Mapping issue with RetroArch

[LilaQ]

Hi guys,

 

hoping for a new approach here.

I'm currently running 2 IPACs in my Arcade cab in keyboard mode (came preconfigured). So lots of emulators and RA cores are configured to those keyboard profiles.
Now I'm coming across a few cores where I would need to be able to do some button presses. With cores like VICE I can luckily make use of core-based on-screen keyboards for example. But other systems e.g. Bally Astrocade that runs on libretro_mame are more problematic. libretro_mame doesn't have an on-screen keyboard, but the system needs the numeric keys, to select game modes in its games (the console had a physical numpad).

Now, I have most of the numeric keys mapped to my arcade controls, basically blocking them, even if I had a physical keyboard attached. 

I was hoping to be able to create an Input Overlay, and have these button presses funneled to the core, but apparently they are being treated as regular keypresses, and thus are ignored as well.Now I'm really out of options, and hope someone here has an idea on how to tackle this? E.g. is there a way to map other keys to the numeric keys inside MAME maybe? Or is there a way to make the Input Overlay function as if it was in Game Focus mode?

I'm really open to any ideas (that don't include me removing the existing IPAC mapping, cause it's configured for +80 systems and LEDBlinky)

Thanks a ton!
LQ

[LilaQ]

Update:

After lots and lots of tinkering, I was able to be successful with internally remapping files with the MAME core, and removing `input_touch_scale = 0` from the RA config did the trick to be able to finally click on my input overlays, and have designed on-screen keyboards per each system that needs it.