Open dosbox_privateer2.conf (in your installation folder) in notepad or another text editor and under [joystick] try changing swap34=false into swap34=true.

edit: you may also need to change the joysticktype setting. If the above doesn't work try a few different types.

"swap34=false into swap34=true"

That did the trick, thank's for the tip. :)

This worked for me. Now I have complete control of speed, much better than I was selecting targets (either my cargo ships or my enemies) and matching their speed with "x" keyboard button. That was a work around for early combat but I thought I'd probably would destroyany cargo I tried to tractor in. IIRC from earlier D2 games that I had on my older computers, I sometimes had to pick stuff up while being shot at. That would never work with the inflexible speed control I was using.

Mucho multi- thanks for this!

On a side note, I have Win7 and when I tried to open the config file, Windows said it didn't know how to open it. I had to search to find notepad in order to use it. Does Microsquish even check out their OS to see if such basic tools are working? I find W7 very puzzling sometimes.

Sorry for the off topic rant. Thanks again.

That is a perfectly normal response under any version of Windows; the '.conf' extension is not a widely know and standardized extension (like '.ini' for example) and, as such, it does not come pre-associated with any default application; you have to choose your desired one the first time... it's how Windows has always worked in that regard, ever sinc version 3