Unfortunately even if you had a Warthog you would be sadly disappointed. Below is my (now) canned response on the subject.
Buy the HOTAS (you really want the throttle) you most want to use with Star Citizen or something else to justify it's cost, then use it or part of it to play MWO.
Throttle/pedals/mouse is the easiest (not cheapest, easiest) way to have an optimal setup in MWO, with throttle/mouse closely behind and
lefty stick/mouse being the next best down the foodchain. Throttle and turning are nicely implemented (well, except for that *screetch to a halt when you use battlegrid/chat/scoreboard with analog throttle thing) analog controls and as such work quite well with off-the-shelf throttles/joysticks however reticule aim in MWO is not ideally suited to *most joysticks although the issues with 'joystick' are not
because it's a joystick, but rather its what is called a first-order controller while reticule aim in MWO is programmed as a zero-order application (just like moving the cursor in a browser).
zero-order: directly manipulates target/cursor position, single precision action req (also called direct inputs)
first-order: manipulates target/cursor velocity, two precision actions req
Unfortunately a first order controller is objectively disadvantaged in a zero-order environment, but if you want to try a stick that hurdles past all the perceived technical limitations holding back joysticks so you can go about objectively evaluating the viability of joystick for aiming etc before committing real money I recommend a Thrustmaster T16000M ($40) due to it's ability to be controlled by TARGET, providing more flexibility at your fingertips than any games 'joystick support' could ever hope to provide. It's a useful tool in any gamer's toybox actually, precisely
for probing control viability regardless of a title's current state of control implementation.
There
are zero-order joysticks, but unless you make one you likely do not have one. Check out
the stick I built for MWO (descriptions in album) that was made for
my mechpit to see an example.
Despite occasional finger pointing at PGI for lack of 'joystick support' it's not the issue at all, or at best just a distraction that keeps people from figuring out the underlying causes. PGI knows what a joystick is and how to code for it and if they wanted this game to be primarily played with joysticks, but they chose zero-order to appeal to a wider audience. The reason joysticks worked in previous mech titles is simple. They were coded for first-order controls, same reason a normal stick works great in a flight sim. I wrote an article called
Controls Demystified(?) that gets into this in more detail.
*(from ATD40)
Gameplay/Game modes/Meta
Loc Nar: When will the controls be updated to allow the use of chat/scoreboard/battlegrid while using analog throttle?
A: It’s a technical limitation of the engine currently. We’re looking into a way to fix it.
Edited by Loc Nar, 24 June 2013 - 10:09 AM.
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