Setting up Thrust Gamepad GXT 39 to work with Elite:Dangerous
Trust GXT 39 Wireless Gamepad is great gamepad, which is quite nice for playing with Elite:Dangerous. I did not want to go to the ridiculously expensive (and large) joysticks, so I decided to try how it’ll work with a gamepad, which I can hold with my hands.
Overall: it’s great, but setting up Elite to work “my way” with it turned out to be a hassle.
Finally, after many attempts, this is my permanent (for now) setup, based on “Generic Joystick” setup from Elite. This post here is for my own future reference, but I thought someone could find it useful for his own needs, too!
To configure it, First of all, start/set “Generic Joystick” setup (warning: this will override your current setup, if it’s custom).
Now do the following customizations:
Setting the Pitch/Roll/Yaw/Vertical Thrust axises mapping to the left/right joysticks of the gamepad
- Set “Yaw Axis” to [Joy-XAxis], no invert
- Set “Roll Axis” to [Joy-ZAxis], no invert
- Set “Pitch Axis” to [Joy-YAxis], no invert
- Set “Vertical Thrust Axis” to [Joy-RZAxis], WITH invert
Setting additional Landing mode controls
For Landing mode, set Thrust Up/Down/Left/Right to JOY-POV1-UP etc., like on the picture below:
This will give you nice extra control, when your landing gear is deployed.
Gamepad Buttons Configuration
My gamepad buttons are configured according to the following table:
| No | Action |
| 1 | Target Ahead |
| 2 | Thrust Up |
| 3 | Thrust Down |
| 4 | Engine Boost |
| 5 | <<FREE>>
Still looking for what to put there! |
| 6 | Interface focus |
| 7 | Secondary Fire |
| 8 | Primary Fire |
| 9 | Enable FSD |
| 10 | Deploy / Retract Hardpoints |
| 11 | <So far, cannot find way to activate>? |
| 12 | <So far, cannot find way to activate>? |
Here’s how the button mapping looks:
Pre-flight Checklist
For final verification, here’s also my pre-flight checklist:
![]()
Have fun! And if you found this useful, drop me a line here. Also, if you have suggestions, let me know
.
You’ll find me in Elite:Dangerous as CMDR DonAngel.