How do I *remove* the deadzone? (most threads in here seem to be about adding it).
I would rather even drift a tiny bit when the stick is released, but have the fine resolution when I need it during dogfighting. Right now the deadzone is so huge that it makes it unplayable.

What I tried already:

1) Someone recommended to solve it using the Xpadder software. It's pretty cool. It allows you to map joystick to move the mouse, so you can play even mouse game using joystick. And it even has a "spring" option, which returns your mouse cursor back to 0 when you release the stick. But when I use it in Privateer, it just doesn't work. It doesn't back to 0 (to straight forward) when I release the stick, but I keep drifting like crazy & unable to stop yawing and rolling... so wasted 10$ to buy the Xpadder for nothing...

2) Tried calibrating the joystick (in the game settings) to a smaller area. When it asked me to go fully up-left and hit the button, i went only halfway up&left and same for down&right. But the game didn't accept this. Told me it's wrong and to retry. It forces me to calibrate to the whole area of my stick.

3) I tried playing Privateer Gemini Gold or even the Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and didn't like them.

4) I tried looking into the dosboxPRIV.conf but there are no relevant joystick settings, although it says to read some settings from some mapper-0.74-2.map file, but I can't find that file anywhere... and I'm not even sure, is this crazy huge deadzone a privateer thing, or dosbox thing?

5) Tried playing with mouse and it made me want to kill myself

I have just read on another forum, that the deadzone is hard-coded into the game.
quote: "It shows values from 0-65535 on each axis, with ~32768 being the center. Depending on how I set the response curves, the game seems to ignore values between ~24000 and ~43000. That's more than 1/4th of the total range."
Is there perhaps some Thurstmaster software that would allow me to set the response curve to be really steep around the center, to get through that huge hardcoded deadzone in privateer fast?

Or can't they just repair this in the game? Or are the original source files of the game lost?
It's such a shame... such a great game ruined so unnecessarily, just by not providing a proper joystick calibration options in game...

There is the T.A.R.G.E.T. software from thrustmaster, but I doubt it will override the deadzones in the game.
Maybe you can try making the axis curves more sensitive.
In all honesty this is something that should be adressed in a remake if it ever gets done as all the WC games have pretty bad controls.

By the way, in the dosbox#?.conf make sure timed=false.

Thanks. Making the axis curves more sensitive worked, but not using the TARGET software, because it is just too buggy. (especially the current version. the support adviced me to use the previous one, but at that point i already given up on it and used freeware alternatives - vJoy + Gremlin + HidHide and it worked like a charm.
I just followed these very clear idiot-proof step-by-step instructions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/p55u6o/psa_nononsense_tutorial_to_set_up_joystick/

I had to use the HidHide software too, to hide the unmodded joystick, so that Privateer would find the modded one.

Also had to fiddle with the curves a lot until I found ones which worked well for removing the deadzone, while being stable and also while providing smooth response with good resolution.
I attached a screenshot of the curve I ended up with.
(wanted to attach the Gremlin profile file too, but the forum doesn't allow attaching such file format) That would be so cool. Even just fixing controls & patching the frustrating bits like the fact that you fail a mission if you land during it even for just 5 secs... and of course replacing the in-fight bitmaps with 3D models, especially the asteroids, as getting hit by them is most damaging thing which can happen to you, but they are invisible from distance, making them much harder to notice in advance and dodge calmly in speed... and being just bitmaps makes it also harder to see where exactly they are & where are they going (to be able to dodge or to aim&shoot at them)...and other small things.