The default controls for this game use the number pad on your keyboard - steer with 2, 4, 6 and 8. If you have a laptop, this is problematic.

Fortunately you can re-bind your keys within the game!

Unfortunately you can't bind the arrow keys!

Fortunately this game uses a DosBox shell, and DosBox provides a simple system to remap keys. I suggest using the default control config within the game and using the DosBox mapper to bind them to the cursor keys. Press CTRL-F1 while in game to access this system.

Bind the number pad commands:
Click on the 2, 4, 6, and 8 Number Pad keys, and then click the "Add" button. Press the cursor key you want for that command (up for 8, left for 4, right for 6, down for 2).

Unbind the cursor key commands:
You should click your cursor on each of the arrow keys on the screen - they'll say things like "EVENT:key_up BIND:Key up. Then click the "Del" button on the screen (near the middle at the bottom), so that the BIND line disappears.



Now your cursor keys will control movement and not the camera


The default commands of the arrow keys are to rotate the camera left and right, and pull it backwards/up and forwards/down (reset the camera to front by pressing camera-left and camera-right together). If you don't care about these controls, then you can just ignore this bit.
Otherwise, click on each of the arrow keys, press "Add" and enter the new key you want them bound to. I find WASD to be good. You need to unbind the S key to stop it from turning the sound on and off (Click on S on the mapper display and then click on the "Del" button so nothing is bound to it). You do not need to unbind A or D as they aren't used for any commands. W is used for "Look Front", but that is only in cockpit mode, and Camera In is only in third person mode, so the two commands don't clash.


Replay on the Number Pad Enter key - but you can re-bind it within the game's options menu. I suggest the R key.

Light and Fluffy Mode on Number Pad Minus
- this mode removes pedestrians, cows and nasty things from your screen. I recall its original purpose was as an emergency key to press if your Mother enters the room and you don't want her to see what a violent video game you are playing!
Click on Number Pad Minus, press "Add" and then press the key you want to bind it to. You may need to un-bind the commands on the key you set it to if it's a key that does something.

Not all the controls in the game are listed on the controls config screen. It's a good idea to be aware of what these are when rebinding keys, so you don't lose commands or have two commands bound to the same key.

M - Toggle mirror in Cockpit mode
P - Toggle Pratcam
S - Toggle Sound on/off
+/- - Make the screen size bigger and smaller (this was probably to improve performance on old PCs)
Cursor Keys - (as mentioned above) these are third person camera controls by default

If you unbind the letter keys, or bind new commands to them, then you can run into trouble when trying to use the cheats (which rely on a string of letters being detected). However, I haven't been able to use the cheats in this version of the game anyway. Not sure why that is, but this might be a non-issue.

Below is the contents of my keymap file.

Paste this into Notepad and save as mapper-0.74.map in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dark forces\ (or the location of your Steam directory, if not Program Files).

If there is already a mapper.txt file, you may want to back it up. Easy way to back it up - rename the original to mapper-0.74.map.bak

To reset key mapping to default, delete this file.

What it does:

You can steer and accelerate with the cursor keys. You can control the camera with the WASD keys.

It may stop some cheats from working.

Paste the below into notepad:

hand_shutdown "key 290 mod1"
hand_capmouse "key 291 mod1"
hand_fullscr "key 13 mod2"
hand_pause "key 19 mod2"
hand_mapper "key 282 mod1"
hand_speedlock "key 293 mod2"
hand_recwave "key 287 mod1"
hand_caprawmidi "key 289 mod1 mod2"
hand_scrshot "key 286 mod1"
hand_video "key 286 mod1 mod2"
hand_decfskip "key 288 mod1"
hand_incfskip "key 289 mod1"
hand_cycledown "key 292 mod1"
hand_cycleup "key 293 mod1"
hand_caprawopl "key 288 mod1 mod2"
hand_swapimg "key 285 mod1"
key_esc "key 27"
key_f1 "key 282"
key_f2 "key 283"
key_f3 "key 284"
key_f4 "key 285"
key_f5 "key 286"
key_f6 "key 287"
key_f7 "key 288"
key_f8 "key 289"
key_f9 "key 290"
key_f10 "key 291"
key_f11 "key 292"
key_f12 "key 293"
key_grave "key 96"
key_1 "key 49"
key_2 "key 50"
key_3 "key 51"
key_4 "key 52"
key_5 "key 53"
key_6 "key 54"
key_7 "key 55"
key_8 "key 56"
key_9 "key 57"
key_0 "key 48"
key_minus "key 45"
key_equals "key 61"
key_bspace "key 8"
key_tab "key 9"
key_q "key 113"
key_w "key 119"
key_e "key 101"
key_r "key 114"
key_t "key 116"
key_y "key 121"
key_u "key 117"
key_i "key 105"
key_o "key 111"
key_p "key 112"
key_lbracket "key 91"
key_rbracket "key 93"
key_enter "key 13"
key_capslock "key 301"
key_a "key 97"
key_s
key_d "key 100"
key_f "key 102"
key_g "key 103"
key_h "key 104"
key_j "key 106"
key_k "key 107"
key_l "key 108"
key_semicolon "key 59"
key_quote "key 39"
key_backslash "key 92"
key_lshift "key 304"
key_lessthan "key 60"
key_z "key 122"
key_x "key 120"
key_c "key 99"
key_v "key 118"
key_b "key 98"
key_n "key 110"
key_m "key 109"
key_comma "key 44"
key_period "key 46"
key_slash "key 47"
key_rshift "key 303"
key_lctrl "key 306"
key_lalt "key 308"
key_space "key 32"
key_ralt "key 307"
key_rctrl "key 305"
key_printscreen "key 316"
key_scrolllock "key 302"
key_pause "key 19"
key_insert "key 277"
key_home "key 278"
key_pageup "key 280"
key_delete "key 127"
key_end "key 279"
key_pagedown "key 281"
key_up "key 119"
key_left "key 97"
key_down "key 115"
key_right "key 100"
key_numlock "key 300"
key_kp_divide "key 267"
key_kp_multiply "key 268"
key_kp_minus "key 269"
key_kp_7 "key 263"
key_kp_8 "key 273" "key 264"
key_kp_9 "key 265"
key_kp_plus "key 270"
key_kp_4 "key 276" "key 260"
key_kp_5 "key 261"
key_kp_6 "key 275" "key 262"
key_kp_1 "key 257"
key_kp_2 "key 274" "key 258"
key_kp_3 "key 259"
key_kp_enter "key 271"
key_kp_0 "key 256"
key_kp_period "key 266"
jbutton_0_0
jbutton_0_1
jaxis_0_1-
jaxis_0_1+
jaxis_0_0-
jaxis_0_0+
jbutton_0_2
jbutton_0_3
jbutton_1_0
jbutton_1_1
jaxis_0_2-
jaxis_0_2+
jaxis_0_3-
jaxis_0_3+
jaxis_1_0-
jaxis_1_0+
jaxis_1_1-
jaxis_1_1+
jbutton_0_4
jbutton_0_5
jhat_0_0_0
jhat_0_0_3
jhat_0_0_2
jhat_0_0_1
mod_1 "key 306" "key 305"
mod_2 "key 308" "key 307"
mod_3