I suppose I should take one more picture with the four top screws and the cord (semi permanent), but the caps and layout didn't change after I took this pic.

Here's my current VIAL keymap. For now, it's just the default game mappings, plus one or two extra and the Enter key, because I've found it occasionally useful. The toggles are just more buttons, though except for a couple of fun ones (cloak and arming missles) I left those to more administrative keybinds.

I did up the firmware properly, (although cramming VIAL into an old-school Pro-Micro is interesting) so I could change it around if I need to. There's still room for one more layer, but I haven't implemented it yet. I am using "POS" keycaps instead of proper stabs, so I was able to tweak the left thumb in to a mini-cluster. I could eventually do the same for the main Fire button, although the orange Afterburner is wired as a single key (kept me at 40 exactly and made my matrix math tidy).

You should try it again. They've added a lot of content, a few QoL features, and made a few balancing tweaks, but even back then the engine was pretty simple and solid.

This is probably the densest one-stop shop for handwiring resources. It has links to some of the other tools I used, and QMK is the open source firmware that runs many of them (I used a fork that enables a better graphical key mapper), though there are others that can be easier to set up.

On Youtube, there's a kid who has made a cottage industry out of these. Search for Joe Scotto.

In general, searching for "hand wired keyboard" will bring up a lot of resources. Then, if you're so inclined, learn how to do a basic PCB in KiCAD and you start closing in on a device that works every bit as well as a commercial product.

Oh, it's a lot of fun, and once you get the hang of it it's very easy to jump in for a casual session, or come back to after a layoff, but at the same time it often gets that "one more mission" or "one more custom loadout" time-murderer vibe. The main campaign for humans is a bit on rails, but it's very well-written for a game like this. It is funny to hit a dead end in other mini-campaigns where it's like, "Uhhh, that's all we've written so far. Knock yourself out!."

They came in a large bag of random keycaps from Signature Plastics, one of the "big-two" western keycap manufacturers, but they're obviously relegendable, and I think they're the F10 profile like my "COMMS" cluster.

must be tricky to hit all those center buttons under your legs like that

LOL. Possibly overkill for this:

I've been playing the game on normal keyboards for years, so any nods towards an ergonomic splay will be nothing but helpful. I suppose it's ever so slightly closer together than a full size board, but toeing in the layout makes up for that. Wrist-wise, I hover. It's literally the one good typing habit that "stuck" from when I was a youngling. I have never had any issues or needed wrist rests, so front-height being 7-12mm taller than most of my boards is not an issue.

If there is an issue it's that the thumb keys are tucked in a bit aggressively to keep a 60% keyboard's footprint, but since this is a very different control paradigm than an FPS or even a Minecraft, and definitely not for typing, it shouldn't be significant problem.

Besides, ergonomic deficiencies play into the immersion and aesthetic. ;-)