Keybindings

Seems their are 3 different keybinds and no default. Each of the keybinding sets have different button configurations, yet, there is no place that shows what the button configurations are. I'm on my second day, took me all day to finish the 1st tutorial and I've started the second. I got to the station and it tells me to request permission to land by using "contacts" but in my current state it wont allow me to get to the top line where contacts is located. I find this game completely unintuitive, ultra hard to play and almost not worth the hassle. Well, If I can't land at a station no amount of hassle matters. It just plain WONT do it. Tried everything. Want my money back to tell the truth.
 
? Contacts is a tab in the left panel - it's not at the 'top' (Comms Panel). And you can get to any panel in any state... unless you've really done a job on your keybinds.

And there are default keybinds ... not sure what is going on.
 
I spent HOURS setting up my keybindings only to have them disappear when I left and later returned to the game. Can somebody help me?
 
I spent HOURS setting up my keybindings only to have them disappear when I left and later returned to the game. Can somebody help me?

Rename your "custom" binds file (but also change the Root PresetName in line 2 of the file) - it is "custom" that gets overwritten on errors. NEVER SAVE COPIES IN THE SAME DIRECTORY - that stops changes being saved

Read this:


and / or this:

 
Rename your "custom" binds file (but also change the Root PresetName in line 2 of the file) - it is "custom" that gets overwritten on errors. NEVER SAVE COPIES IN THE SAME DIRECTORY - that stops changes being saved

Read this:


and / or this:

I shall have a read of those later thanks. (y)
 
Rename your "custom" binds file (but also change the Root PresetName in line 2 of the file) - it is "custom" that gets overwritten on errors. NEVER SAVE COPIES IN THE SAME DIRECTORY - that stops changes being saved

Read this:


and / or this:

Well I appreciate your help... Words can not describe how angry I am for wasting all that time only to have ED throw everything out because I unplugged my controller from my laptop. People actually put up with this? Shadows may look rubbish on PS4, but I never once had a problem like this.

The fact that we are expected to jump through all these hoops is utterly ridiculous...

Please answer me this - when does the "custom" bindings get erased? I'm assuming it's when I start up ED again rather than on exit. In other words, if I do all this customization crap AGAIN, I save it using all this sysadmin magic after I exit the game, yes?

REALLY $(%*!@ me off!

And you people are all nuts for tolerating this crap, LOL.
 
I found something out, possibly good news, but I don't want to derail this thread. Anyone interested in helping me (see above), please contribute to:


I very much appreciate it!
 
The whole keybinds thing in ED is a mess

My Warthog joystick base finally went wonky after 6500 hours so I replaced it with a Virpil WarBRDbase and of course ED just went and erased all my keybinds because it could no longer see the Warthog base.

Fortunately, I had backups.

The key is that ED is sensitive to any hardware changes and spasses out if it can't see hardware that was in the binds file or sees something new in it's place.

What I had to do was compare the newly generated binds file that now showed the Virpil base identifier with the back up file. Then I did a search and replace in the backup file putting the Virpil Base ID wherever the Warthog stick was entered - a simple "Replace All" in Note resolved the problem. Copy the new Custom.3.0 binds file into the Bindings directory and you're good to go.

It's so dumb the way FD does this. First, why not just use the Binds File name to load directly into ED instead of some buried Start Preset file? Just more steps to figure out?

Why does a simple hardware change kill all bindings?

Crazy amount of wasted time fixing something that just doesn't seem like rocket science.

Probably just me...
 
If you are on a PC then you can use the restore function in Windoze. Navigate to the directory the custom.binds is in. Select it and right click then go to properties then go to the Previous Versions tab. With any luck you should see a previous version which you can restore. And luck has a lot to do with it. :)
Of course I don't need to mention make a copy of the file. Oops! I just did mention it. :)
 
Haven't had many issues with binds myself. Even with my devices unplugged or the software that maps them unloaded the most that has happened to my binds since 2.0 is that the game logs an error and copies a backup bind into my binds folder, without erasing the original. I can plug my controls in or start up my mapping software without having to touch any files or even restart the game. Of course, I keep backups anyway, but I haven't actually had to use them because of something the game did since early 2016.

Please answer me this - when does the "custom" bindings get erased?

The game scans for devices and loads binds at start up and possibly when you select a binds preset.

And you people are all nuts for tolerating this crap, LOL.

As someone who remembers manually moving drivers and TSRs to UMBs to get sufficient conventional memory, as well as having to physically set jumpers for IRQ/DMA, backing up binds and being cognizant of non-present devices isn't that bad.

No doubt consoles are considerably more plug and play and that ED is worse than most games in how it handles controls.

If you are on a PC then you can use the restore function in Windoze. Navigate to the directory the custom.binds is in. Select it and right click then go to properties then go to the Previous Versions tab. With any luck you should see a previous version which you can restore. And luck has a lot to do with it. :)

This also requires file history to be enabled.
 
..........

The fact that we are expected to jump through all these hoops is utterly ridiculous...

Please answer me this - when does the "custom" bindings get erased? I'm assuming it's when I start up ED again rather than on exit. In other words, if I do all this customization crap AGAIN, I save it using all this sysadmin magic after I exit the game, yes?

1. Totally agree, the fact that F D seem totally unable to code a "Save As" button in the controls setting screen is an ongoing complaint. (They did announce it being introduced but then it just never appeared.)

2. If you start the game without your controller(s) fitted then E D defaults to "Keyboard and Mouse" default binding. The issue then is people go to the settings screen, select "custom" and apply - which wipes (overwrites) the previous binds file. So in fact the game doesn't wipe your custom file every time you start with a "bindings load error" (at least I don't think it does - could be wrong) but that is no help when people inadvertently muck it up.

The solution is amazingly simple:

Set up your controls in the settings screen and click apply.

Now go to the Bindings folder ( %LOCALAPPDATA%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings ) - copy the file "custom.3.0.binds" then rename that to whatever you like (e.g. oldduck.3.0.binds) then right-click that file and select "Open With" then choose Notepad - now go to line 2 where it says "Root PresetName"="custom" and change "custom" to the name you have picked ( e.g. "oldduck" ) then just save the file.

Now start the game and under options controls you will have "oldduck" (whatever the name is in line 2) listed as one of the control presets in the drop-down box. From now on you can edit and change your controls as much as you like in the knowledge that E D will not wipe your settings even if you start without a controller or on major updates.

Just remember to not keep copies in the same directory, as I mentioned it can cause changes you make to not be saved.


Anywayup - that might sound harder and more involved than it really is. I have several different binds in my directory and can swap between control setups easily in-game, depending on what I am doing.
 
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This also requires file history to be enabled.

AFAIK it is restored from System Restore. I don't have file history enabled I use a 3rd party backup prog and I restore files often.
One thing about System Restore I have noticed on newer machines is that you have to increase the amount of memory reserved for it. Otherwise you only get one restore point.
 
Well, after last night I give up. I've spent almost four hours in Training and I still can't land my ship. Guess I could blame everybody who make the game, but I won't. I'm going to try a flight stick. As it is with just keyboard and mouse 'for me' it's actually unplayable.
 
All keybinds gone, backups don't seem to do anything for my client. Uninstalling seems like an easier option than going through hundreds of keys again and setting all the curves.
 
Well, after last night I give up. I've spent almost four hours in Training and I still can't land my ship. Guess I could blame everybody who make the game, but I won't. I'm going to try a flight stick. As it is with just keyboard and mouse 'for me' it's actually unplayable.

It is a steep learning curve, that's for sure. I have never flown keyboard and mouse so I can't comment really but an awful lot of people do use KB&M very successfully.

Did you use the EDRefCard site to print-out a view of your controls? I know I swapped the A and D with the Q and E of the game's presets so that A and D gave me the "strafe" sideways movement that I was used to.

So for me, with W = forward, S=reverse, A=left strafe, D=right strafe, Q=yaw left, E=yaw right, R=up (raise), F=down (fall), I am able to use the keyboard to align and land OK - however I see that missing is Roll Left and Right and Pitch Up and Down (I don't seem to have those set to keys) so maybe that could be a problem. I checked the KB&M preset in the game and that doesn't have keys for Roll and Pitch - presumably the mouse does that.

Another thing - it is useful to set the "Flight Landing Overrides" for forward and reverse - that way your fore-and-aft movement is via thrusters, not the main engine thrust and so is more controlled (it comes into effect with the landing gear lowered).

Anywayup, stick with it, the game is great and of course with a joystick you might have more progress. 🕹
 
All keybinds gone, backups don't seem to do anything for my client. Uninstalling seems like an easier option than going through hundreds of keys again and setting all the curves.

The game's buil-in presets should still be there. Can't you see them in the drop-down list? Seems drastic to reinstall just to get back the default assignments. (They are in a directory called "ControlSchemes" under the EDLaunch directory tree.)
 
Yeah, the defaults are there of course. Not much help when I've been flying with 2 sticks and a custom control set for years.

I just can't figure out why the backups show up as empty binds no matter what I do, a simple copy & paste has worked for all my other control troubles in the past.
 
Yeah, the defaults are there of course. Not much help when I've been flying with 2 sticks and a custom control set for years.

I just can't figure out why the backups show up as empty binds no matter what I do, a simple copy & paste has worked for all my other control troubles in the past.
What location are your binds in? There are two, one for the defaults supplied with the install and one for custom binds.

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments\Products\elite-dangerous-64\ControlSchemes
And
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings

And don't forget to change line #2. What you put there is what will show up in the Controls drop-down. If you don't change it you will see multiple entries with the same name. And to make it more confusing you won't see them unless you scroll past the first one.
 
"C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings"
when I select "custom" from the drop-down in game settings, everything is empty.

If I open the binds file with notepad, I can see that all my keybindings are there. I've checked it while playing and they show up in the notepad even when in game all the fields are empty, I've tried setting the file to read only as well but nothing changed.

Tried all my backups for the past year+, none of em seem to do the trick either.
I've removed and replaced the whole folder a few times, tried launching the game with all my controllers unplugged, did a system restore, and now I'm wondering if I should reinstall the whole game or just accept my fate :D

I'll probably be playing something else as spending hours binding buttons doesn't sound like something I want to do any day soon.
 
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