Enhanced — Virpil VMAX Throttle + Aeromax-R¶

A tuned throttle + flight-stick keybind setup for Star Citizen built around the Virpil VMAX throttle and Aeromax-R grip. Same Enhanced philosophy as the rest of the pack — modifier layers, mode switching (SCM / Aux / Nav), tempo-driven tap-vs-hold binds, JG-owned inversion that survives SC's wipes and reinstalls.

These binds use Joystick Gremlin to layer modifiers, mode switching, response curves, and macros on top of SC's bind system. Ship combat, mining, salvage, ground vehicles, and turrets all run off the same physical inputs — once you learn the chart, the same hand positions carry across every gameplay loop.

Hardware required¶

• Virpil VMAX throttle + Virpil Aeromax-R grip mounted on a Virpil base.

If you don't have Joystick Gremlin and vJoy installed yet, walk through the general setup guide first.

What makes these binds different¶

If you'd never opened Joystick Gremlin and bound your sticks directly through SC's keybind menu, you'd hit four walls fast:

• No modifier layer. SC has no real concept of "this button does X normally and Y while holding modifier." You'd be stuck with one function per physical button.
• No custom hold timing. SC's bind system supports multi-tap, but hold behavior is baked into each action — if CIG shipped a "Long Press" variant you can bind that, otherwise you can't add one. JG sidesteps this by synthesizing the gesture: a 0.5-second hold on VMAX throttle btn 2 fires the light amplification toggle (a quick tap fires scan ping), even though SC has no "hold to toggle" option for that action.
• No clean macros for SC's toggle actions. SC has actions like v_light_amplification_toggle that only fire on a complete press+release cycle. A sustained vJoy press doesn't trigger them. JG lets you synthesize a clean tap shape from any input gesture.
• Inversion is fragile. Inversion lives in SC's keybind menu by default. It gets reset by reinstalls, patch wipes, fresh installs on a new machine. If you want it to survive any of those, it needs to live somewhere SC doesn't manage.

This profile addresses all four. The next section walks through how.

Included functions¶

Modifier mode — doubles your usable binds¶

Hold the modifier button and every other button on the VMAX + Aeromax fires a different SC action. The extra layer is where most of the niche binds live — engineering controls, advanced view options, vehicle-specific stuff. The chart shows the un-modified action in one color and the modified action in a contrasting color so you can read both layers at a glance.

Mode switching — SCM / Aux / Nav¶

The same physical buttons behave differently depending on which mode you're in. Three core modes:

You switch modes from a dedicated physical button (see the chart). The current mode survives until you switch again — JG holds the mode state, not SC.

Tempo binds — tap vs hold¶

The light-amp / scan-ping pairing on VMAX throttle btn 2 is the canonical tempo bind on this profile. Tap < 0.5s = scan ping. Hold ≥ 0.5s = light amplification toggle. Threshold is 500ms by default.

Tempo binds that wrap a SC toggle action use a 100ms macro tap on the long-action side, because SC's toggles only fire on a complete press+release cycle and a sustained vJoy hold won't trigger them.

Macros — clean tap shapes for stubborn SC actions¶

Whenever a bind needs to produce a "clean tap" for SC regardless of how long the user physically holds the input, it goes through a JG macro: vJoy press → 100ms pause → vJoy release. SC sees a complete cycle and the action fires once. The light-amp hold route on btn 2 runs this pattern through vJoy 1 button 23.

Flat response curves on every map-to-vJoy axis¶

Every axis-to-vJoy mapping in the profile uses a baseline linear response curve. There's no curve-shaping going on for control feel — SC handles per-axis sensitivity in its own UI, that's the right place for it.

The reason for the explicit curve isn't sensitivity. It's inversion durability. JG's response curve carries the inversion flag. By living in JG instead of SC's keybind menu, inversion survives:

• SC reinstalls
• Patch resets
• Fresh installs on a new machine
• The wipe (when CIG nukes character data and bindings on a major release)

If your inversion is in SC, you reset it every time. If it's in JG, you set it once and it travels with the profile.

The 4.8.0 release strips out the SC-side <options type="joystick"> invert overrides earlier versions of these binds shipped. Inversion is now exclusively a JG concern. SC's keybind menu Invert toggles can stay at game defaults — JG handles the rest.

MFD bind fix (workaround for SC bug)¶

The shipped Fix MFD Binds [ENH][VMAX+AERO][4.8.0][LIVE].bat script puts them all back. Workflow:

1. Load the VMAX+AERO layout in-game (Customization → Control Profiles → Use this profile).
2. Fully close Star Citizen and the RSI Launcher.
3. Double-click the .bat. Pick your SC channel at the prompt (LIVE / PTU / EPTU / HOTFIX / TECH-PREVIEW).
4. Launch SC. MFDs work.

The script:

• Makes a timestamped backup of actionmaps.xml before any change.
• Refuses to run if SC or RSI Launcher is alive.
• Is idempotent — running it twice gives identical results, no double-bindings.
• Self-heals if SC ever nukes the entire vehicle_mfd actionmap by rebuilding the block from scratch.

If you'd rather rebind manually via SC's keybind UI instead of running the script, here's the table:

Manual fallback — re-bind via SC's keybind menu¶

Physical input labels for these are on the binding chart.

Features and Functions¶

Eye Tracker Targeting¶

My main way to target in Star Citizen is via an eye tracker. Adds to immersion and is way easier than the native binds — look at the target, press a button, locked. For SC, the Tobii Eye Tracker is the one to get:

• Tobii Eye Tracker is the next-generation head + eye tracking option. Unlocks unique features that deepen immersion in Star Citizen, MSFS, DCS, and more. For 5% off, visit https://tobii.subliminal.gg and use code subliminal at checkout. Purchases through that link support the curation of these binds.

Customizing¶

• Different inversion preferences. Every axis on this profile ships with a flat Response Curve action, so flipping one is the same flow everywhere. Open the JG profile, click the device tab for the stick with the axis you want to flip, then click that axis in the input list on the left. The right pane shows the axis's actions — find the Response Curve and click the Invert Curve button in its header (sitting next to the curve-type dropdown). For the change to take effect, deactivate the profile by clicking the blue Activate icon in the toolbar (turns it off), then reactivate it (click it again), then save the profile by clicking the Save icon in the toolbar (the page with a down arrow on it — Ctrl+S doesn't work in JG). Don't touch SC's keybind menu Invert toggles; they're meant to stay at defaults for this profile.

• Common axes that vary by personal preference. A couple of axes come down to taste rather than a "right" setting — flip whichever feels wrong using the Different inversion preferences flow above:

  • Aeromax-R Y axis (pitch) — flight-sim convention is pull-back to climb, but plenty of pilots want push-forward. Both are valid; pick what your muscle memory expects.
  • Aeromax-R twist (yaw on the grip's rZ rotation) — splits the same way. Some users want it mirrored from however it ships.

• Swap which axis drives which action. If you'd rather route an axis to a different SC action — e.g. Aeromax-R X → Roll instead of Strafe Lateral, or yaw on the twist instead of a rudder pedal — that's an SC-side rebind, not a profile edit. In game: Options → Keybindings → Advanced Controls Customization → [the axis category, usually Flight Movement]. Find the action you want re-routed (Roll, for example), clear the existing joystick binding, then add a new one and move the joystick axis you want assigned — SC captures the input. Save the keybind profile before exiting so the rebind survives launches. Most users know this flow; if it's new to you, it takes about ten seconds per axis.

• Tweak tempo timing. A "tempo" is a JG action that fires one thing on a quick tap and a different thing on a held press of the same physical input — a duration threshold (in seconds) is what decides which side runs. Several binds in this profile use tempos. To adjust one, find the tempo action in the JG library and update its duration value. Lower means a briefer hold counts as a hold; higher means you have to commit longer before the hold-side fires.

Known Issues¶

JG R14 macro-editor "X Axis" rendering bug¶

Project-wide — affects every stick in this pack. When you open a macro action in Joystick Gremlin R14's editor, the input-type dropdown on <vjoy> rows can render as "X Axis" even when the underlying XML correctly says Button. Visual-only — confirmed by saving from this state and byte-comparing the resulting XML, identical to before. The macro fires real button presses in-game regardless of what the dropdown shows.

If you see it: ignore it. Don't try to "fix" the dropdown unless you know what you're doing — saving from a misclick might commit the wrong type. Trust the in-game behavior. Reported upstream to WhiteMagic.

Right-stick btn 3 macro chain (pre-existing)¶

The right-stick btn 3 macro chain is buggy — pre-existing from the R13 source. Per the chart's "Flip Trigger Up = Exit Missile Mode" note, the intent was clear, but the implementation has two issues: the macro's activation-mode=both fires it on physical press AND release of btn 3 (doubling the toggle so the net effect is no change), and the toggle-based actions (v_toggle_missile_mode + v_toggle_guns_mode) are state-sensitive — they only do "exit missile mode" if you're already in missile mode. On the to-do list for a cleanup pass.

Troubleshooting¶

Common Enhanced bind issues and their fixes live in the Enhanced Binds FAQ in the Discord.

Common joystick / Star Citizen issues and their fixes live in the Peripheral FAQ in the Discord.

Binding Charts¶

Online chart viewer¶

The VMAX + AERO chart viewer on subliminal.gg lets you browse the chart in a browser — handy when you're learning the binds and don't want to keep flipping back to a PDF.

Printer-friendly binding chart¶

The chart labeled [Print] has a white background to conserve ink for people who'd like to print it.

Open Source Notice¶