Control settings Profiles (save)

[roothahn]

Hi FD and all,

as a beginner, I am testing out different HOTAS systems and therefore different control settings.
Currently, it seems you can only load a hotas-specific preset, change things and save your settings.
There's only one slot, so to speak.

What I need is the ability to save the control settings (like in Warthunder), at best to a file, so I can load it again later if I choose to switch back and forth to/from another Hotas.
Which would open the ability to share the settings with other commanders.

what you say?

 

[Aussiedroid]

Can be done manually by changing the name within the bindings file using a text editor, but would be good to have this built into the game. Also backups, recovery, cloud transfer to other installs, sharing etc ... given the complexity of the controls and the number of people who loose their bindings at update time and the like not having such features really does negatively impact players experiences.

Has been asked for since 1.0 btw ...

AD

 

[roothahn]

Can be done manually by changing the name within the bindings file using a text editor

oh! that would be fully sufficient for the time being. If its plaintext, I can handle backup/copy myself.
Could you enlight me with the filename, please?

 

[Para Handy]

oh! that would be fully sufficient for the time being. If its plaintext, I can handle backup/copy myself.
Could you enlight me with the filename, please?

Assuming that @Aussiedroid is getting some sleep, I can offer some insight.

Your control settings (bindings) are saved in:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings

Assuming you have made changes to a default then your "preset" name is "Custom" and so the binds file is called Custom.3.0.binds.

You can edit a copy to rename it BUT you have to change the name in line 2 of the file as that is what the game looks for, not the file name. (Hence keeping copies in the same directory causes problems - so save copies elsewhere.) You can edit this file so that the preset name you see in the options/controls screen is a name you decide upon, just change the word Custom to whatever you want to appear in the drop-down list of control presets. So the line you have to change is:

<Root PresetName="Custom" MajorVersion="3" MinorVersion="0">

Obviously it makes sense to name the file the same as the Root PresetName. For example my main controls preset is called CHProThrottleFighterstick, the binds file is called CHProThrottleFighterstick.3.0.binds and line 2 of the file reads <Root PresetName="CHProThrottleFighterstick" MajorVersion="3" MinorVersion="0">

PSA - Custom is the bindings file that gets overwritten by the game in some error situations and is the reason people find their settings have been lost - renaming means that your renamed file is never overwritten by the game on errors, only when you make changes and "apply".

I hope that helps, and remember: don't keep copies in in the same directory.

P.S. There is a file in the directory called "StartPreset.start" - that just has the name of the preset E D should load on start, you can edit this or just leave it as it is overwritten when you make changes in the options/controls page.

P.P.S. No I have no idea why F D find it too difficult to incorporate a "save as" button in the options.controls page. 🕹

 

[Kihon]

P.P.S. No I have no idea why F D find it too difficult to incorporate a "save as" button in the options.controls page. 🕹

Because they are lazy and don't give a fig!
It is beyond belief that you cannot do this. I know this has been asked since day one or whatever but it is ridiculous to have to do this manually!!!
This GAME has crap programming, do not get me started about the stupid camera system!!?!?!?!?
No simple external views or flybys like in every other type of flight sim, just incredibly poor lazy don't give a fek programming.
SAD!

 

[roothahn]

Thanks a lot, that helps me much!

I don't understand it either, they took an imense amount of time and work to redesign the whole main menu, and couldn't manage to implement an import/export feature.
I'd be fine with the old design. Clearly no money or headcount issue.

I like how some developer companies weight their feature requests ... per donation. So the userbase decides on the priority. Politics should work like that. But what do I know.

 

[erwin9]

You can edit a copy to rename it BUT you have to change the name in line 2 of the file as that is what the game looks for, not the file name

Thanks much. Just a precision:

Set the file name exactly as what you specify as the preset name in line 2 of the file.

Indeed, if you do not do that, when you try to edit your preset settings in game to modify something, things get confusing for the game:

• It stores a new profile with the same file name as the one you specified in line 2
• The original file (the one you created) is not modified
• It then sees two profiles with the same internal line 2 name
• Thanks to Murphy's law, next time you change the options in game, or start the game, it takes the original file, so your modifications are lost

=> Keeping the two names (file name and preset name in line 2 inside the file) exactly identical makes sure that all your modifications get saved to that same file, and are not lost.

Of course, take the habit to copy that file to some other place regularly, in case things are lost or corrupted for some reason, you'll be able to restore it easily

 

[Sasha Terra]

The original suggestion is good - please consider adding this during the Odyssey update, Frontier.