Editing Different Mouse Settings

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The cursor movement controls the [[Tank]]. The drivers are given different set-up possibilities. This article covers some of these.

== Overview ==
The acceleration of your tank can be controlled by moving the cursor in the little box on the [[HUD]]. This determines the acceleration rate of a tank. Maximum velocity is attained by putting the cursor outside the box, and zero velocity is attained by putting it inside the smaller box.

Administrators and mapmakers may set the following variables to determine the maximum velocity and angular velocity: _tankSpeed and _tankAngVel.

== Different Mousebox Sizes==

{|{{Prettytable}}
|-
| {{Hl3}} |'''Mousebox size''' 
| {{Hl3}} |'''Pros''' 
| {{Hl3}} |'''Cons''' 
|-

|Big Mousebox
|Gives more precise control over the tank. Good for climbing on buildings and avoiding falling from buildings.
|The cursor takes longer to travel around the whole box. This leads to the tank accelerating slower into the next direction => you can dodge bullets, but with |greater difficulty and effort
|-
|Little Mousebox
| It enables you to dodge bullets with much less movement, therefore faster dodging is possible.
|It is also much easier to accidentally fall down from buildings.
|-
|Middle Mousebox Size
|A happy medium of precision and reaction speed. Can be used to dodge bullets relatively well. Falling down from buildings is much rarer than when using a miniscule mousebox
|You end up getting neither the absolute control nor the best reaction time.
|}

== Different Cursor Settings ==
{|{{Prettytable}}
|-
| {{Hl3}} |'''Cursor movement''' 
| {{Hl3}} |'''Pros''' 
| {{Hl3}} |'''Cons''' 
| {{Hl3}} |'''Good Mousebox in combination'''
|-
|Fast Cursor
|Very good to dodge bullets.
|Risky to drive around on buildings.
|Big or middle mousebox. Only use a small mousebox if you don't jump often.
|-
|Slow Cursor
|Good for doing complicated jumps.
|Hard to dodge incoming bullets.
|Small or middle mousebox. A big mousebox is suicide!
|-
|Middle Cursor Speed
|Can be used to dodge much incoming bullets. Driving on buildings is not dangerous.
|Occasionally you can't dodge or fall down from a building.
|Big, middle and small mouseboxes can be used.
|}

== Platform differences ==

=== Cursor Speed ===
Speed is a linear factor added to your cursor movement. The cursor is constantly faster/slower.

=== Cursor Acceleration ===
Acceleration is a multiplier to your cursor movement.  Has a high impact to cursor movement when moving the mouse fast, slower impact when moving the mouse slower.

=== "I'm on Mac OS X - Others seem to have an advantage" ===

The only real advantage they have is the agility flag. Other platforms use different acceleration parameters; thus, they may find it easier to drive a straight line and then jump with the agility flag so that they can escape easier. With the Mac's mouse acceleration you gain some other advantages against the other player, like you will always be able to react quicker than them and can move more precisely when you move your cursor slower.

Both Macs and PCs use mouse acceleration; they simply use different functions to calculate the mouse position. In addition, different versions of the same platform can also have different acceleration. There are tools available for both platforms for configuring the acceleration, if you don't like the defaults.

All that talk about acceleration and speed may sound strange to you - with drivers like [http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/ SteerMouse] and [http://www.usboverdrive.com/ USBOverdrive] you can quickly get a feeling for the difference. If you are using Windows®, you can tweak the parameters by editing the registry keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse. 

A good mouse and mousepad might also make a difference; a wired optical mouse will usually perform better than a ball mouse or a wireless mouse. A quality gaming mouse might be helpful, but in general, you need to consider whether the additional cost (often hundreds of dollars) is really worth it.


=== I'm on Linux - How to tweak that beast ===

For USB mice you could use a small progamm called lomoco (search it for your distribution) and thereafter xset.

"xset m 22 && bzflag-e && xset m 5 "  from a comandline, give a nice fast mouse.

In case your mouse is an old style PS/2, use "xset 7 1" or instead of 7, use 6, 9, 5, whatever suits you most. Just try what is best for you.

[[Category:Gameplay]]
[[Category:Tactics]]
[[Category:Client]]