Add keyboard shortcut [C] for Quick Chat when hovering over a player

[baculinivan-web]

Purpose

Add keyboard shortcut (‎[C] key) for Quick Chat — a faster way to send chat messages without modifying the radial menu.

Objectives 

• Implement a keyboard shortcut (‎C) that opens a Quick Chat panel when hovering over a player’s territory.

• Provide a compact, accessible UI for browsing and sending chat messages by category.

• Allow users to pin frequently used messages for faster access.

• Preserve the current radial menu layout unchanged (no additional submenus or extra clicks for Player Info).

Description 

The current chat flow through the radial menu is slow — it requires multiple clicks to send a simple message. A previous attempt to solve this by adding a Quick Chat submenu to the radial menu (#3529) was not merged because it added extra clicks to view the player profile, and community members expressed concern about changes to the familiar menu structure.

Both community members in the dev Discord and the project maintainer @evanpelle have suggested using keybindings as the solution. From @evanpelle’s comment on #3529 (#3529 (comment)):

“We need to rethink how the UI is going to look. I’m thinking of using keybindings, like hover over player, press a key, and that opens the quick chat menu.”

Proposed UX flow:

1. Player hovers cursor over another player’s territory.

2. Player presses ‎[C].

3. A compact Quick Chat panel opens, showing message categories and phrases.

4. Player selects a message to send (click or additional shortcut key).

5. Panel closes, message is sent to the hovered player.

Key details:

• The panel should support pinning/favoriting frequently used messages so they appear at the top.

• Messages requiring a target player (e.g., “Attack [Player]!”) should auto-fill with the hovered player.

• The radial menu remains completely untouched — this is a parallel input method, not a replacement.

• Existing Quick Chat preset logic from feat: add Quick Chat radial submenu with configurable presets #3529 (PresetService, config modal) can potentially be reused.

Related:

• feat: add Quick Chat radial submenu with configurable presets #3529 — Quick Chat radial submenu (previous approach, not merged)

• Quick chat in the radial menu #3518 — Quick chat in the radial menu (original issue)

fghjk_60845

[baculinivan-web]

I’d like to be assigned

[johnyuki]

Someone actually made a version of the game that does this, you could maybe ask them to add it?
https://discord.com/channels/1284581928254701718/1491115376799518860

Press V while hovering over a player to open quickchat, and then CTRL+ a letter to select that quick chat option.