Peripheral Setup Guide

Cruisin’ the galaxy with a HOTAS or wheel? This guide will walk you through the best bindings and essential settings for a smooth ride.

Getting Started

Quickly Testing Your Setup

At the main menu choose “New Game” then select “Free Play”. This will skip tutorials, enable all truck features and is the easiest way to quickly jump into the game and test your peripherals.

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Add Bindings

Although some default controls might be assigned, you’ll likely want to modify these in the Custom Bindings screen. Here inputs for multiple devices can be assigned in the peripherals column.

To find this menu, press “Esc” to pause the game then select Options → Controls → Customize Control Bindings

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Clear Bindings

Unwanted bindings can be cleared by pressing the right mouse button while highlighting the binding you wish to remove. This should make testing different combinations of binding much quicker.

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Using a Throttle

If you’re playing with a throttle press “Esc” to pause the game and go to “Controls” to adjust options.

We recommend disabling “Brake Cut-off” for a smooth brake → reverse transition



You might also want to tweak the non-linearity of the thrusters (e.g. how our power curves respond to throttle positions). This can be done by adjusting the Accelerate and Brake Non-Linearity settings in the Peripheral Settings screen.

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Using a Steering Wheel

If you’re playing with a steering wheel there are some settings you might want to adjust for a better experience.

Increasing “Turn Non-Linearity” and lowering “Peripheral Deadzone” will help make the wheel feel more sensitive, requiring less effort to turn.

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Using Pedals

If you’re playing with pedals you’ll likely need to set both the accelerate and brake “Axis Range Toggles” to “True” in the Peripheral Settings Screen. This will allow the full range of the pedals to be used when applying power to the thrusters.

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Using Free Look

If you want to use peripherals for Free Look while seated or first person gameplay you can set up / down / left / right in the Player Controls section of the Custom Bindings screen.

Keep in mind that if the same bindings are used for both Free Look AND Quick Look the later will take priority.

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Camera Momentum

When you accelerate and brake the camera drifts to give a sense of momentum. We also have momentum on the external camera. When using a joystick, hotas or wheel this might not be wanted.

To disable this drift, press “Esc” to pause the game then Options → Game and adjust the camera drift sliders.

Creating Sensible Bindings

When setting up a peripheral you want to make sure essential controls have been set up alongside as many important bindings as the device sensibly allows.

The following inputs are essential when setting up custom bindings.

CONTROL	NOTES
Accelerate	• Forward thrust • Throttle forwards or acceleration pedal
Brake / Reverse	• Reverse thrust • Throttle back or brake pedal
Pitch Up / Down	• Fires rear thrusters tilting truck up / down • Recommend pull back on joystick to pitch up • Recommend push forwards on joystick to pitch up • Left / right paddles on a wheel work OK
Turn Left / Right	• Fires rear thrusters turning truck left / right • Steering with wheel works OK
Roll Left / Right	• Fires rear thrusters rolling truck left / right • Using the twist on a joystick works OK • Needs easily accessible buttons on wheel

The following inputs are important for a smooth player experience and if there are enough inputs on a device they should be added in order of the importance listed below.

CONTROL	NOTES
Emergency Brake	• Lever to the right of the player in the cab • Acts like a handbrake • Works well on a joystick trigger
Toggle Camera Mode	• Switches between 1st person and 3rd person camera • Only important if Quick Look is assigned
Quick Look	• Allows player to glance around cab • Ideally mapped to HAT switch or D-Pad • Also controls the 3rd person camera
Activate Jump	• Lever directly above player in the cab • Allows warp gate to be activated
Toggle Maglock	• Lever to the left of the player in the cab • Allows truck to hitch trailers and dock with stations
Lower / Raise Shutters	• Lever up and right of player in the cab • Protects you from extreme heat
Sound Horn / Ping Scanner	• Lever up and left of player • Sounds horn & reveals salvage markers / NPC names
Adjust Cab Heater	• Dial forward and right of player • Adjust target temperature of cab
Adjust Cab Blower	• Dial forward and right of player • Adjust power of heater at expense of power

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Free Look Controls

Star Trucker also supports using a joystick mini-stick or a secondary joystick for full camera control. When combined with primary and secondary interactions, this lets you engage with the game world just as you would with a controller or mouse.

Note: Quick look will take priority if assigned to the same bindings as Free Look.

CONTROL	NOTES
Look Up / Down / Left / Right	• Allows cab free look with joysticks or mini-sticks
Primary Interact	• Use item in the world • This will also used as “select” in menus
Secondary Interact	• This will also be used as “back” in menus

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Quick Look Controls

The Quick Look feature was introduced as a way to make it easier to enjoy driving your star truck with peripherals. It works great with a hat-switch and by default supports tap to look in a direction and tap+hold to glance (camera will return to center once you release).

Note: Quick look (and Free Look) bindings are also used to control the external camera.

CONTROL	NOTES
Quick Look Up / Down / Left / Right	• Allows quick look with joysticks or mini-sticks

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Non-Essential Controls

If all priority controls have been assigned you can consider bindings for remaining inputs, however these are not essential to core gameplay.

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Pause and Map Screen Binding

We also have two bindings at the bottom of the in-game list that allows the player to pause the game or open the map screen.

These bindings can not be changed on M&K or a standard controller; however it is sometimes useful to assign these to inputs on a peripheral.

Peripheral Settings

If a peripheral is connected you will also have access to the Peripheral Settings screen.

This screen brings together a set of very specific control settings to help tweak gameplay to work with a variety of peripherals. This is especially handy when trying to set up wheels or pedals.

Path: Press Esc → Options → Controls → Peripheral Settings

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Non-Linearity Settings

These adjust how flat or pronounced the power curves are for a variety of manoeuvres. Helpful if a wheel or pedal is not feeling quite right.

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Axis Range Toggles

These options allow you to enable full range toggles for both accelerate and brake without the need to edit the custom peripheral config file.

This is commonly required when setting up pedals (e.g. if they only kick in when pushed half way down you’ll want to set these options to “True”).

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Peripheral Deadzone

This allows you to set the deadzone for peripherals. Unfortunately due to current limitations we can only assign one deadzone value to all connected peripherals.

If you have multiple peripherals you might need to find a value that works as a compromise across all of them.

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Peripheral Info

Enabling this panel will reveal some basic information on your connected devices. This is handy for determining which devices have been recognized and their associated names.

Quick Tips

• You can use one or more devices to control your Star Truck

• Free Look can be set by assigning up / down / left / right in Player Controls

• How Quick Look interactions behave can be altered in the Controls settings screen

• You can control the external camera via Quick Look / Free Look bindings

• Disabling Brake Cut Off will allow a smooth transition from brake to reverse

• Basic menu support for HAT switch / mini-stick will allow you to navigate most menus

• Enabling CB Mic Auto Press toggle is handy for dealing with radio interactions

• You can export and import custom bindings via Customize Control Bindings screen

Community Collaboration

With so many different devices and combinations of setups in the wild it’s been impossible for us to try them all ourselves.

So we hope you’ll help us out by submitting information regarding your devices alongside example custom binding files via our Google submission form HERE[forms.gle].

Once we’ve confirmed a new peripheral and binding config we’ll add it as a preset in a future update and update our Peripheral Tracking Sheet[docs.google.com].

For more information about exporting (and importing) custom binding files check out our very high level summary below…

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Export Bindings

This will export your current custom bindings to a text file:
custom_peripheral_bindings.txt



This file can be found in your Star Trucker documents folder e.g.
C:\Users\ArtMonster\Documents\StarTrucker\Bindings\

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Import Bindings

This will import the bindings found in custom_peripheral_bindings.txt into the game, overwriting any existing bindings.

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Creating New Presets

The core reason for custom_peripheral_bindings.txt is to allow the community (and hardware manufacturers) to create custom binding presets for the game.

Example:
• Plug in unrecognised hardware
• Use Custom Control Binding screen to set appropriate controls
• Export peripheral bindings
• Copy and rename custom_peripheral_bindings.txt appropriately for the hardware used
• Share this file with the community / developers via the submission form[forms.gle]

As previously mentioned we will take confirmed presets and add them to future updates so that new players will have a good chance of the game automatically detecting their device(s).

Known Issues

First Person Gameplay

Star Trucker was designed with multiple gameplay modes in mind. With this update we’ve focused on making sure the extended controller options work nicely when driving your truck.

If set up correctly peripherals can still be used for interactions like replacing power cells or repairing your truck, but it is not recommended.

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You Can’t Use Keyboard and Peripherals Simultaneously

We do not currently support using the keyboard AND peripherals at the same time.

This is mostly fine, but it means you can’t use a keyboard with any press and hold inputs (such as accelerate and brake) at the same time as using a joystick to turn.

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Peripheral Deadzones

Unfortunately due to current limitations we can only assign one deadzone value to all connected peripherals.

If you have multiple peripherals you might need to find a value that works as a compromise across all of them.

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Pedals Register from Mid-Point by Default

Because pedals are reported as being a full axis with a value from -1 to +1, acceleration and brake only kick in after the pedal has been pushed beyond the halfway point (0).

This can be fixed by setting the appropriate Axis Range toggles in the Peripheral Settings Screen to “True” or assigning a “True” flag on the appropriate binding in your custom binding config file and re-importing.

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Visual Oddities Using New Bindings In External Camera

Some features in Star Trucker were never designed to be seen in external camera view. The result is some new shortcuts allowing you to see how we fake some moments such as hitching, docking and entering a warp gate.

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Menu Interactions

Although we’ve done some work around navigating various menus, some screens will not be particularly suitable for peripheral controls (e.g. game screen tabs / map screen).

We advise switching back to M&K or controllers for any complex menu interactions.

It’s also worth mentioning that, at present, you can not use the HAT switch or mini-stick of a second joystick to navigate menus.

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Custom Binding Helpers

It’s a lot of work to update the various button helpers across the game to show the appropriate peripheral bindings. For now we show M&K or Controller helpers but will continue to investigate improving this area of the game in future updates.

[Fabe]

a throttles all or nothing or can we now throttle up to the speed we want to be at and just leave it there?

[Ultraporing]

Awesome.
Does someone has a config for: Thrustmaster T16000M FCS Flight Pack (T16000M FCS Joystick, TWCS Throttle and TFRP Rudderpedals)?

Thanks

[Fred Hawken]

i have a winwing ursa minor space hotas setup and for some reason i get ghost button presses in the game. In the menus the selection will jump randomly and when trying to customise peripheral bindings the selection jumps around between options, deletes inputs and when setting keybind it will put random buttons down.

[rmsnake]

VKBsim Gladiator EVO - works fine
VKBsim Gladiator EVO OT - works fine
Vjoy - works fine
Logitech G Saitek PRO Flight Rudder Pedals - works fine
Honeycomb Alpha Yoke - messes with settings and even disables the mouse and keyboard. I have to turn off the device when starting the game.

Thanks for implementing the controller support feature.

[tytytyty74]

on the one hand, I appreciate that this is now in the base game so i don't need to spend hours fiddling with 5 different programs to try and get all the buttons and stuff mapped to controllers. on the other hand, I wish this update happened before i had spent hours fiddling with 5 different programs to try and get all the buttons and stuff mapped to regular controllers