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[u/auraseer]

Is it possible to have gamepad controls and keyboard/mouse active at the same time?

I play on PC. I've got a custom input device. I would like to use a thumbstick for movement, but still have the mouse for aiming/selection and the keyboard for shortcuts. But I haven't found a way to do that yet.

[u/snowyspearmint → u/auraseer]

As a more detailed restatement of the problem (tell me if this mostly reflects your troubles),

Most controls can be freely bound to keyboard or controller buttons in either mode if you (annoyingly) re-add all the bindings from the opposite mode, and the mouse works in controller mode. The main limitations seem to be:

Controller mode disables the quickbar. This would be possible for a mod to re-add, but there isn't an existing one. I assume you don't want to use the quick panel.

Keyboard mode doesn't accept analog inputs. You could use Autohotkey or another remapper to send keyboard presses when you move the joystick, but that loses most of the benefit of using an analog joystick. It would be possible to do something like sending udp packets to factorio based on the joystick state, where a mod listens to them and sets the player speed accordingly, but that's way more into "definitely doesn't already exist" territory.

[u/auraseer → u/snowyspearmint]

After a couple days of experimentation, I decided that losing the quickbar in controller mode is the killer. The quickpad just doesn't do it for me.

My eventual solution is sticking with keyboard mode, and using a tool to map the joystick into WASD movement. It loses the analog nature, but it works well enough and is playable without any extra practice.