Multi State Trigger Profiles

🔀 Multi-State Trigger Profiles

One trigger feel per game is fine — until you swap from a pistol to a shotgun and the trigger still feels like a pistol. States fix that: a game profile can hold several named effect sets ("Pistol", "Shotgun", "Driving"), and switch rules flip between them when you press the game's own buttons. The feel follows what you're doing in-game, even though the game knows nothing about OpenDS5.

Availability: states shipped after v1.8.0. If your editor has no States strip, update the app first — see Updates.

✅ Before you start

Requirement	Why
Game Trigger Profiles enabled	States live inside game profiles — see Game Profiles and Library
Your user in the input group	Switch rules read controller buttons from the input device, same as reactive modifiers. Without it the profile's default state still applies; switching just won't fire. See Troubleshooting and FAQ
The game does not have native trigger support	If the game drives the triggers itself, let it — a custom profile would fight it

🚀 Quick start: a two-state shooter profile

1. Open Game Trigger Profiles and select (or create) the profile for your game.
2. In the editor, click Add states. Your current trigger setup becomes the first state (named Default), and a fresh empty State 2 is added.
3. Rename them in the State name field — say, Pistol and Shotgun.
4. Click a state chip to edit that state's L2/R2 effects, exactly like a normal profile. Editing live-previews on your controller, so you can feel each state as you tune it.
5. Scroll to State Switching and click Add Switch Rule. Set the button to the game's weapon-swap button (often Triangle) and the action to Cycle to next state.
6. Save. Launch the game — every Triangle press now flips the trigger feel along with your weapon.

🗂️ Working with states

• Add state — appends a new empty state (up to 12 per profile).
• Rename — type in the State name field. Rules pointing at the state follow the rename automatically.
• Duplicate — copies the selected state; the natural flow for making a variant ("Shotgun" → tweak → "Sniper").
• Remove state — deletes the selected state and any select-rules that pointed at it. Removing down to one state turns the profile back into a plain single-feel profile.

The state you're editing is only about editing — which state is active in-game is decided by the switch rules and the live state chips (below).

🎛️ Switch rules

Each rule fires when a button is pressed (not while held) and changes the active state:

Rule part	What it does
Button	The controller button that triggers the rule — face buttons, shoulders, sticks, D-pad, Create/Options/PS
Cycle to next state	Steps to the next state in order, wrapping at the end. Matches games where one button cycles weapons
Select a state	Jumps straight to a named state. Matches games with slot binding (D-pad slots) — and it self-corrects: no matter how confused tracking got, the next press lands right
Chord (optional)	A second button that must be held for the rule to fire — e.g. button R1 + chord PS gives you a switch combo no game ever sees

Rules are checked top to bottom; the first match for a pressed button wins.

Prefer select over cycle where the game allows it. Cycle rules can drift out of sync (the game refuses a swap you pressed — no ammo, animation lock, cutscene); select rules re-anchor on every press.

🛡️ The menu guard

Pressing Triangle three times while comparing items in an inventory would cycle your state three times — the game didn't swap anything, but the tracker counted every press. The menu guard prevents that:

• Set Menu button to whatever opens the game's menu (usually Options).
• While the guard is up, switch rules are ignored. Pressing the menu button again lowers it.
• Menu timeout (s) lowers the guard automatically after that many seconds, as a backstop for menus you closed some other way (0 = never). 30 s is a sensible starting point.

🎯 Default state

Default state is where the profile starts: on game launch, on controller reconnect, and whenever the profile re-activates. Pick the state matching how the game usually hands you control.

🔁 When tracking drifts: the state chips

OpenDS5 only sees your inputs, never the game — switching is an inference, and games sometimes move the goalposts (a cutscene hands you a rifle, a scripted section takes your weapons). When the feel doesn't match what's on screen:

• The page header shows state chips for the running profile, with the active one highlighted. Click any chip to force that state — one click, back in sync.
• Or press any select-rule button in-game; it re-anchors by design.

The status line always tells you where tracking thinks you are: Active: Cyberpunk 2077 — Shotgun (matched: cyberpunk2077).

📤 Sharing multi-state profiles

States travel with the profile: Export/Import and the community library carry them like any other profile. In the JSON they look like this:

{
  "version": 1,
  "name": "My Shooter",
  "match": { "processNames": ["shooter.exe"], "windowTitles": [] },
  "triggers": { /* mirrors the first state, for older apps' benefit */ },
  "states": [
    { "name": "Pistol",  "triggers": { "l2": { /* … */ }, "r2": { /* … */ } } },
    { "name": "Shotgun", "triggers": { /* … */ } }
  ],
  "switching": {
    "defaultState": "Pistol",
    "rules": [
      { "button": "triangle",   "action": "cycle" },
      { "button": "dpad-right", "action": "select", "state": "Shotgun" }
    ],
    "menuButtons": ["options"],
    "menuTimeoutMs": 30000
  },
  "updatedAtMs": 0
}

Older app versions reject profiles that carry states (with an error naming the field) — share plain single-state exports with folks who haven't updated yet.

🔧 Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause / fix
Rules never fire, but base effects work	No input-device access — add your user to the input group and re-log. See Troubleshooting and FAQ
State flips while browsing menus	Set the Menu button for that game, and consider a menu timeout
Feel is one state "behind" the game	A cycle rule drifted — click the right state chip, and swap cycle rules for select rules where the game has slot binding
Switching stopped after I opened a menu and left it with a different button	The guard is still up — press the menu button once, wait for the timeout, or click a state chip (chips bypass the guard)
Effects don't change at all in-game	Check the engine is Running in the page header and the right profile matched — see Game Profiles and Library

🧠 Honest limits

Switching reacts to your fingers, not the game. It can't know a swap was blocked, a cutscene re-armed you, or a mod changed your loadout — only native game support (or a game mod feeding real state) can. Multi-state profiles are designed so being wrong is cheap: select rules and state chips put you right in one press. For everything they can't know, see the honest-limitations section of the README.