Joystick compatibility...

[THE STIG]

Really love this game and would love to know if it's compatible with joystick control? Also if so, which joysticks would you recommend?

[xSOSxHawkens]

Yes, joysticks work.

No you should NOT use them (unless you only play Sim battles).

Joystick controll in this game was very good back when it first went open Beta, which is why if you look up reviews on the game when it went pulic it was seen as a great flight game that bordered on Sim quality.

Only one problem, most players use a Mouse, AKA 2-axis movment, and planes require 3 axis of controll. This meant that when Mouse Aimers went against Joysitck users they regualrly got out manuvered becuase we had full 3 axis controll and they didnt.

They cried like babies about it being unfair.

Gaijin Nerfed teh crap out of Joysticks to the point they were almost broken.

Then they denied it for months.

Then they admitted joystick were having problems, but claimed it was accidental and it would be fixed "soon".

Then they spent 1.5 years "fixing" the jostick issues one axis at a time...

Now they say its fixed, but it is not. Wobble is still a major issue, making it overly dificult to be competitive as a Joystick player vs Mouse Aimers in AB or RB. The problem is not fixable from what I have been told by people in the know. It comes down to the basic fact that even when using Joystick, rather than having direct controll of you airplane you are still being forced into the virtual pilot, the computer reads the data from the stick and has thevirtual pilot figure out what to do with it. Its more accurate in terms of responce than the Mouse, but it has a limmited polling rate, which results in the plane semming to woble under fine movments becuase the program does not poll the changes in stick postion fast enough to be smooth.

They cant increase the polling rates to a level that produces smooth play with a Joystick, without casuing high overhead in the CPU. They cant let us have true direct controll, becuase that backend was striped from the game engine when the current Mouse Aim model was added.

See here for a comparison on Joystick Use vs Mouse Aim, its a bit old but last I tested (about 3 months ago) I was able to replicate the results exactly. The last half of the vid however is on a glitch with the aut-trim that has been corrected, so you can ignore that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbdOAJuMgTc

Jump to the 4:30 mark if you want to skip a bit of talking and loading screens.

[MR.italie]

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate this guide, at least I won't waste money for "better control"

[Bibliophylax]

yes the woble, some planes are more affected than others, this is also why you can drift a plane on the ground

[Warlock]

Originally posted by MR.italie:

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate this guide, at least I won't waste money for "better control"

one more caveat though: you can use the Throttle portion of a HOTAS in Mouse-aim mode (Arcade/"Realistic"), and that can be very useful and fun.

[Valkyrie]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Yes, joysticks work.

No you should NOT use them (unless you only play Sim battles).

Joystick controll in this game was very good back when it first went open Beta, which is why if you look up reviews on the game when it went pulic it was seen as a great flight game that bordered on Sim quality.

Only one problem, most players use a Mouse, AKA 2-axis movment, and planes require 3 axis of controll. This meant that when Mouse Aimers went against Joysitck users they regualrly got out manuvered becuase we had full 3 axis controll and they didnt.

They cried like babies about it being unfair.

Gaijin Nerfed teh crap out of Joysticks to the point they were almost broken.

Then they denied it for months.

Then they admitted joystick were having problems, but claimed it was accidental and it would be fixed "soon".

Then they spent 1.5 years "fixing" the jostick issues one axis at a time...

Now they say its fixed, but it is not. Wobble is still a major issue, making it overly dificult to be competitive as a Joystick player vs Mouse Aimers in AB or RB. The problem is not fixable from what I have been told by people in the know. It comes down to the basic fact that even when using Joystick, rather than having direct controll of you airplane you are still being forced into the virtual pilot, the computer reads the data from the stick and has thevirtual pilot figure out what to do with it. Its more accurate in terms of responce than the Mouse, but it has a limmited polling rate, which results in the plane semming to woble under fine movments becuase the program does not poll the changes in stick postion fast enough to be smooth.

They cant increase the polling rates to a level that produces smooth play with a Joystick, without casuing high overhead in the CPU. They cant let us have true direct controll, becuase that backend was striped from the game engine when the current Mouse Aim model was added.

See here for a comparison on Joystick Use vs Mouse Aim, its a bit old but last I tested (about 3 months ago) I was able to replicate the results exactly. The last half of the vid however is on a glitch with the aut-trim that has been corrected, so you can ignore that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbdOAJuMgTc

Jump to the 4:30 mark if you want to skip a bit of talking and loading screens.

I tried using my HOTAS Warthog which works for every game i tried using it for, even BSGO. War thunder didn't even assign the axes correctly so some only had one half existing. Not to mention i couldn't use thrust control since the game decided to ignore that device entirely.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Well, this is kinda sad.

Havent been active in WT in a long time, but they *always* promised that they would fix the joystick controls and get them back to where they were pre-screw up. Just another one of the long list of things promised to long-term players and then pooped on by the publisher in the name of money making. lol #cutoffdates #joystickswillbefixed #secretdocs

Gotta love how much they respect their long time players comparatively to the fresh meat that might bring fresh dough.

Nice to know that ~8 years latter they still dont have it working proper. Thank you all for the update haha.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Sad part is, every time I think about trying it out again, and try and work myself past being turned off from the game due to all the publishers broken promised to their player base...

I would be headed back in with a joystick in hand. Because screw playing a flight sim with a keyboard and mouse.

I had at least held out hope that in nearly a decade of active development they might have fixed one of the biggest concerns about the game from Sim and enthusiast players views : /

The responses here seem to indicate not.

[arni.gamexeon]

so, eventhough if i have Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, it will be still there is lots of trouble when flying the airplanes/helicopters in arcade/realistic battles mode ??

[magazine2]

Originally posted by MR.italie:

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate this guide, at least I won't waste money for "better control"

Whilst I appreciate that this thread may have helped you, we don't really want a thread that hasn't seen a post in 8 year old popping up. If you'd like to discuss this, feel free to create a new thread here to get a discussion going. Thank you!