This is something that had driven me absolutely nuts. When I started playing Fallout 3 on Tuesday, I decided that it would make sense to map the V.A.T.S. key, which defaults to “V”, to my mouse 4 button instead. After all, I bought this nice fancy mouse specifically so I could do stuff like that. It’s a pain in the ass to struggle looking for the “V” key to pause the game while you’re being shot at or while a Deathclaw is rushing up on you.
The first night I played Fallout 3, I perused the above menu, selected “V.A.T.S. Targeting”, and tried to hit the mouse 4 button. It just wouldn’t work. Crap, I thought. And I eventually decided it wasn’t possible. I even Googled it later, and found people on forums complaining about the same thing.
Last night, I found out how to do it. See that “Device” key at the bottom right? Yeah – I’d mostly ignored it too. When you click that, it gives you a slightly different menu in which the “Keyboard” text at the top changes to “Mouse’, and you’re able to map controls to the mouse. Viola. Hopefully the next person who Googles this problem ends up here instead and finds their solution. So now I’ve got my mouse 4 button mapped to start V.A.T.S. and my mouse wheel set up to use items. For what will I use my mouse 5 button? I’ve yet to decide.
You are a charitable human being. Thank you for your observation.
saved the day!
YAY! Methinks I will map VATS and activate.
Thanks a lot!
Wouldn’t have noticed this.
Only bad thing about this game was not being able to use mouse4 & 5 😀
how do i change the default tab key binding which gets you out of the pipboy, to some other key?
Frustrated-
The pipboy key is one of the keys you can map in controls. Hit escape to go to the menu, then pick “controls”. You can re-map the pipboy key.
You can remap the pipboy key all you want, but you’ll only be able to close it with the default key, which is tab.
Just installed Fallout 3 last night and was pissed to find that you couldn’t bind *anything* to the mouse. Thanks for pointing out the Device menu! I was afraid the keybindings were going to be as horrid as Dead Space (I was already using GlovePIE to get around their limitations)!
Thanks man…I did the EXACT same thing…your post was most helpful.
Wow! Thank you, been enjoying this game for awhile and I had all but given up mapping my mouse keys. I thought it was strange that Bethesda would overlook this but just didn’t see a way to assign the buttons in a typical fashion. Thanks again and enjoy your stay in the Capital Wasteland.
i have a g5 gaming mouse, and i know about the device button but it still wont allow me to map things to any mouse buttons other then left/ right click and wheel click. anyone know what is up with this?
Dan – My best guess on your problem is that maybe you should go to Logitech’s website and make sure you’ve got the most up-to-date driver for the mouse.
how do you holster your weapon?
If I remember correctly, you’ve got to hold down the reload button for a couple seconds.
Thank you very much for this.
Now I’m hoping I can alt-tab back into the game! 😉
Thank you!
You CAN map so the pip boy opens, and then closes, with the same key, without having to go to . I use the numerical keypad for gaming (you should too!). I don’t know how I did it, but I managed in the last install to get the button, next to keypad, to work fine, that is, to open AND close the pipboy. Now, I can’t seem to duplicate my brilliant feat. Isn’t that awful for me. Oh wait! I know what I have to do! Install the update patch – Fallout3_v1.5_UK_English.exe, and then I can map keys to my heart’s content. There, all better
Pity about Farcry 2, though.
Hey
Thanks a lot for your efforts. Now i want to map all the controls on the game to the keyboard and so that i don’t have to use the mouse at all during the game play. Sort of like resident evil 3 and 4. Is it possible ?
If yes please let me know, Regards
Thank God I found your page in an Google search. I’ve been sitting here like an idiot for 40 minutes with the same problem. Thank you for posting this (even though I’ve found it a year later =P)
Thanks again!
My thumb is rusting on the space bar and the ‘V’ key it right above I have know problem with the default setup.
thanks bud!
I am now officially retarded for never noticing that at all. Thanks!!!
Man… I feel pretty foolish overlooking and not trying to click on device first! Being an IT guy who normally learns via investigation/trial/error but I guess I’m getting lazy LOL.
Thanks for the informative post nonetheless!