Setups
HOSAS
Hands on stick and stick. A joystick in each hand. The right stick usually rotates the ship and the left stick moves it sideways, up and down, and forward and back. See Full HOSAS sets.
HOTAS
Hands on throttle and stick. A throttle under the left hand and a joystick under the right. The throttle sets forward speed. See Full HOTAS sets.
Modular stick
A stick sold as a separate base and grip, so either can be replaced or swapped. VKB's Gunfighter Mk.IV Base and its SCG grip are one example. See Stick Bases and Stick Grips.
Mount
A clamp, arm or frame that holds a stick or throttle at a set height, off the desk surface. See Mounts & rigs.
Movement and axes
Axis
One direction of analog input, reported as a range of values. A typical stick has three: pitch, roll and twist.
Pitch, yaw and roll
The three ways a ship rotates. Pitch tilts the nose up or down, yaw swings it left or right, and roll rotates the ship around its length.
Six degrees of freedom (6DOF)
Three rotations (pitch, yaw, roll) plus three translations (forward and back, left and right, up and down). Space sims that let a ship move freely in all six are often called 6DOF games.
Strafe
Moving the ship sideways, up or down without rotating it. Also called translation. On a HOSAS setup the left stick strafes; on a HOTAS setup a thumb stick or hat on the throttle usually does.
Twist axis
A stick grip that rotates left and right around its own shaft, usually bound to yaw. Rudder pedals do the same job with your feet.
Throttle
A lever or pair of levers that stays where you leave it, usually bound to forward speed. Some have detents, physical notches that mark a position such as idle or afterburner. See Throttles.
Rudder pedals
Foot pedals for yaw, which free up the stick's twist axis. Many add toe brakes, a separate axis on each pedal for ground braking in flight sims. See Rudder sets.
On the grip
Hat switch
A small thumb switch that clicks in four or eight directions. Each direction reads as a separate button. Also called a POV hat.
Thumb stick
A small analog stick under the thumb, on a stick grip or a throttle. Also called a mini-stick or analog hat.
Modifier
A button that changes what other buttons do while it's held, giving one grip a second set of bindings. Some software calls it a shift or layer button.
Inside the stick
Gimbal
The mechanism under the grip that lets it tilt and returns it to center.
Centering spring and cams
Most sticks use springs to pull the grip back to center. Some bases let you change spring strength, or swap cams, shaped parts that change how the force builds as the stick moves away from center.
Force feedback (FFB)
A base with motors that push back on the grip, with the force set by the game. MOZA's AB9 FFB Base is one example.
Potentiometer
A variable resistor. A wiper slides along a resistive track as the axis moves, and the voltage it picks up gives the position. APEM, which makes Hall-effect joysticks, calls potentiometers "electromechanical devices that can wear out" (APEM).
Hall-effect sensor
A sensor that reads the strength of a magnet's field. The magnet moves with the axis, the sensor stays put, and nothing touches (APEM). Thrustmaster calls its version H.E.A.R.T, for HallEffect AccuRate Technology (Thrustmaster).
Magnetoresistive sensor
A sensor that also reads a moving magnet, but measures a change in electrical resistance. VKB's MaRS sensors work this way (VKB FSC Europe).
Contactless
An umbrella term for sensors with no parts rubbing together, covering Hall-effect, magnetoresistive and optical designs (Wikipedia). A spec sheet that says only "contactless" hasn't said which.
Resolution
How many distinct positions an axis can report, quoted in bits (12-bit, 16-bit) or as a count. Thrustmaster quotes 16,000 × 16,000 for the T.16000M's pitch and roll (Thrustmaster). Noise can make the usable resolution lower than the stated figure (EDN).
Settings and software
Binding
The link between a control on your hardware and an action in the game, such as a button to fire or an axis to pitch. A full set of bindings is a profile or layout.
Calibration
Teaching the computer where an axis's center and limits are. Windows has its own calibration tool, opened by running joy.cpl (MakeUseOf).
Deadzone
A range of stick movement the game ignores. A center deadzone hides the small wobble most sticks report at rest. An edge deadzone, or saturation, makes the axis reach full output before the stick reaches its physical limit. Joystick Gremlin offers both (Joystick Gremlin).
Drift
An axis reporting movement when nobody is touching it. The ship slowly turns or strafes on its own. A worn potentiometer can make it worse over time.
Response curve
A setting that changes how much output a given amount of stick movement produces. A common shape gives less output near center and more toward full deflection. VIRPIL's software calls these "sensitivity curves" (VIRPIL).
Vendor software
The maker's tool for setting up axes and buttons. Thrustmaster's is T.A.R.G.E.T (Thrustmaster), VIRPIL's is the VPC Software Suite (VIRPIL), and VKB documents its tool in the NJoy32 configuration manual (VKB FSC Europe).
Virtual joystick
A software device that a game sees as a joystick, fed by one or more real ones. It's how pilots merge devices or remap them beyond what a game allows. vJoy is one such driver (GitHub), Joystick Gremlin maps real devices onto it (Joystick Gremlin), and HidHide hides the real devices from games so they don't see each input twice (GitHub).
Around the cockpit
Head tracking
A camera or sensor that turns head movement into in-game view movement, for looking around the cockpit without a hat switch. NaturalPoint's TrackIR 5 uses an infrared camera; Tobii's Eye Tracker 5 also tracks where you look. See Head tracking.
MFD panel
A panel of buttons, usually framing a small screen or an opening for one, modelled on a cockpit's multi-function displays. Pilots use them for bindings that don't fit on a grip. See Panels & MFDs.
The bindings matrix lists which controllers each game supports.