A short time ago, at a computer terminal far, far, away, Eddie wrote:
>When I played in instant action, the comma would torso turn right and >the period would torso turn left. And, the keypad "+" would tilt the >torso down and the keypad "-" would tilt the torso up. [...] >NOW the comma key torso twists to the left, and everything else works OK >also. However, if I make a change to my config, the label names will be >switched back, and I have to re-edit them. Oh well. Wish I didn't have >to go through this... :( > >All this is for the DOS version. Anybody else find anything similiar >when they installed the DOS version?
Yes. In Mech2, you might recall, there were two columns on the custom config screen: one that let you flip the direction of some functions, like the torso twisting, from Up/Down to Down/Up, and another that let you assign a keymodifier to the input device or key (ctrl, alt, or shift). This former column would let you reverse the direction as you want to to.
In Mercs, those two columns appear to be absent. They don't show up on the config screen at all. However, it appears that the functions of the columns are, in fact, still there. That is, you can click in the locations of the columns, and produce the same changes as you were able to in Mech2. You just can't see the results of those changes, at least without exiting the game and looking at the INPUT.MAP.
It's a royal pain in the ass, and I think, a major oversight. I made it virtually impossible to move some of the config settings around. I'm not sure what else to say about this bug, except that I'm surprised it made it out of quality-assurance.
As you noticed, the INPUT.MAP file is replaced whenever you change your active configuration. I think, but I'm not sure, that the four config setups are saved in GIDDI/CONFIGxx.CPC in a binary format, and the chosen one is then used to produce the INPUT.MAP file used by the game's input routines.
My solution to the problem was to config my controllers with Mech2, and copy the GIDDI/CONFIGxx.CPC and INPUT.MAP files back to the Mercs directory. This so far as worked just fine, as it appears the file formats are virtually identical between the two games.
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Will Day