# BattleTech 4.11 — controls reference

Two ways to fly: the **keyboard/pad** (the ~25 core actions) and the **cockpit panel**, where
every one of the pod's 72 illuminated buttons is mouse-clickable exactly where it sat in the
cabinet. Left-click presses; **right-click latches** a button held.

Rebind keys in `content\bindings.txt` (delete it to regenerate the defaults). Upgrading from a
pre-board build migrates your file automatically: rows you authored and the joystick wizard's
section are kept and beat the new defaults; the old stock layout is replaced; the previous file
is saved as `bindings.old.txt`.
Cockpit layout and display sizes live in `content\environ.ini` (likewise self-documenting).

---

## Keyboard — the keyboard IS the button board

The letter and number rows are the MFD button banks, laid out where they sit on the panel.
Flight lives on the number pad so the board stays free.

### Flight — the number pad

| Key | Action | | Key | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NumPad 8 / 2 | torso aim up / down | | NumPad 7 / 9 | left / right pedal |
| NumPad 4 / 6 | torso twist left / right | | NumPad 5 | all stop |
| NumPad 0, Space | main trigger | | NumPad 1 / 3 / . | pinky / middle / upper |
| Shift / Ctrl | throttle up / down (the lever sticks) | | Alt | reverse thrust |
| ← ↓ → | look left / behind / right | | ↑ | torso centre |
| ` | cockpit / chase camera | | PgUp / PgDn | volume up / down (saved) |

**You spawn in BASIC control mode.** In BASIC the stick steers and the pedals do nothing.
Press **F7** once for MID, where the pedals steer and the stick twists the torso — the full
pod experience. If "turning doesn't work", this is why.

### The panel — letter and number rows

```
  UPPER DISPLAYS   Heat / coolant      Engineering        Comm / hotbox
   top row       1   2   3   4  |  5   6   7   8  |  9   0   -   =
   bottom row    Q   W   E   R  |  T   Y   U   I  |  O   P   [   ]
                  0x2F..0x2C        0x27..0x24        0x37..0x34
                  0x2B..0x28        0x23..0x20        0x33..0x30

  LOWER DISPLAYS  Left Weapons                        Right Weapons
   top row       A   S   D   F      (G unbound)     H   J   K   L
   bottom row    Z   X   C   V      (B unbound)     N   M   ,   .
                  0x0F..0x0C                          0x07..0x04
                  0x0B..0x08                          0x03..0x00

  COLUMNS beside the map
   left    F1 zoom+  F2 zoom-  F3 thermal  F4 CROUCH  F5 lamp  F6 display
   right   F7 control mode  F8 -  F9..F12 Generators A-D
```

G and B are deliberately unbound: they are the physical gap between the lower clusters.

**1 2 3 Q W E are the coolant valves** and the detents run 1 - 5 - 50 (max) - **0 (CLOSED)** -
back to 1. One press past max shuts that loop off and everything on it overheats; boosting one
loop starves the others, since the supply is shared. **4** is the flush (hold it) and **R**
re-balances every valve.

The weapon and engineering displays are **page-gated**: on the Quad page the outer buttons jump
to a populated Eng page; on an Eng page they drive generator select A-D, bus mode, coolant
toggle, trigger configure, and **eject** (tap to clear a jam, hold ~3 s to jettison a burning
ammo bay before it detonates).

### What a bound key gives up

Binding a key removes it from the authentic 1995 typed-hotkey channel so it cannot
double-dispatch. This board binds nearly everything, so those hotkeys are given up by design:
`5` = MFD1 Quad page, `z` = MFD3 Eng1, `t/y/u/i/o` = pilot select, `+`/`-` = target zoom.
Unbind a key in `bindings.txt` to get its 1995 meaning back. (The old `-`/`=` VOLUME keys
moved to **PgUp/PgDn** -- they no longer share a key with anything, in any layout.) Same rule for the built-ins:
**`** is the view toggle (V is a board button now), and J/K/L cycle the MFD preset pages only
while unbound.

Addresses with no function at all — the pod never wired them — are `0x16` `0x17` `0x19`
`0x1E` `0x1F` and `0x38`-`0x3E`.

## Controllers

An **Xbox controller** works out of the box.

**Flight sticks, HOTAS and pedals:** run `joyconfig.bat` once. A wizard asks you to move each
control in turn — stick, twist, throttle, fire buttons — writes the bindings, and drops you into
the solo menu to try them. It only rewrites its own section of `bindings.txt`, so hand edits
elsewhere in the file survive.

**Mouse buttons** are bindable like any key — `MOUSE4`, `MOUSE5` (the side buttons),
`MOUSEMIDDLE`, and `MOUSELEFT`/`MOUSERIGHT`. The side and middle buttons are the free ones; left
and right are how you press cockpit buttons, so binding those fires on every panel click too.
Mouse *movement* is not bindable — see `docs/MOUSELOOK_PLAN.md`.

```
key MOUSE4 button 0x40        # side button = main trigger
key MOUSE5 button 0x46        # side button = middle thumb
```

**RGB keyboards** with Windows Dynamic Lighting mirror the panel: any key you have bound to a
lamp button glows in the panel's own colours and flashes in step with the on-screen buttons. Turn
it off with `BT_KEYLIGHT=0` in `environ.ini`.

---

## Cockpit layout

Set these in `content\environ.ini`:

- **`BT_MFD_SCALE`** (and `_UL`/`_UC`/`_UR`/`_LL`/`_LR`) — size of the five MFDs, as a percentage
  of their pod size. Turn them up if you want to actually read them while you fly.
- **`BT_RADAR_SCALE`**, **`BT_RADAR_POS`** — size the map, and move it out of the middle of the
  road: `CENTER`, `LEFT`, `RIGHT`, `MIDLEFT`, `MIDRIGHT`.
- **`BT_GLASS_PANELS=1`** — break every display out into its own desktop window instead of the
  composited cockpit. Good for reading one display at full size.

Run with **`-fit`** for a borderless window over the whole monitor. The cockpit scales to any
window shape at one uniform scale, so nothing ever stretches — a window that isn't the cockpit's
shape just gets black bars.