It seems to me that how a robot is controlled is largely dependent on the robot, and hence properly a property of the robot. Think about it: each team is responsible for coming up with their own "operator control board", and each is vastly different. Joysticks aren't even required, and who's to say the robot is even supposed to move. Maybe my robot moves by pushing buttons that each correspond to pre-defined movement patterns. Sure, most of the robots are probably going to be pretty similar in how they are controlled ... and perhaps a specific robot's control features can largely be inherited, but it seems customization is desirable. And it might even be a good idea to have a configuration file that reads in the keyboard mappings to different functions so you don't have to recompile just to change that. (And remember that movement is just one of many different controls available to more sophisticated robots, and there are quite a few, although limited, inputs availalbe on the OI -- and this game doesn't have to preserve this restriction!)
But at this point any debate in this matter seems like wasted energy. Right now there isn't any robot to control, or any system in which to have a robot. I'm starting to sound like a voice crying in the wilderness, but I'll make what will perhaps be my last plea ... it's waaaaaay to early to even consider this. Really: key mapping is a very low priority item, something that can be changed *easily and without much effort*. First, decide those items on which the rest of the system depends so you don't have to spend a bunch of energy changing what should have been finalized. Something like this can be discussed when you're close to a release and want to polish it up for the general public -- but AI design is even a higher priority than this, and it's still waaaaay to early to discuss that (see my post in that thread for a similar rant).
Well, all is vanity saith the preacher, and it seems like this might just be in vain. But you can't say I haven't tried.
No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. your just learning. thats what the forums are for. please keep them coming. - Tytus Gerrish [more] 
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