Re-bind controls using Steam

This uses Steam's Controller Setup utility to re-map keyboard keys to controller buttons. A pretty sneaky way of circumventing the game's lack of customizing controls.

0 - Controller List

Since I only own one controller, the Logitech Chillstream (which Windows recognizes as a generic X360 controller), I will only add the two. If you find this works with your controller, leave a comment below and I'll add it to the list.

- "X360 controller for Windows" and other controllers using the generic X360 driver
- Logitech Chillstream

1 - Enabling Steam Controller Support

This part is pretty straightforward and you can skip it if you already have controller support enabled.

1. Open Steam interface, click "Steam" in the upper-left corner.

2. Click "Settings".

3. Select "Controller" from the menu on the left, then click on "General Controller Settings".

4. Make sure your controller is plugged in and recognized (mine says Xbox 360 controller). Then, put a tick in the "Xbox Controller Support" box. It should look like this:




5. Close this window and the Settings window and go to your Library.

CAUTION: enabling this made the controller act strangely in other games, in my case it was Prince of Persia (2008). If any games start acting up, disable controller support and enable it back if you want to play Starfighter.

2 - Getting started: Flipping the triggers

1. In your Library, right-click on Star Wars: Starfighter and click "Edit Steam Controller Configuration...". You will now see this window:




The first thing we have to do is reverse the triggers. For some reason, the left and right triggers are inverted with the default setup (LT rolls right and vice-versa).

2. Click on "LEFT TRIGGER".

3. Click "Full Pull Action", then click on the Right Trigger on the gamepad image on the right.




4. Then, under "Trigger Analog Output", also select Right Trigger. Your menu should now look like this:




5. Repeat steps 2-4 for "RIGHT TRIGGER", changing "Full Pull Action" and "Trigger Analog Output" to "Left Trigger".

6. Click back when you're done to get to the main window, but don't close it yet. It's button mapping time.

3 - Re-binding the buttons

Here are the default keyboard configurations for Starfighter. We will use these as a reference point for setting our controls using Steam. I suggest you resize the Steam Controller Configuration window so you can have both it and this pic on-screen at the same time for easy reference.



If you followed the previous step, you should now have triggers flipped. But the buttons are still doing... whatever they're told to do by the game. Let's use Steam to convince the game otherwise.

(0. Right-click on Star Wars: Starfighter in your Library and select "Edit Steam Controller Configuration..." if you accidentally closed the window).

What we're basically going to do is map the keyboard controls (because we know them) to the gamepad buttons. I'm going to use the "Brake" button as an example. I want to map "Brake" (key "S" on the keyboard) to the "B" button on the gamepad.

1. Click on the square containing the four buttons. Click on the red (B) button.




2. You get the same menu as you did re-binding the triggers. The default keyboard button for "Brake" is "S". So we click the "S" key, binding it to the "B" button.





3. Click "Back" to get to the main window and repeat steps 1 and 2 for all the other buttons, assigning them as you see fit. I recommend binding "Start" to keyboard "Escape" first, just so you can use the game's pause menu. The rest is up to you.

4. You can save your config file in the Steam Controller Window if you wish. Note that this will only rebind the controls for THIS GAME, the other games are safe :)

4 - Using the analog stick for rolling

If you wish to use (for example) the RS for rolling instead of the triggers, follow these steps:

1. Right-click STAR WARS: Starfighter in your Library and click "Edit Steam Controller Configuration..."

2. You are once again greeted with this



3. Click the right "JOYSTICK MOVE" menu

4. Click the top-right drop-down menu called "Style of Input"

5. Select "Directional Pad". This will turn our analog stick into a "fake Dpad".

6. Simply map

keyboard E to "fake Dpad" Left
keyboard R to "fake Dpad" Right

7. Lastly, set the "Layout" to either 4-Way (no overlap) or CrossGate. This will ensure the game ignores horizontal stick movement. You should have something like this:





NOTE
In theory, with this setup, you have no control over how fast you're rolling, it's always full-speed. However, I tested the game's behaviour with the triggers, and it doesn't seem to support pure analog rolling speed anyway; in other words, depressing the trigger slightly doesn't make the craft roll slower than depressing the trigger fully.

5 - My Setup

As I mentioned, you can re-bind the controls any way you like, but this is my setup/recommendation:










Pause: Start (=keyboard Escape)
Brake: B (= keyboard S)
Fire Lasers: A (=keyboard Space)
Boost: X (=keyboard W)
Fire secondary: Y (=keyboard C)
Manual target: LB (=keyboard X)
Auto-target: RB (=keyboard D)
Roll modifier (this is basically "center view"): LS click (=keyboard Numpad 0)
Zoom: RS click (=keyboard Q); the actual stick does nothing
Change view: Back (=keyboard cedilla aka the button to the left of 1)
Voice commands: D-pad

Cover me: D-left (=keyboard 4)
Attack: D-up (=keyboard 2)
Defend: D-down (=keyboard 3)
Report in: D-right (=keyboard 1)

I also set the D-pad to be "4-way" (no diagonal commands) so that I wouldn't accidentally trigger two at once.

That's it, feel free to comment, suggest improvements below (please be constructive)!

[Elthrael]

It has been years since I played this game, but I think you have to unbind any analog actions from the trigger and essentially turn the trigger into a button.

[TheCDigs]

I am struggling to fix my triggers. I want to use them for acceleration and braking, but when I set up the key bindings as such, I still roll with the triggers as well. Do you know how to fix this problem by any chance?

[Elthrael]

disable specific controller support (step 1) and it should be back to normal

[BruddaOsass]

did all this now the controller doesnt work at all, very cool

[Sinner Buns]

Many thanks! I saved and exported this as a PS4 controller layout.