After almost giving up on War Thunder due to not being able to aim precisely with my joystick due to nose wobble, I just wanted to let everyone know that I finally achieved a HUGE break through with my aiming. Instead of regularly scoring in the bottom third in my tier 4-6 level AB matches, I now am mostly scoring at least in the upper middle (with around two or three kills and three assists being an average game) and I have semi-regular placements in the top three. The result of my improvement was the direct result of spending a lot of time in the test flight mode playing with joystick controller settings (and also experimenting with the mouse aim mode). I would practice lining up on ground targets as fast as possible and then trying to keep my aiming reticle pinned to the target without inducing wobble. Here is what I learned:
1. The mouse and keyboard acts like a fly-by-wire flight system on an inherently unstable aircraft. The flight instructor adds minute levels of control input on all three axes to create a silky smooth flight and aiming experience. Flying with the joystick is like turning off the fly-by-wire system and the pilot has to fight against an inherently unstable aircraft by making the minute corrections for himself. It is literally a trivial task to keep targets pegged with the mouse whereas it takes considerable practice with a joystick to simply keep your reticle pegged steady.
2. For the joystick pitch axis especially, you need to decrease sensitivity and increase non-linearity (from the completely linear setting of 1.0) to help overcome the unstable wobble of the aircraft. (This is the main tip that others make to help make flying with the joystick more manageable.) You have to find the right trade-off between finding good stability without sacrificing too much maneuverability. In addition, minute rudder/yaw adjustments are really necessary to keep a target pegged, and sudden and large changes in rudder input can cause a large wobble. Most recommend have a very low sensitivity setting for the rudder. I would not recommend trying to fly with a joystick unless you also have a rudder axis input via either the joystick or separate pedals. I also recommend tweaking your control settings with one of the more unstable aircraft like the P-39.
3. With a joystick (and unlike the mouse), you have to carefully guide in your reticle to your target. As the reticle closes in on the target, you have to gently ease off of the joystick. Any large change in joystick input can immediately cause a wobble effect which can cause the pilot to give an overcompensating correction which results in a fishtailing effect which completely screws precise aiming. It takes a significant amount of time to develop the muscle memory to achieve precise aiming with a joystick and different aircraft have different levels of instability in War Thunder which complicates aiming further. Seemingly, I never had to develop this type of muscle memory like this for the numerous other flight sims I have played in the past.
4. I had my first big success with the Ki-45 Otsu and other heavy fighters in AB. What I noticed is that while the Ki-45 was very unmaneuverable, it had very silky smooth aiming that was very close to the mouse aim experience. I also noticed that I really struggled aiming with the very maneuverable fighters like the BF-109 and Spitfire. These planes can change their nose direction very fast but any large controller input change immediately causes a large nose wobble. I learned that when flying these small fighters, you need to seriously resist the temptation to make large changes in control input with the target near the aiming reticle, and small fighters can be as smooth as the large fighters with practice by not overflying them. Many people complaining about wobble in WT do not realize that their aggressive flying style is the primary factor most responsible for the wobble--I certainly was in this camp at first. Again, flying individual planes in test flight and practicing lining up on random ground targets without inducing wobble can pay big dividends in the arenas.
5. AB flying mode has an unrealistic level of yaw nose authority. One thing I recently learned to do is to carve out slight arc lines in front of my air target moving horizontally to me by moving primarily my rudder pedals. Around half of my air kills use this unrealistic rudder technique. (Is this one reason why mouse aim is so deadly in AB?)
6. I have seen many other joystick users say that HB (and FB) flight modes have a reduced nose wobble problem, but in my own limited experience, I do not think this is true. For example, I test flew the P-40 in both HB and AB modes and the P-40 is very stable in AB but not in HB. Whether or not nose wobble is better in FB/HB or AB often depends on the individual plane’s flight modelfor each level of realism.
7. I have found the Realistic controller mode to be slightly more stable than the Full Aircraft Controls mode. The main difference for air combat is that Realistic control mode has an auto pitch function while you must manually set pitch trim (and also roll and rudder trims) with Full Aircraft Controls. However, others have argued that Full Aircraft Controls are more stable (or provides better maneuverability/power) so I recommend trying both out to see which one you like the best. I have found that using Full Aircraft Controls can result in the stick being further away from its physical center during combat which can interfere with the non-linearity setting you are familiar with. Do not fly in Simplified Controls mode--you do not want the flight instructor messing with your flying.
8. Avoid using third person view to aim and shoot. People have reported that aiming in third person view is often off-center and it can exacerbate control input overcompensation. I like to fly in the virtual co*ckpit mode 100% of the time with TrackIR. GrmlZ, a very competent joystick user with many War Thunder instructional videos, likes to maneuver around in third person for better situational awareness (without a TrackIR system) and then switches to virtual co*ckpit right before he aims and shoots. On the other hand, others seem to do quite well using third person view, so be aware of this potential problem and judge for yourself if you really like third person view. Full co*ckpit view restricts viewing under the nose which makes lining up shots more difficult so I do not recommend this mode for best aiming unless you are playing FRB
Learning how to control my joystick was a huge learning curve for me but the reward has been one of my most gratifying gaming experiences. I have gone from only being able to get very short bursts into air targets to frequently being able to maintain two to three second hits, and I still have a lot of room to improve. Hopefully, I will not fall back into the bottom third in match scoring as I progress into more experienced levels, but at least I don’t completely suck at my current level now though!
I hope others find these tips to be useful. Please let me know if you disagree with any of the content or there are any mistakes. Last, do not be afraid to fly AB arena if that gaming mode provides the best gaming experience for you. The conventional wisdom by much of the WT community is that AB is designed for mouse users and you cannot have any real success in AB with a joystick, and this is simply not true.
Edited by relliK
