Is there a way to pause the game to rebind the controls? In X3: Reunion, I go into Simulator mode as a tutorial, but every time I try to rebind the gamepad keys the AI keeps destroying the ship. If I click on Pause, then the game won't allow me to remap any keys. The game's launcher at the beginning doesn't allow remapping either. Is there a way to get around this?

You can start a new game without the story ("custom universe" or what it's called) which should give you a save starting sector, so there should be no problem in rebinding the keys there.

Is there a way to get the right stick (Xbox 360 controller) to work on X3? I keep trying to rebind strafing to it, but the game doesn't seem to recognize it.

Yeah. Same issue with Terran Conflict here. And that's advertised to support gamepads now natively. IT FUKKING DOESN'T. IT'S A STRAIGHT UP LIE. I've attempted to configure TC to use my gamepad for HOURS by now. I really, really don't know why I bother with this shit anymore.

- The analogue triggers are one single axis to the game and thus, only usable for rolling, really.
- Pressing right Trigger rolls left, pressing left rolls right. No option to change / invert.
- Right stick is not recognized AT ALL. It's just a button and nothing more.
- Stick buttons won't even work properly, either. Button press and -hold are supposed to do different things.
2 buttons, 4 actions. But, configure both on stick buttons, and it breaks the other. Buggy as fk, apparently.

I'm fukkin' furious about this right now. I've had to use my already installed and paid-for Xpadder to manually map WASD Keys to the right stick for strafing. Also, I mapped Q and E to the analogue triggers and disabled rolling with the axis ingame so I could actually roll right by pressing right. And I've settled with having only one function per stick button, despite being promised two like with any regular button.

And now? Button1, "A" on the controller, is used by me to navigate through menus, of course. What else would you use? A to select, B to cancel. Except now, every action in the menu that closes it will shoot as well. Because it's apparently still too fukkin' hard to differentiate between menu button presses and in-flight ones. That's a seperate issue, it applies to HOTAS and anything else as well.

Targeted a friend, selected autopilot command in the menu?
BOOM, TAKE MY FUKKIN' LAZERS UP YOUR AZZ, SUCKER.

Selected "Undock" while within a station?
BOOM, EAT MY FUKKIN' LAZORS, DOCKING TRADER.

... are they serious right now...? And if you use your "Next Target" Key instead as select Key in Menus, you'll constantly switch targets with every action you select there that closes a menu. That means, you have to use a dedicated, only-for-menus-and-nothing-else button to select stuff in menus with. For a game in which you'll spend 90% of your time navigating said menus, having to allocate a dedicated key for "select" within menus is a huge inconvenience.

tl;dr rant:
DON'T EXPECT TO PLAY WITH GAMEPAD. AT ALL. IT'S NOT SUPPORTED.
Also, the Controls are STILL, after so many years, ridiculously BAD.
I can't comprehend how Devs can keep fucking up so badly.