Some people in sim do use flight sticks, however, most do not produce force feedback, so I find it rather unnecessary for a certain degree of people who would find it very helpful. So there is a want but if you don’t have the space just by a flight stick.
It depends a lot on the price and the size of the full equipment.
For civil flight sims, I would like to invest in a FFB yoke (less buttons is not that problem) but you’re against to Brunner and Simionic. In my case, I’m going to wait as I bought the Thrustmaster Boeing yoke which is actually good with all the springs (quite close to the 172 even without FFB) but it lacks the feeling of the stability of the air or the rising heat and small turbulence (sim program side).
For air combat sims, I think a stick style with FFB would be better with a lot of buttons (I’m using the Virpil MongoosT-50CM2 Grip which Its very useful for modern and WW2 aircrafts)
I also said that it depends on the size as storing the yoke is quite important. In my case I can store my joystick (Virpil with extension) below my Throttle table and change it to the Yoke, but anything bigger than that would be a problem.
I use a G940 joystick which has force feedback - I use alternate rudder and throttle controls because the G940 kinda sucks, the only reason I use the stick is the force feedback is clutch, especially for setting trim.
I have a yoke too (with no force feedback) and I would use it for bombers if WT let you set up specific controls for specific aircraft - it’s a PITA to change it back and forth
Thank you for your reply. Brunner and Simionic are great for small civilian airplanes.
I am indeed targeting WW2 aircraft, military aircraft and large civilian aircraft (Boeing, as Airbus uses sticks). The hardware storage issue is a problem, but my yoke is more for cockpit building and replicas. The issue with all of that ones you mentioned is that they lack the movement of that long column. I fly virpil MongoosT-50cm2 with alpha gripand with extension when i fly Il2. I like that long precise movement of the stick, but miss the force feedback.
If you are still in the process of choosing a FFB controller to use in War Thunder, I suggest you think carefully about your choice, as only a few devices are able to work with the way FFB is implemented in this game. This requires a specially adapted driver for this specific implementation. After following this thread for several months, it seems that there are currently two FFB controllers on the market that work with War Thunder: Rhino FFB from VPForce and FFBeast. Additionally, homegrown devices based on open source software do not seem to have this problem either. Logitech G940 also seems to have no problems with this, but its availability can be problematic. Search the internet for the phrase “force feedback war thunder” and see what a circus it all is. Dozens of topics, including in Gaijin support, that have not had any response for months or even years. There are companies that advertise and sell their devices as having full support for War Thunder, and after purchasing it, it turns out that in War Thunder you can use your not-so-cheap purchase as a regular controller with a steel spring and only a vibration function.