We’ve seen a few cases of the previous process for fixing the infamous “twist / X axis controls should be swapped around” issue some people have with the Arena Commander release no longer working as of today’s patch (12.1). The console command pp_RebindKeys layout_joystick_spacesim now just throws a file not found error, even though the XML still exists in GameDat.pak in the same location.

We haven’t yet thoroughly reviewed the data, but a quick workaround for this has been found:

Open GameData.pak with your favorite archive tool (i.e. recent WinRAR / 7Zip build)

Navigate to GameData.pak\Libs\Config\

Extract layout_joystick_spacesim.xml to some easily-accessible location, i.e. C:\temp

Finally, retry your console command with the new path, i.e. pp_RebindKeys C:\temp\layout_joystick_spacesim

This seems to work as expected and restore the desired control scheme for those who want it. The existing process prescribed by CIG for implementing your own custom bindings should of course still apply too, for those who were unaware of it.

I’m also still in the process of prepping the next couple of issues of Under the Bonnet; for both patch 12 and 12.1. CIG has sure been busy with their patch releases, and we’re struggling to keep up! I’m expecting to have a back-to-back release covering both patches out shortly though, so stay tuned.

Update: Reddit user lotexor confirmed that you can actually just use pp_RebindKeys Libs\Config\layout_joystick_spacesim.xml to call the file internally, which is much easier than extracting it first. This seems to indicate the game can still call these binding scripts internally just fine, but maybe the default paths for some commands got broken. Thanks, lotexor !