "Tab" ""
Shrink_Screen = "-" "Kpad-"
Enlarge_Screen = "=" "Kpad+"
Center_View = "" ""
Holster_Weapon = "ScrLck" ""
Show_Opponents_Weapon = "Y" ""
Map_Follow_Mode = "P" ""
See_Coop_View = "O" ""
Mouse_Aiming = "U" ""
Toggle_Crosshair = "I" ""
Steroids = "G" ""
Quick_Kick = "`" ""
Next_Weapon = "E" ""
Previous_Weapon = "Q" ""

And that's about it really. If it doesn't work in 1.3d don't sue me.