Joystick axis range

[macsforme]

The raw joystick axis readings are currently subject to several obscure calculations prior to being used for driving speed/rotation. One of the factors is based on the mousebox size. While this does allow for some control over the joystick sensitivity, the results do not seem ideal. For example, at mousebox size -5, my gamepad stick reaches the full value at approximately 10% in one axis, and about 15% in the other. This makes it very difficult to play the game with a joystick. The obvious solution is to just map the actual values onto a -1, 1 scale. However, with a circular axis (as some joysticks have), with the stick in a diagonal direction, the maximum in each axis will be (√2)/2 (or approximately 0.7), putting joystick players at a disadvantage. While a calculation is possible to map a circular area onto a square, some sticks (such as mine) do not have a 1.0 magnitude at all angles. Some users may also need/want to adjust the sensitivity of their sticks.

It appears the solution will be to map circular sticks to the control box (square), to have some kind of test to determine the full range of the joystick, then mapping it appropriately and also offering the user a way to adjust the sensitivity of the joystick. Some kind of visual feedback will probably also be helpful.

[macsforme]

Looking at this again, I think the solution is to detach the joystick sensitivity from the mousebox entirely and just use the raw axis values, and then having the following configurable settings in the menu:

• Assign joystick axes (including negated axes, e.g., 1, -1, 2, -2, etc.) to
  • Movement (forward/backward)
  • Rotation (left/right)
• Set sensitivity (fractional part of axis to be actually used for control)
• Set dead zone (maybe we can find a sane default for this? but then each controller is different...)
• Map circular zone to square (true/false, so that holding a stick at 45 degrees will read 1,1 rather than ~0.7,~0.7)
• Ramp type (linear ramp, exponential ramp)

I think that about covers every contingency. Thoughts?