Guide / Tutorial How to preserve your precious custom controller bindings.

So after many hours of changing and updating my custom bindings I managed to lose all the settings with no way to get them back.
I'm pretty sure this has or will happen to most of you over time, so I've decided to write this little tutorial with information on how to preserve those bindings and get them back easilly.
Most of you will already know how to customise your bidings by entering the "Main Menu" and selecting "Options" followed by "Controls". Once there you will be presented with a list of controller bindings. If you don't see yours then it's usually best to select "Default Context". If you don't have even that option then ED can't recognise your controller and you may need to open a ticket. Before you do however, check that you don't have a selectable emulation on your controller. For instance my Logitech F710 Rumblepad 2 has a switch on it that will select X-Box 360 emulation, which if not selected makes the pad useless, as ED thinks it is a flightstick.

Ok now you have a controller binding that thinks it knows what's best for you (hopefully).
But we know different don't we. We want to change things. No problem start changing the bindings and you will notice that the selected option immediately changes to "Custom".

From here I want to make it clear that these instructions are for ED Horizons on a PC. I hope that others will be able to use this information too. Please feel free to add to this.

When you have things the way you want them, apply them, then save and exit the game.
Open your file browser and look for your custom bindings in your user folder.
In windows 7+ it will be found in:
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings
in a file called "Custom.4.0.binds".
If you can't see this folder then change your folder options to allow viewing of hidden, system files and extensions.
Open the file in a text editor and change the second line of the file to reflect your new bindings.
This is mine.
<Root PresetName="LogitechF710" MajorVersion="4" MinorVersion="0">
Try to ensure it is unique or you may have problems later.

Now save the resulting file in a new folder which is where all the templates are stored, along with a copy, somewhere where ED won't remove it when they update your client.
Mine is stored here.

You could also look in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\EDLaunch\Products\elite-dangerous-64\ControlSchemes

Other installations can often be found in these folders too. You can copy the binding file to any or all of them.

Remember to change the name to something not already in that folder, and also to ensure that the "PresetName" is unique in that folder.

From now on, you should be able to select your new bindings from the "Controls" dropdown menu whenever you need to.
Moreover this will also make your control bindings available to you even if you change machines or re-install ED.

The only major change in Odyssey is that you can now have different controllers for different aspects. Hotas for ships, Wheels & pedals for SRV, Keyboard and mouse for foot.
Don't worry, the process is still the same. If you customise any of these they will be added to Custom.4.0,binds which will contain all the combined bindings files.
Only use your saved bindings if you have customised your bindings for that aspect of the game or else you will need to create bindings for the missing bits. Usually that will only be the foot section..
There's a separate bindings folder for Odyssey:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\EDLaunch\Products\elite-dangerous-odyssey-64\ControlSchemes
or:
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments\Products\elite-dangerous-odyssey-64\ControlSchemes
I have found that the Odyssey file works for both so far.

o7
 
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Original post updated for Odyssey.
Please be aware that the update is only a first draft and may have omissions.
Please feel free to add your findings and I will use them to update the OP further.

o7
 
I'm confused; neither of the two folders that you listed as exclusive for odyssey keybindings exist. And I took into consideration that I would not necessarily have the game installed in the exact same location. I'm not sure what to do though and I don't know what it means that they are not on my system...either way, I switched back to Horizons to try and fix an issue I'm having and it decided to reset all my keybindings. I'm none to happy about that obviously. I would have expected the game to be smarter than that considering that you can freely and easily choose which version of the game to open. Although maybe that's unexpected behavior. I'm concerned about not having either of those two folders though on my system. I don't understand why they wouldn't be there.
 
I did warn that this OP would cause confusion. Using the game's default ControlSchemes directories when the game wants to look in the Options directory tree is just asking for trouble.

Seriously, use the Options directory structure for your altered binds and rename them (not just the file name, see below*) to stop using "custom" as only "custom" gets wiped by the game.

Bindings directory quick link:

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

N.B. Odyssey also uses that directory, the Odyssey binds are "....4.0.binds", and the Horizons ones are "....3.0.binds" - there is no need to use different locations.


* How to rename your binds and never ever lose them again:

 
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I'm confused; neither of the two folders that you listed as exclusive for odyssey keybindings exist. And I took into consideration that I would not necessarily have the game installed in the exact same location. I'm not sure what to do though and I don't know what it means that they are not on my system...either way, I switched back to Horizons to try and fix an issue I'm having and it decided to reset all my keybindings. I'm none to happy about that obviously. I would have expected the game to be smarter than that considering that you can freely and easily choose which version of the game to open. Although maybe that's unexpected behavior. I'm concerned about not having either of those two folders though on my system. I don't understand why they wouldn't be there.
The folder will be there, Just open the properties for the launcher link and see where it looks for the exe. The folder will likely be in a subfolder of that path.

o7
 
The folder will be there, Just open the properties for the launcher link and see where it looks for the exe. The folder will likely be in a subfolder of that path.

o7
Well the launcher link is not an ordinary shortcut to an executable. It's an epic store launcher shortcut and as such points to, "com.epicgames.launcher://apps/9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593?action=launch&silent=true"...and as far as I know, no launcher link should be an ordinary shortcut since to the best of my knowledge the game can only be purchased on PC through the Epic store or Valve's Steam (although I really don't know that for certain...it's just a guess). Regardless, I located it and I see now what you are getting at. While what you suggest is very useful, it's also quite confusing and it took me coming back and re-looking to see what you were suggesting. Again, it is very useful for certain and I like the idea. Just a tad confusing.

I do have one question though; the way I backup my keybindings is I use a simple zip archive file in the same directory as the custom bindings (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings) that automatically generates a yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss formatted file name. That works perfectly for me, but is there a possibility that that directory itself would be deleted and along with it my backup files? I should be backing them up online somewhere anyway if I really don't want to lose them, but for the time being, that's what I worry about. I'm terrified now after I logged into Horizons after having used Odyssey and everything just being reset to defaults.

Thanks!
 
Well the launcher link is not an ordinary shortcut to an executable. It's an epic store launcher shortcut and as such points to, "com.epicgames.launcher://apps/9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593?action=launch&silent=true"...and as far as I know, no launcher link should be an ordinary shortcut since to the best of my knowledge the game can only be purchased on PC through the Epic store or Valve's Steam (although I really don't know that for certain...it's just a guess). Regardless, I located it and I see now what you are getting at. While what you suggest is very useful, it's also quite confusing and it took me coming back and re-looking to see what you were suggesting. Again, it is very useful for certain and I like the idea. Just a tad confusing.

I do have one question though; the way I backup my keybindings is I use a simple zip archive file in the same directory as the custom bindings (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings) that automatically generates a yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss formatted file name. That works perfectly for me, but is there a possibility that that directory itself would be deleted and along with it my backup files? I should be backing them up online somewhere anyway if I really don't want to lose them, but for the time being, that's what I worry about. I'm terrified now after I logged into Horizons after having used Odyssey and everything just being reset to defaults.

Thanks!
To avoid that possibility, no matter how remote, you could arrange the backup to be generated elsewhere or make a copy of it to another drive, removable media or the cloud.

I don’t recall losing my bindings but I have made backup copies elsewhere on my computer and the cloud, I have not really considered doing proper backups using multiple external media and off-site hard storage.
 
Well the launcher link is not an ordinary shortcut to an executable. It's an epic store launcher shortcut and as such points to, "com.epicgames.launcher://apps/9c203b6ed35846e8a4a9ff1e314f6593?action=launch&silent=true"...and as far as I know, no launcher link should be an ordinary shortcut since to the best of my knowledge the game can only be purchased on PC through the Epic store or Valve's Steam (although I really don't know that for certain...it's just a guess). Regardless, I located it and I see now what you are getting at. While what you suggest is very useful, it's also quite confusing and it took me coming back and re-looking to see what you were suggesting. Again, it is very useful for certain and I like the idea. Just a tad confusing.

I do have one question though; the way I backup my keybindings is I use a simple zip archive file in the same directory as the custom bindings (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings) that automatically generates a yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss formatted file name. That works perfectly for me, but is there a possibility that that directory itself would be deleted and along with it my backup files? I should be backing them up online somewhere anyway if I really don't want to lose them, but for the time being, that's what I worry about. I'm terrified now after I logged into Horizons after having used Odyssey and everything just being reset to defaults.

Thanks!
I haven't come across the Epic version of the launcher, but I can tell you that my copies have all but one been bought direct from the Forntier Store.
I'd love to know more about where Epic stores it's files, but I don't see how I can do that without buying a copy of my own. Which I'm not prepared to do.
I seem to recall thatthe Steam version stored its files in a subfolder of "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64\"
Try C:\Program Files\Epic Games\EliteDangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-odyssey-64\ControlSchemes\

o7
 
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