Keyboard configuration and confusion

I bought the game a few days ago and have played around 18 hours so far. While I'm mostly pleased and impressed with it, I find the keyboard configuration for advanced construction to be confusing especially if any keys are remapped - I'm one of the unfortunate 10% handicapped by left-handedness so WASD is out of the question. Specifically:

• Being static the F1 help screen just adds to the confusion when trying to figure out what does what if keys are remapped. It also isn't clear that the 'resize' key isn't a toggle and that both keys need to be held down to reset size.
• The object rotation seems to be world-centric rather than camera-centric. As a result keys rotate beams in different directions depending upon which way you are facing which is just confusing (IMHO)
• It doesn't seem possible to remap the control key
• Because there's no indicator to show when modular building is enabled, or resize is in effect, it isn't clear what an anticipated movement or keypress will achieve
• The forward/left/right/up/down labels on the keyboard config 'placement' screen relate to rotations not translations and are therefore confusing

I appreciate that the game is still in development and that those with many hours invested will wonder why I'm finding it so tricky, but if new players can't pick up the controls reasonably quickly they will become frustrated and disillusioned. I have thousands of hours in other 3d construction, fps, survival and rpg games but the advance construction part of the game (the reason I bought it) is the most frustrating system I've ever encountered. Unless it's refined I think I'll have to stick to RW's Minecraft-like block building mode, which is a shame.

In addition, the crouch key just activates a tint 'bounce' - doesn't really matter at present as it doesn't seem to be needed - and why is a key needed for run and walk - isn't the default 'walk'? Maybe it's supposed to read 'creep' or somesuch?

I hope the keyboard config gets sorted out, I really like the game but it just feels hobbled as it stands.

Quote from Miwarre

@vinehold: first of all, welcome to RW!

2) on the other hand, after 1300+ hours on RW, I still have often no idea what to expect from this or that rotation command and, if things are counter-intuitive or far from obvious, this could heavily affect new users experience and adoption of the game, as you rightly observe.
In particular, I am rather sure that at least rotations are 'strangely' implemented (see this longish thread where I exposed my doubts and concerns, but I have been unable to entice a constructive response) and IMHO this is a good part of the "complexity" or "non-obviousness" of the whole.

P.S.: I am also left-handed (but not 100%; being presumably older than you are, in my childhood I have been 'educated' to do many things with my right hand, like writing; and, even more incidentally, I do not think left-handedness is a "handicap", we are simply a disregarded minority); I don't know if this has any relevance; still, we both are left-handed and we both raise concerns about these aspects...

Thanks both!

Unless I'm mistaken (and it has been known!) the rotations are locked to the world x/y/z axes rather than the viewpoint, so for example, rotating a vertical beam clockwise requires a particular key but if you turn to the left or right by 90 degrees it requires a different key.

I'm ambidextrous in some things (throw with right hand, kick a ball with right, knife and fork in "correct" hand etc) but always prefer mouse in left hand and cursor keys to move. Some right-handers can't understand this but if you ask them to play using mouse in right-hand and only use the numeric keypad they usually see how awkward it is. I don't regard my handedness as a handicap, I was making a subtle point You might be surprised how old I am too....

@Miwarre Having scanned the thread you mentioned I see I may be wrong but either way the system is not good as it stands. It seems that all that is required is free rotation and scaling of the beam about its centre (probably in discrete steps). It's not hard to do in itself and needn't be subject to rounding errors. I wouldn't think may people would want to rotate an object in two axes simultaneously so why not have a key (or three 'x', 'y' 'z') that sets the axis to rotate around and use the mouse to carry out the rotation (perhaps while holding a key to snap to certain angles). Just a thought!