Each stick has 8 different operation modes when you're not using a virtual controller:

AIM: traditional stick aiming
FLICK: flick stick
FLICK_ONLY: flick stick without rotation after tilting the stick
ROTATE_ONLY: flick stick rotation without the initial flick
MOUSE_RING: stick angle sets the mouse position on a circle directly around the center of the screen
MOUSE_AREA: stick position sets the cursor in a circular area around the neutral position
NO_MOUSE: don't affect the mouse, use button mappings (default)
SCROLL_WHEEL: enable left and right bindings by rotating the stick counter-clockwise or clockwise.
HYBRID_AIM: adds together traditional behavior of a stick with a mouse-like behavior.

The mode for the left and right stick are set like so:

LEFT_STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE
RIGHT_STICK_MODE = AIM

Regardless of what mode you're in, you can have additional input bound to a partial or full tilt of either stick. For example, you might want to always be pressing LSHIFT when the stick is fully tilted:

LEFT_RING_MODE = OUTER # OUTER is default, so this line is optional
LRING = LSHIFT

Or you might want to always be pressing LALT when the stick is only partially tilted:

LEFT_RING_MODE = INNER
LRING = LALT

For backwards compatibility reasons, there are two extra options for LEFT_STICK_MODE and RIGHT_STICK_MODE that set the corresponding STICK_MODE and RING_MODE at the same time:

INNER_RING: Same as _STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE and _RING_MODE = INNER
OUTER_RING: Same as _STICK_MODE = NO_MOUSE and _RING_MODE = OUTER

If you're holding the controller in an unusual orientation (such as for comfort reasons or when using a single JoyCon), you can set CONTROLLER_ORIENTATION to reflect how you're holding the controller:

• FORWARD is the default.
• LEFT is for when you're holding the controller rotated to its left.
• RIGHT is for when you're holding the controller rotated to its right.
• BACKWARD is for when you're holding teh controller rotated 180°.
• JOYCON_SIDEWAYS means LEFT for the left hand joycon, RIGHT for the right hand joycon, FORWARD for all other controllers.

Once set, JoyShockMapper will rearrange the stick's X and Y axis data to match your perspective. CONTROLLER_ORIENTATION only affects sticks (including motion stick). It doesn't affect the arrangement of the face buttons, d-pad, etc. Look up Gyro Mouse Inputs section for how to remap gyro axis to mouse axis.

Let's have a look at all the different operations modes.

Standard AIM mode

When using the AIM stick mode, there are a few important commands:

• STICK_SENS (default 360.0) - How fast does the stick move the camera when tilted fully? The default, when calibrated correctly, is 360 degrees per second. Assign a second value if you desire a different vertical sensitivity from the horizontal sensitivity.
• STICK_POWER (default 1.0) - What is the shape of the curve used for converting stick input to camera turn velocity? 1.0 is a simple linear relationship (half-tilting the stick will turn at half the velocity given by STICK_SENS), 0.5 for square root, 2.0 for quadratic, etc. Minimum value is 0.0, which means any input beyond STICK_DEADZONE_INNER will be treated as a full press as far as STICK_SENS is concerned.
• LEFT_STICK_AXIS and RIGHT_STICK_AXIS (default STANDARD) - This allows you to invert stick axes if you wish. Your options are STANDARD (default) or INVERTED (flip the axis). To assign a separate vertical value, provide a second parameter.
• STICK_ACCELERATION_RATE (default 0.0 multiplier increase per second) - When the stick is pressed fully, this option allows you to increase the camera turning velocity over time. The unit for this setting is a multiplier for STICK_SENS per second. For example, 2.0 with a STICK_SENS of 100 will cause the camera turn rate to accelerate from 100 degrees per second to 300 degrees per second over 1 second.
• STICK_ACCELERATION_CAP (default 1000000.0 multiplier) - You may want to set a limit on the camera turn velocity when STICK_ACCELERATION_RATE is non-zero. For example, setting STICK_ACCELERATION_CAP to 2.0 will mean that your camera turn speed won't accelerate past double the STICK_SENS setting. This has no effect when STICK_ACCELERATION_RATE is zero.
• STICK_DEADZONE_INNER and STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER (default 0.15 and 0.1, respectively) - Controller thumbsticks can be a little imprecise. When you release the stick, it probably won't return exactly to the centre. STICK_DEADZONE_INNER lets you say how much of the stick's range will be considered "centre". If the stick position is within this distance from the centre, it'll be considered to have no stick input. STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER does the same for the outer edge. If the stick position is within this distance from the outer edge, it'll be considered fully pressed. Everything in-between is scaled accordingly. You can set the deadzones individually for each stick with LEFT_STICK_DEADZONE_INNER, LEFT_STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER, RIGHT_STICK_DEADZONE_INNER, RIGHT_STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER.

FLICK mode and variants

When using the FLICK stick mode, there is less to configure. There are no deadzones and no sensitivity. When you press the stick in a direction, JoyShockMapper just takes the angle of the stick input and translates it into the same in-game direction relative to where your camera is already facing, before smoothly moving the camera to point in that direction in a small fraction of a second. Once already pressed, rotating the flick stick X degrees will then instantly turn the in-game camera X degrees. This provides a very natural way to quickly turn around, respond to gun-fire from off-screen, or make gradual turns without moving the controller.

Since flick stick only turns the camera horizontally, it's generally only practical in combination with gyro aiming that can handle vertical aiming.

Flick stick will use the above-mentioned STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER to decide if the stick has been pressed far enough for a flick or rotation. Flick stick relies on REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION to work correctly (covered later, as it affects all inputs that translate to mouse-movements). This is because JoyShockMapper can only point the camera in a given direction by making the right mouse movement, and REAL_WORLD_CALIBRATION helps JoyShockMapper calculate what that movement should be. A game that natively implements flick stick would have no need for calibration. Flick stick has a few settings if you really want to mess with it:

• FLICK_TIME (default 0.1 seconds) - When you tilt the stick a direction, how long does it take the camera to complete its turn to face that direction? I find that 0.1 seconds provides a nice, snappy response, while still looking good. Set the value too low and it may look like you're cheating, instantly going from one direction to facing another.
  Keep in mind that, once tilted, rotating the stick will rotate the camera instantly. There’s no need to smooth it out*; the camera just needs to make the same movement the stick is. FLICK_TIME only affects behaviour when you first tilt the stick.
• FLICK_TIME_EXPONENT (default 0.0) - Some people prefer the flick time to be proportional to the flick angle, and some games don't handle extreme flicks in a short timespan well. This setting scales the FLICK_TIME based on the flick angle. For any value here, FLICK_TIME will always be the time for a 180 degree flick, but smaller flicks are affected: a value of 0.0 means no scaling at all (any flick takes FLICK_TIME seconds), while a value of 1.0 causes the actual flick time to be linearly proportional to the flick angle (a 90 degree flick takes 0.5 * FLICK_TIME seconds). Higher values (over)dramatize the differences between small and large flicks.
• FLICK_SNAP_MODE (default none) - Without practice, sometimes you'll flick to a different angle than you intended. If you want to limit the angles you can flick to, FLICK_SNAP_MODE gives you three options. The default, NONE, is no snapping at all. With practice, I expect players will find this most useful, as surprises can come from any angle. But your other options are 4, which snaps the flick to the nearest of directly forward, directly left, directly right, or directly backwards. These are 90° intervals. If you want to be able to snap to 45° intervals, too, you can set FLICK_SNAP_MODE to 8.
• FLICK_SNAP_STRENGTH (default 1.0) - If you have a snap mode other than NONE set, this value gives you the strength of its snapping, ranging from 0 (no snapping) to 1 (full snapping).
• FLICK_DEADZONE_ANGLE (default 0.0 degrees) - Sometimes you want to prepare for turning quickly without flicking. Pushing the stick perfectly forward is near impossible so you end up turning a little, losing the angle you are trying to hold. This setting creates a deadzone for forward flicks: moving the thumbstick forward within this range will be treated as flicking at a 0 degree angle, basically putting you in rotation mode directly. The value is applied in both left and right directions separately: setting this to 15 creates a total deadzone arc of 30 degrees.

*Developer note: The DualSense and DualShock 4's stick input resolution is low enough that small flick stick rotations can be jittery. JoyShockMapper applies some smoothing just to very small changes in the flick stick angle, which is very effective at covering this up. Larger movements are not smoothed at all. This is more thoroughly explained for developers to implement in their own games on GyroWiki. JoyShockMapper automatically calculates different smoothing thresholds for the PlayStation and Switch controllers, but you can override the smoothing threshold by setting ROTATE_SMOOTH_OVERRIDE any small number, or to 0 to disable smoothing, or to -1 to return to the automatically calculated threshold.

The FLICK_ONLY and ROTATE_ONLY stick modes work the same as flick stick with some features blocked out. The former means you'll get the initial flick, but no subsequent rotation when rotating the stick. The latter means you won't get the initial flick, but subsequent rotations will work.

You can also emulate flick stick with a virtual controller, but it's more limited. Set FLICK_STICK_OUTPUT to RIGHT_STICK or LEFT_STICK instead of its default value of MOUSE. When outputting flick stick to a virtual controller, FLICK_TIME and FLICK_TIME_EXPONENT won't do anything. Instead, the virtual stick will be tilted at its full strength in the desired direction for enough time to complete the flick. This will generally be much less precise than MOUSE mode, but it's still useful. Tune the size of a flick stick flick/rotation by setting VIRTUAL_STICK_CALIBRATION. Ideally, this should be set to the maximum horizontal turning speed of the in game camera in degrees per second.

HYBRID_AIM mode

When using HYBRID_AIM stick mode, the output consists of the sum of the behavior of a traditional stick, i.e. stick position sets cursor speed, as well as the positional behavior, i.e. stick travelling sets cursor travelling. Additionally, there is an 'edge push' feature to preserve the motion speed when pushing the stick to the edge. Moving the stick quickly gives a large output that is dominated by the mouse-like component, whereas moving it slowly gives an output that in more influenced by the stick-like component.

With this input method it is easier to do accurate small movements of the camera while being able to do faster turns than with a traditional stick method as the combined behavior results in a high dynamic range.

This mode shares STICK_SENS*, STICK_POWER, (LEFT / RIGHT)_STICK_AXIS, (LEFT_ / RIGHT_)STICK_DEADZONE_DEADZONE_INNER and (LEFT_ / RIGHT_)STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER with AIM.

It is recommended to keep STICK_DEADZONE_OUTER as small as possible for the best experience. STICK_DEADZONE_INNER matters less, as this mode is very responsive even with a large inner deadzone.

The other settings of this mode are:

• STICK_SENS (default 360.0) - How fast the camera is moved by the position of the stick. Currently this is an arbitrary number and a calibration is not implemented for this. In the future this should represent degrees per second.
• MOUSELIKE_FACTOR (default 90.0) - How fast the camera is moved by the movement of the stick. Like the above, no calibration implemented yet. In the future this should represent degrees per one full travel of the stick from center to full deflection.
• RETURN_DEADZONE_IS_ACTIVE (default ON) - There are two possibly quite different ways this input mode can function. When this setting is set to ON, the mode may feel more like a traditional stick, when its set to OFF, the mode may feel way more responsive but it is difficult to make the output hold still because of the behavior inherent to this input method.
• RETURN_DEADZONE_ANGLE (default 45.0 degrees) - The angle to the center from the current stick position where the output is set to zero.
• RETURN_DEADZONE_CUTOFF_ANGLE (default 90.0 degrees) - The angle to the center where the return deadzone has no effect anymore. Between RETURN_DEADZONE_ANGLE and this, the output slowly returns to normal.
• EDGE_PUSH_IS_ACTIVE (default ON) - Whether or not the mouse-like movement is to be continued when hitting the edge of the stick (entering the outer deadzone). If so, it functions similar to the stick-like component until it is reset either by entering the return deadzone or inner deadzone, but is at most the value at the smallest deflection since the push.

Other mouse modes

When using the MOUSE_RING stick mode, tilting the stick will put the mouse cursor in a position offset from the centre of the screen by your stick position. This mode is primarily intended for twin-stick shooters. To do this, the application needs to know your screen resolution (SCREEN_RESOLUTION_X and SCREEN_RESOLUTION_Y) and how far you want the cursor to sit from the centre of the screen (MOUSE_RING_RADIUS). When this mode is in operation (i.e. the stick is not at rest), all other mouse movements are ignored.

When using the MOUSE_AREA stick mode, the stick value directly sets the mouse position. So moving the stick rightward gradually all the way to the edge will move the cursor at the same speed for a number of pixel equal to the value of MOUSE_RING_RADIUS ; and moving the stick back to the middle will move the cursor back again to where it started. Contrary to the previous mode, this mode can operate in conjunction with other mouse inputs, such as gyro.

Digital modes

When using stick mode NO_MOUSE, JSM will use the stick's UP DOWN LEFT and RIGHT bindings in a cross gate layout. There is a small square deadzone to ignore very small stick moves.

Finally, SCROLL_WHEEL turns the stick into a rotating scroll wheel. Left bindings are pulsed by rotating counter-clockwise and right bindings are pulsed by rotating clockwise. The setting SCROLL_SENS allows you to change the amount of degrees you need to perform to trigger a pulse. Unlike other sensitivity parameters, a higher value is less sensitive.

# Left stick moves
LLEFT = A
LRIGHT = D
LUP = W
LDOWN = S
LEFT_RING_MODE = INNER
LRING = LALT # Walk

Motion Stick and lean bindings

Using the motion sensors, you can treat your whole controller as a stick. The "Motion Stick" can do everything that a regular stick can do:

• MOTION_STICK_MODE (default NO_MOUSE) - All the same options as LEFT_STICK_MODE and RIGHT_STICK_MODE.
• MOTION_RING_MODE (default OUTER) - All the same options as LEFT_RING_MODE and RIGHT_RING_MODE.
• MOTION_DEADZONE_INNER (default 15°) - How far the controller needs to be tilted in order to register as non-zero.
• MOTION_DEADZONE_OUTER (default 135°) - How far from the maximum rotation will be considered a full tilt. The maximum rotation is of course 180°, so the default value of 135° means tilting at or above 45° from the neutral position will be considered "full tilt".
• MOTION_STICK_AXIS (default STANDARD) - Select whether you want to invert the axis. To assign a separate vertical value, provide a second parameter.
• MLEFT, MRIGHT, MUP, MDOWN are the motion stick equivalents of left, right, forward, back mappings, respectively.
• This is also affected by CONTROLLER_ORIENTATION described at the end of the previous section.

The gyro needs to be correctly calibrated for motion stick to work best (see calibration commands below under Gyro Mouse Inputs).

By default, the neutral position is approximately the position the controller is when left on a flat surface. You can set a different neutral position by entering the command SET_MOTION_STICK_NEUTRAL. When this command is executed, however you're holding the controller at the time will be considered the "neutral" orientation.

A common use for the motion sensors is to map left and right leans of the controller. This isn't quite the same as motion stick -- regardless of whether you hold your controller flat or upright, lean mappings should still work the same. You just need:

• LEAN_THRESHOLD (default 15°) - Leaning the controller more than this angle to the left or right will trigger the LEAN_LEFT or LEAN_RIGHT bindings, respectively.