DescentBB

Greetings.

In my opinion, using analog controller on gamepad (like for psx) to play descent games is much more difficult than with mouse (even for experienced players).
I have gamepad "trust gxt 11" and I think that I've found some nice solution for improving aiming in very universal way (for every gamepad or even keyboard only flying), which can be used in almost all games based on aiming skills. For now this solution is worked out for windows systems.
In this case I play descent rebirth, but it can be done in every game with mouse and keyboard controllers.
After I found that analog controller in gamepad is annoyingly inaccurate, I turned it off. I used "joycur" external free tool for mapping buttons combinations to some keyboard keys, representing 4 directions (without using typematic):
'j' trigger by gamepad button 10 with D-left, 'l' trigger by button 10 with D-right, 'i' trigger by button 10 with D-up, 'k' trigger by button 10 with D-down.
Then I used "AutoHotkey" external free tool for reacting on pressing 'j', 'l', 'i', 'k' hot keys, by simulating mouse small moves:

; # START AUTOHOTKEY SCRIPT #

PRECISE_MOV := 1
PRECISE_MOV_DELAY := 20
j::
l::
i::
k::
Loop
{
state := false
if GetKeystate( "j", "P")
{
MouseMove, -%PRECISE_MOV%, 0,, R
state := true
}
If GetKeystate( "l", "P")
{
MouseMove, %PRECISE_MOV%, 0,, R
state := true
}
If GetKeystate( "i", "P")
{
MouseMove, 0, -%PRECISE_MOV%,, R
state := true
}
If GetKeystate( "k", "P")
{
MouseMove, 0, %PRECISE_MOV%,, R
state := true
}
if not state
break

Sleep, %PRECISE_MOV_DELAY%
}
return

;# END OF SCRIPT #

Then, in the game options, I turn on mouse and configure directions for mouse moves and keyboard keys (triggered by external "joycur") with middle sensitivity.

After all this operations, I obtained mouse move (emulated by gamepad and AutoHotkey tool) for precise aiming (d-pad with one other button combination), and directions buttons (without combining it with other button) for normal steering of the spaceship.

Do You have some other methods for improving aiming precision for gamepad (without analog controller) ?

I think the main problem with most gamepads I have ever tried is the analog sticks have gigantic deadzones that can't be removed, one has to push each analog stick way too far from center to get a response at all which makes precise adjustments incredibly difficult when using one.

Keyboards and mice have no deadzone at all, and regular full size joysticks typically can be tweaked down to virtually zero deadzone as well. Really what gamepads need is something like the analog sticks in my radios for RC helicopters, they have practically no deadzone at all, but they can be programmed with non-linear curves and maximum throw rates which can help tone down the controls for twitchy birds.