Slightly OT, Custom Arcade Controller a Computer Game

[6EL3]

I was hoping some of you custom joystick experts could help me answer a question. I am interested in making a custom "arcade style" controller for a strategy game and was wondering if and how one can do this.

Normally, players use the S,W,X,Z keys on the keyboard for movement. And Q,E,A,D keys for camera rotation. I was hoping to make a custom controller that maps the movement to a sanwa/seimitsu style joystick. Then have arcade style buttons to reprsent other commands in the game.

This game does not have direct support for gamepads, and I have never heard of anyone using anything other than a keyboard / mouse combo. I was hoping to use only the custom joystick + mouse mainly, with the keyboard only being used for ingame chat (which is fairly important in said game).

How doable is this? I feel like the joystick/buttons needs to be seen as a keyboard for the game to let me map the buttons.

OSX user if it makes any difference.

[spl]

Hey mate,

Not sure about OSX, but on Windows you can use any joystick and use a program such as Xpadder or Joy2key to map joystick directions and buttons to any key on the keyboard that you want.

So for an example, you can set it so when you press the stick left - it will be like pressing S on the keyboard, etc.

You don't need a custom controller at all - any joystick will do, just assign the keys to whatever action you want - easy.

[6EL3]

Hey mate,

Not sure about OSX, but on Windows you can use any joystick and use a program such as Xpadder or Joy2key to map joystick directions and buttons to any key on the keyboard that you want.

So for an example, you can set it so when you press the stick left - it will be like pressing S on the keyboard, etc.

You don't need a custom controller at all - any joystick will do, just assign the keys to whatever action you want - easy.

OK, well i will definitely need a solution for OSX. I have noticed that custom mapping for mouse buttons even gets messed up in this game if its anything other than 1 key (i.E no key combos).

Also, I would definitely be building a custom stick for this as it would be better to play with a keyboard + mouse if it didn't have a completey game-specific layout

[spl]

Hey mate,

Not sure about OSX, but on Windows you can use any joystick and use a program such as Xpadder or Joy2key to map joystick directions and buttons to any key on the keyboard that you want.

So for an example, you can set it so when you press the stick left - it will be like pressing S on the keyboard, etc.

You don't need a custom controller at all - any joystick will do, just assign the keys to whatever action you want - easy.

OK, well i will definitely need a solution for OSX. I have noticed that custom mapping for mouse buttons even gets messed up in this game if its anything other than 1 key (i.E no key combos).

Also, I would definitely be building a custom stick for this as it would be better to play with a keyboard + mouse if it didn't have a completey game-specific layout

Quick look on google yields this: http://www.carvware.com/gamepadcompanion.html

That should do the trick for you, mate.