I really like this game and although I can play it, with some difficulty on my mouse and keyboard I at times enjoy using my xbox controller. The thing works already, i can fly, accelerate and manuver exactly as i should be but i dont know how to switch weapons without using the kayboard or the various monitor displays and all of their options and what not. The joy stick calibration function doesn't ask me about button mapping just to move the joystick in a direction, which it also will not actually calibrate when using that option. Although i dont need to calibrate it as flying works perfectly fine and is pretty damn smooth.

Edit: Btw i have xpadder but as this is a dosbox game i had no idea if they were even compatible.

I have the same problem. Dosbox has some pre-set controls that I can't find the config for. I want to wipe them, and use xpadder to map my controller to the game. Any ideas on where that dosbox config file is?

Open the DOSBox Mapper with Ctrl+F1. On that screen you'll see a representation of joystick controls. Privateer only recognises two axes and two buttons so clear the ones you want to set in Xpadder (the rest don't matter). You can mix and match between Xpadder and the DOSBox Mapper as needed (e.g. if you want to use Privateer's native joystick axis support which is the only way to roll during space flight) as long as each function is only bound in one of the two programs.

It is possible to entirely disable DOSBox's joystick detection but that makes Privateer's music play too slowly, so in this case you want to leave that alone and instead clear the settings through the Mapper.