So in light of Star Citizen and the rejuvenation of the space sim genre [and hopefully the air combat genre soon too]:
- Which joysticks will you guys be getting?
- What joysticks do you already have and how would you evaluate them?
- Any recommendations and/or cautions?
What you buy will most likely come down to what you can get and your budget and if there is a particular game you wish to play.
I currently own a Thrustmaster HOTAS X and a CH Products Combatstick and Throttle with a Saitek Cessana pedals. I also have Saitek Cessna yoke and an extra throttle quadrant for general aviation flying too.
For DCS World (flying the A-10C, F-15C and P-51)I turn to my CH products kit. Firstly, it is very precise with no deadzones and that helps massively in dog-fights and with stall recovery. None of the cheaper joysticks I have owned in the past came close but I have heard very good things with regards to the Thrustmaster T1600M in that department. Secondly the CH Pro kit has lots of buttons and hats which allows most commands to be mapped to them.
For more basic games e.g. more arcade and less simulation I find the Thrustmaster HOTAS X works well as most of the games have a profile for it and it has enough buttons for most basic features. It also has a rudder rocker on the throttle and a twist grip that can be disabled if required.
If I were in the market to buy another controller today I would check out the Saitek X55 which retails for around £150 - £180 in the UK. Loads of features and the stick has rudder twist so extra pedals are optional. - I have always found twist grip works well in space games (X beyond the frontier) but I prefer rudder pedals for flight sims.
My CH Pro setup cost almost £200 for just the stick and throttle but requires extra rudder controls. My main reason for buying over the Saitek X52 Pro is that the build quality is the best there is and I had problems several years ago with the quality of a Saitek X45 setup. CH use quality pots and the design has barely changed in a decade and CH offer excellent customer support).
If I was on a budget the T1600M would be on my list, I would probably buy a Saitek throttle quadrant to accompany it to get some extra axis controls for engine/flaps in Propeller sims.
If you have money to burn the A-10 hotas setup is probably worth a look, but again you need to budget for rudder controls.
Look up frooglesim on youtube, he has some great reviews and tutorials (mostly for Saitek kit).
Finally look into TrackIR, if you are playing dog-fighting type games it really helps.
I've got an old serial joystick in the closet...
I bought a saitek x45 off ebay for 20$ with shipping..Just to try it out on star citizen since I have never really flight sim'd..The controller appears to function well, but I don't have anything to compare it to..I am wondering if it will be easier to play SC with some orbweavers or something..Also I am going to make a facetracknoir, or opentrack camera and IRled clip, for very cheap head tracking..Instead of $100+ TrackIR..
I have a saitek X52 I bought a while back, its nice, I wish the suction cups were a little higher quality, and the software doesn't look like it has been updated since 2003, but its not a bad flightstick.
