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Master of Orion > Guides > Spud Dastardly's Guides
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Hotkeys, Shortcuts, and UCP UI Features
By Spud Dastardly and 1 collaborators
This guide documents all of the mouse and keyboard shortcuts which are not found in the manual, the wiki, or the in game settings menu. This guide also includes shortcuts added by WhatIsSol's Unofficial Code Patch.
   
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Created by
WhatIsSol
Offline
Spud Dastardly
Offline
Category: Gameplay Basics, Modding or Configuration, Secrets
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
5 Aug, 2018 @ 9:54pm
19 Aug, 2020 @ 6:32am
1,697 Unique Visitors
53 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Strategic play 
Tactical Combat 
Unofficial Code Patch Hotkeys 
Unofficial Code Patch Cheats 
Comments
Strategic play
This is my list of hotkeys outside of tactical combat. As a general note, hitting Esc exits just about everything, even audiences with other races, so I won't note the use of Esc in this guide, though Esc on the main screen or in tactical combat does bring up the options menu.

Galaxy Screen
  • Ctrl+s: Opens the save game menu

  • Tab: Switch between full galaxy view and close up view

  • Pg Up: Zooms the map in

  • Pg Dn: Zooms the map out (not to the whole galaxy view)

  • Arrow keys: pans the galaxy map
Colony Screen
  • Enter: Opens the Manage Structures popup

  • Hold ctrl and click+drag a population unit: Grabs all units to the right of the one chosen

  • Left/Right arrows and PgDn/PgUp: Previous/Next colony

  • Double clicking a structure on the build menu queues it
Tech Tree
  • Left/Right Arrow: Moves through the tech tree

  • Enter: Exits the tech tree directly back to the galaxy map
Diplomacy
  • Double click a race to open an audience with them

  • Enter (on make deal popup): Offers the deal/demand
Tactical Combat
As a general rule, if you've played Starcraft, the hotkeys in tactical combat are the same, though not everything in Starcraft works here.
  • Right click dragging rotates the battle field, middle click dragging pans the battle field, scroll wheel zooms.

  • Double clicking a unit selects all units in that squad

  • Holding shift and clicking ships adds or removes them from the current selection. Can also hold shift and drag-click to make a selection box to add a group of ships to the current selection.

  • When a group of ships is selected, holding Ctrl and pressing a number assigns them to a group which can be recalled by pressing the number again. This one is very useful.

  • Holding shift allows you to queue move, attack commands. For example, you can hold shift and right click on a few ships, and your fleet will fire at the first ship until it's destroyed, then the next. Can queue moves in between attacks and vice-versa.

  • Selecting a group of ships of the same type and issuing them a command will merge them into a single squad. E.g. you might start the battle with 2 squads of frigates, but select all of them together and give a command and they'll merge so they can adopt a single formation.

  • Specials and weapons can be right clicked to disable auto-casting. They can then be manually activated and targeted with left clicking.

  • Clicking on a ship's icon in the bottom left corner will center the camera on that ship (works for squads, but not for custom assigned groups)
Unofficial Code Patch Hotkeys
WhatIsSol's UnofficialCodePatch also adds some hotkeys to the game. Here's a list of those:

Tactical Combat
  • The keys [ and ] cycle through squads.

General Updates
  • The right mouse button will now close most screens. This is considered an escape choice.

Galaxy Map (Standard View)
  • Middle Mouse Button will activate the action on the bottom right button: "Choose Research, Choose Production, etc."

Rally Points
A new Rally button "blue pin" option has been added to the fleet controls. It can also be accessed via the shortcut key and is configurable in the Options -> Control menu for the game under "Rally Points".
  • Automatically when you manually select a fleet and tell it to move to a location a hidden Rally point is created. You can then select a different fleet and tell that fleet to head to the same direction using the Rally button. This selection does get overwritten every time you manually tell a fleet to move to a location. I use this for quick localized movements when I'm trying to get a lot of ships to the same location.
  • A more permanent Rally point can be assigned to any colony that you own. From the galaxy map click on one of your planets while holding down the CTRL key. This will mark the planet with a Rally Point indicator "blue pin". You can then select a fleet and tell it to go to this alternative Rally Point location by holding down the CTRL key while clicking the Rally button or using the CTRL + shortcut key combo

Planet Screen
  • Clicking on a "Done" or using the Right-Click close while holding down the CTRL key will in additional to the normal operation of exiting the screen, will center the galaxy map on this planet.
These below are all in UCP 5.9:
  • CTRL-P - Sets colony focus to production
  • CTRL-F - Sets colony focus to food
  • CTRL-R - Sets colony focus to research
  • CTRL-B - Sets colony focus to balanced
  • CTRL-C - Sets colony focus to clean
  • CTRL-G - Sets colony focus to growth
  • CTRL-0..9 - Sets AutoBuild Queue (0 to 9); 0 being default internal of course, if you pick one that does not exist, the built in default will be used
  • CTRL-T - Adds Trade Good to Build Queue
  • CTRL-I - Removes Trade Good from Build Queue
  • CTRL-A - Turn On/Off Autobuild
  • CTRL-U - Turn On/Off AutoClean
  • Space - Build Screen Popup

Empire Management Screen
  • Clicking on a planet while holding down the CTRL key will exit this screen and center the galaxy map on the chosen planet.

Fleet Control Screen
  • In 5.9 seeing the ship blueprint requires the CTRL key to be held down instead of being an automatic popup - this is to reduce screen clutter
Unofficial Code Patch Cheats
Cheats
These only function in single player games. In order for these to work you must edit your "config.cfg" file and add the following line under the [UCP] section:

cheatsOn = True

All cheats are activated by ALT + a key

Galaxy Map
In order to use these you need to be zoomed out as far as possible on the galaxy map.

  • ALT-I : Gives you Omniscient
  • ATL-M: Gives you 1,000 BC
  • ALT-E : Completes your current research project

Planet Screen
In order to use these you need to be viewing a planet.

  • ALT-P : Completes current work item
  • ATL-L: Maxes out a planets population, UI is a little buggy on this one. Just leave it alone and it will recover.
11 Comments
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_m_a_ 17 Feb, 2021 @ 11:32am 
May i suggest adding few new cheats:
ALT+C : Colonize selected planet
ALT+H : Heal selected fleet
ALT+J : Teleport fleet to cursor if not possible then: Recover fleet Movement Points.
ALT+K : Kill hovered fleet
ALT+F : Give 1 population to planet by filling growth meter.
ALT+R : Give a random resource to planet if not have any.
ALT+M: Improve relations with the selected leader during negotiation screen.
ALT+SHIFT+P : Increase planets mineral quality by 1 up to 5
ALT+SHIFT+F : Increase planets food quality by 1 up to 5
Thanks.
I love the all fetures this mod presents.
Spud Dastardly  [author] 27 Dec, 2020 @ 5:32am 
In the UCP mod description, you will find instructions on how to locate the mod's local files on your system. You'll find a zip there you're supposed to extract to a separate folder and a .bat file which is the java installer. That .bat file has to be run every time UCP udpates. See the UCP readme file included with those local files for more details on the install process.
urbwarzine 27 Dec, 2020 @ 4:34am 
So how do I do that? All I see is a folder for javascript, and a file in it that is called base. Do I need to run something else, or is that the file I should have installed? My game is updated to the current version
Spud Dastardly  [author] 27 Dec, 2020 @ 4:25am 
I suggest you run it then. UCP updated to a new version yesterday anyway, and it's necessary to run the installer to get the update.
urbwarzine 27 Dec, 2020 @ 4:18am 
I honestly don't remember. I just installed it via the steam desktop.
Spud Dastardly  [author] 25 Dec, 2020 @ 11:24pm 
This is for all recent version of UCP including the new one. If you do not see the option it may indicate that you didn't run the java installer file to install UCP. Did you do so?
urbwarzine 25 Dec, 2020 @ 9:54pm 
Which version is this for? I went to do this in the config.cfg file for Conquer the Stars, but didn't see anything labeled [UCP]
Soteria 9 Sep, 2018 @ 9:04pm 
No, I set it to full control. And when that's enabled, your fleets start moving under AI control, as well, so I would have noticed that.
Spud Dastardly  [author] 9 Sep, 2018 @ 1:16am 
Do you have the admiral AI enabled? (the button on the upper left corner in combat). If so, it might be overriding your weapon commands.
Soteria 9 Sep, 2018 @ 12:04am 
This is helpful. I didn't know about queuing commands. Disabling autocasting doesn't seem to work consistently for me. I'll disable it, but still have my ship open fire with all weapons as soon as it enters range. Any idea what's going on there?