I got the mouselook patch working fine. What I don't get is how do I change to the different modes during gameplay? I see talk here about using "mouse only" mode but I've read the original docs and the entire page of the mouselook hack and cannot figure it out.

For example, if I want to pick something up and put it in inventory, am I supposed to exit mouselook mode, select get mode, drag to inventory and then reselect mouselook? Or to enter combat exit ML, select fight mode, then reselect ML mode?

Thanks.

it's been a while since i've played it so it's not entirely fresh in my memory, but i'm pretty sure i would have hit F1 to toggle combat without switching out of mouse-look mode, whereas i would have switched out of mouse-look mode temporarily in order to pick up an item and put it into my inventory.

it just occurred to me, while thinking of how to reply to you, that it might (possibly?) be useful / valuable to add a key (alongside q to Look and e to Use) that would attempt to Get the item at the cursor position. how much of an improvement do you think that would be?

can you think of any other possible ways to improve the system?

Visit the original mouselook patch website (https://github.com/JohnGlassmyer/UltimaHacks#ultima-underworld-the-stygian-abyss)

You can see that hitting the backquote button (the [`] key that is usually in the top left-hand corner of most keyboards) will allow you to switch between the mouselook mode and the mouse click-and-drag mode.

There are also a lot of other really useful hotkeys there as well. I use the WASD movement keys and the [q], [e], [z], [c], and [f] keys all the time when I replay this game, and I also prefer casting spells with the [ctrl]+[alt]+<letter> options as well. The [ctrl]+[alt]+[backspace] combo is also very useful when casting spells that only use two runes.

pocococo's comment is useful when you want to move in and out of combat. I believe it's [F5] to do so for UW1. EAch of the [F#] keys will activate one of the menu items, so you can just do some experimentation with the [F#] keys to figure out the appropriate hotkey to move in and out of combat.

Most of the time when I play the game, I'm just in "get" mode. So I will walk around and play the game in ML mode, and when I want to look at or use an item I'm looking at, I use [q] and [e]. If I want to pick up an item or interact with my inventory, I'll hit [`] to exit ML mode, fiddle around with stuff, and then I'll hit [`] to go back into ML mode. When I see an enemy, I'll hit [F5] to enter combat (still in ML mode), and will just fight that way, and will then hit [F5] to exit combat mode so I'm back into get mode.

I wonder how much use that would be. The mouselook functionality fixes your cursor in the middle of the screen. So even if you can "get" an item (which you can do by hitting F3 in UW1, and then using a right mouse-click), you can't really do much of anything with an item you've picked up and have fixed in the middle of your screen other than throw the item across the room. Which doesn't seem that useful.

Usually when I "get" an item, it's to place it somewhere in my inventory. If I want to put an item in my inventory, I'll need to exit ML mode anyways since the only way to interact with inventory items is to exit ML mode and prevent my cursor from being fixed to the middle of the screen. That I can understand. Entering and exiting combat using the [g] or [t] or [v] keys would be pretty convenient. I guess if people really want to use the "get" command, [g] could be to enter and exit "get" mode (instead of hitting F3) and [t] could be used to enter and exit combat. The [e] key is already used to talk, open/close doors, flip switches, etc., and the [q] key is already used to look, so no need to access the F2, F4, or F6 functionality.

the sort of Get key that i'm thinking of adding would simply move the targeted item to (the top of) the player's top-level inventory.. or, perhaps the top of whatever container the player had open in the inventory screen. perhaps it could even be used to reorder items within the player's inventory. would probably want it close to the wasd hand position, so near the q and e keys, to which i imagine it being fundamentally similar.

i'm not yet convinced of the value in adding another combat-mode key. if you're playing in DOSBox, you could use the key mapper to put F1 or F5 or whatever on another key that's more convenient for you.