guide DS4 Controller Mapping - finally!

[Shenanigunner]

The recent patch FINALLY made it possible to use a controller fairly well with CoX. Kudos and thanks to the devs. (There were controller keymap commands, but they were erratic and did not address dual-stick controllers like the DS4 well.)

 

This guide is for folks using (1) a DS4 controller with (2) a driver like DS4Windows. Everyone else will have to figure it out themselves, although the base mapping in the game is to an emulated XBox-360 controller, so much of this can be translated easily to those with those controllers. Further warning, this is VERY MUCH a "tinker until it works for you" kind of setup, so be prepared to fiddle around a lot until you have a setup you like. But the good news is... it finally works well!

 

Unless you are a major controller maven and will never go back to WASD+Mouse, I recommend that you use save/load keybind and option file features. Create one set of files for keyboard play, and a new set for controller play (and use a basic set of binds to load/save them easily, so you can switch and experiment). Details in the Guide, or ask for basic help on this. I am ASS/U/MING you've saved your tweaked keyboard mapping and are ready to mess with the overall keybind and tray setups.

 

DS4 Keymapping Map

Here's the visual map of DS4 keys to keymap commands:

 

 

Mapping Controller Buttons in Options

If you are relentlessly against hard and confusing things like editing bind files (that's a joke, kids), you CAN go to Options and set each button in the Secondary mapping column - just click the related setting and press the controller button. Easy-peasy and it even uses sensible names for the button names. But this is slow, will overwrite other choices you might have made for secondary control keys, and doesn't let you use multiple commands like a bind or macro. I really don't recommend it.

However, you WILL need to go into Options and select/enable the correct controller type. Otherwise the controller may not be recognized.

But then, go back on out and do your controller mapping this way...

 

Mapping Controller Buttons via Bindfile

I will keep this part simple; if you don't know how to manage load/save bindfiles and such, I point you to the Guide and move on.

Here is a basic DS4 controller bind file set, which should map well to an XBox 360 controller as well:

JOY1 "follow"
JOY2 "target_enemy_near"
JOY3 "target_enemy_next"
JOY4 "powexec_name Fly"
JOY5 "powexec_slot 4"
JOY6 "powexec_slot 3"
JOY7 "powexec_slot 2"
JOY8 "powexec_slot 1"
JOY9 "++autorun"
JOY10 "+up"
JOY11 "camreset$$camdistadjust 20"
JOY12 "powexec_unqueue"
JOYPAD_UP "powexec_slot 6"
JOYPAD_DOWN "powexec_slot 8"
JOYPAD_LEFT "powexec_slot 5"
JOYPAD_RIGHT "powexec_slot 7"
JOYSTICK1_UP "+forward"
JOYSTICK1_DOWN "+backward"
JOYSTICK1_LEFT "+left"
JOYSTICK1_RIGHT "+right"
JOYSTICK2_UP "+lookdown"
JOYSTICK2_DOWN "+lookup"
JOYSTICK2_LEFT "+turnleft"
JOYSTICK2_RIGHT "+turnright"

You can cut and paste this into a file, then load it for each alt using /bindloadfile [path][filename]. Highly recommended to keep the path and name simple, or even include a keybind for quick-loading it, so you can edit/load/test/repeat easily. Here, include this line somewhere in the file:

SHIFT+F12 "bindloadfile [path][file]"

 

Basic Controller Mapping

Now, let's look at that mapping. Most of it should be a good start for any alt. The only specific or tricky thing is that I included one or two keys that apply only to a flying alt; feel free to remap these to suit other purposes. But...

• Left joystick controls movement - forward, back, strafe-left, strafe-right. Pretty standard.
• Left joystick click toggles Autorun.
• Right joystick controls camera - look-up, look-down, turn-left, turn-right (you may want to reverse look-up/down from my choice).
• Right joystick click activates Up/Jump.
• Big triggers are mapped to tray slots 1-1 and 1-2; little triggers are mapped to 1-3 and 1-4. This should allow you to position your basic four attacks for quick activation.
• The "Joypad" buttons at left are mapped, clockwise from the left, to tray slots 1-5 through 1-8. This should put all your secondary combat powers at the ready.
• The Symbol buttons at the right are mapped to targeting - target near, target next, and follow. The top button is mapped to Fly; you might have another use for it.
• And finally, the "system" buttons on the upper edge are mapped to (left) power-cancel, and (right) camera reset. The last is pretty essential as your alt will frequently end up turned away from the camera view in combat.
• The PS button is not mapped; the touchpad is mapped to mouse function but is so scraggy I haven't been able to use it for much.

 

Advanced Control & Fine-Tuning

And there you go. Start with this setup, with maybe a tweak on that Fly button. Then try these advancements:

• Reorder your powers in the first tray to make the best, most natural connection between them and the controller buttons.
• Better, put your "controller" powers in the tertiary tray, or even an extra tray, so that you can have separate keyboard and controller mappings.
• Use macros in that controller-power lineup to do fancy things without writing them into the key mapping.
• Adjust /speedturn (the argument is degrees-per-turn for each click of turn_left or turn_right) to adjust joystick turning speed.
• And share your tweaks, complete mapping sets, etc. This is just a start.

 

Honest, I'm not a big controller maniac and CoX is not really-really set up for controller control. But the interface has finally been tweaked to let us use controllers... and I plan on playing with one for a while to see if there are advantages.

 

[calledThird]

I've not mucked around with controllers on the PC all that much so far, but is there a way to map Joy7 and Joy8 to ctrl, alt, or shift?  It triples the number of powers you can have at hand.

[Shenanigunner]

3 hours ago, calledThird said:

I've not mucked around with controllers on the PC all that much so far, but is there a way to map Joy7 and Joy8 to ctrl, alt, or shift?  It triples the number of powers you can have at hand.

 

A quick test says... yes. I think there are issues with using both keyboard and controller to manage powers, but if you're fast enough (or have three arms, Zaphod), it WILL work. Good question, and one I didn't think to check. I might have tested it with the old code and it did not work then - but it does now.

 

Next up: can a shift key be bound to a controller button... Hmmm...

 

[Frostbiter]

I was able to get my Xbox One gamepad set up last night without too much trouble. Works pretty well but the lack of being able to use any of the shoulder or trigger buttons as a shift/cntrl/alt key is pretty limiting. If there was a way to get that working then it would add tons more functionality. Still pleased to be able to do anything with it at all though. 👍

[Shenanigunner]

Just possibly, using a shoulder or secondary key to swap trays might emulate a shift button. Load up, say, Tray 8 with your standard attack icons and macros, and use left-shoulder to swap it with Tray 9 and a different load.

Bottom line is that the game just wasn't designed for controller play. But it's kind of fun to do basic travel and combat with one. Not sure I'd limit/bog a team trying to do so, and the first thing I learned was that not having fast-fire buttons for Insps was B*A*D.

[Shenanigunner]

By the way, there's a simple mapping bind file set on the Guide site. If you have a different controller, you can load it to do a full readout of what key and stick is mapped to what bind keyword.