What Are the Important Functions?

Hey all, I’m new to I-War and am setting up my key bindings.

I like EgoSoft’s basic philosophy of putting all the most important controls on the stick and left hand “home row” on the keyboard.

I-War has a great many functions, and I’m trying to figure out which will be most important so I can put those on my left hand. I’ve got the EgoSoft A/Z for throttle, Q/W for roll, and there’s CapsLock for afterburner (called “thruster override” I think?) and Left Shift for reverse thrust.

Obviously strafe is going to be of critical importance, so I’ve got that in the “HardWar position” atop the joystick hat.

I’d like to manipulate the HUD by clicking on its options with the mouse, but that doesn’t seem to be possible. 🙁

Now we come to things I need help on: are LDSI missiles useful enough to get Joystick Button 2, or are they not really all that important? Conversely are the non-LDSI missiles worth the added inconvenience of their not having a separate launch key?

Does the manual LDS work like a “super-afterburner” and thus deserve the left-hand “D” key (‘D’rive) or is manual LDS of only marginal importance, thus relegating it to one of the lesser righthand keys like ‘L’ (‘L’DS engage)?

Joystick button 3 is for “Target Nearest Enemy” (an X-Wing convention, and a darn good one). Joystick button 2 is “Fire LDSI Missile” (Wing Commander style) unless the LDSI missiles aren’t very good. Out of curiosity how does one fire a non-LDSI missile?

Joystick button 4 … countermeasures? Are countermeasures important enough to assign to a joystick button?

What other important controls belong on the left hand home-row and joystick buttons (mine has 4)? What controls might seem important but really aren’t? Any advice?