Sorry if this is the wrong place to post. Thank you for your answers in advance. I appreciate
you taking a look.

This is concerning the game "Air Conflicts Secret Wars" downloaded from Steam. I am running Windows 7 64 bit and using a Saitek ST290 joystick.

After programming the joystick, everything seems to respond except for the throttle lever, and none of the keys indicated in the game will increase or decrease the throttle either, unless I switch over to
control by mouse....a nightmare I would never willingly play.

There just doesn't seem to be any way to get the game menu to "Take" the command to
accept "Lever all the way pushed up" for an "Accelerate" input. I can, for example, push almost any random key on the keyboard, and it WILL accept that input as the Accelerate input. Additionally, almost all of the buttons on the joystick can be set to run the throttle, but that's no good.....this Economy Model joystick has only six buttons, plus a high hat, and I need all the buttons for other functions. (Oh yeah, and nothing is accepting input from the High Hat button)

Additionally, the stick is way too sensitive. The tiniest movement makes the plane bob around like a leaf in a strong breeze. No matter where I set sensitivity, this is the result. It isn't just sensitive, either, it's......WEIRD.

I've experienced this weirdness many times in many other games, usually First Person Shooters, and usually quite old games.....the response is
extremely imprecise. It goes fast for a split second, then slows down
for two seconds, then rushes to catch up. No, that's a poor description.
That sounds like normal Lag, and this isn't quite lag.

For example, if you fire the machine guns, the tracers cut a nice crisp continuous line with no stuttering. But if you move the joystick, the plane itself will sort of hurry, go sloooowww, hurry, hurry...slow, slow, slow.....hurry again.......all microseconds, but MADDENING.

I tested the joystick just now with another older arcade flight game (Secret Weapons Over Normandy, loaded from a CD, not Steam) and performance and response are flawless, including the joystick throttle.

I can't get into the Steam forums to save my life. Steam is insanely security conscious, and it's a HUGE pain. I have a very hard time remembering passwords, and there is a seperate password for my
purchase account and for the forums. I gave up trying to get into the forums again after about the seventh try.. Otherwise, I'd be asking there.

I did of course write to Steam, and they will of course give the usual answer:

Once again we have raped and ripped you off. We knew that this game is broken.
We knew that the publisher either provides no support or is out of business, but we will
still just refer you to them.
We provide no support for our games, we just sell junk that we KNOW won't run, then it's totally your problem, SUCKER!

**** OK, stupid error. You have to push the throttle lever HARD, snap it up or down, and it will enable as "Z", whatever that means, and will now control the plane throttle in game.

Sadly, this is a tough one, and the plane still bobs around so violently with the smallest twitch that the game is pretty much un playable.

I'll uninstall and reinstall and work through the settings again to see if that helps.
But even in mouse mode, it's hard to control the plane, it just overshoots whereever you point it.

The issue may be in the software for your joystick controller. Something you might consider, I really don't know if this will work or not, but the controller when plugged into your computer I imagine is going to be registered as an external hardware device, so you would alter the settings through your hardware menus instead of the game menu.

I don't have this game, and I don't know it, but I thought about some things:

- Can you use the mouse (for the throttle) with your joystick at the same time? if that's the case, using a program like Xpadder, you can set the "not working" stick with the mouse action to do the throttle.

- Or, if you can't, I assume that you can use the keyboard with the mouse to control the game, and again, using a program like Xpadder, you can set your joystick and buttons with the keys and mouse action that you need or want, and also, the sensitivity of the mouse in the sticks. But before doing this, you have to disable the joystick in the game, and set the control only with the keyboard and mouse, so the game won't be using the joystick as a gamepad at the same time that you'll be using it as a keyboard+mouse "emulator".

- Also, even if you can't log-in in the forums, you can still read the threads over there: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1164, maybe you can read some helpful info, like for example, it seems that this game has full support with Xbox 360 controllers.

Xpadder is a great program, but it's not free, and it costs $10. And it's worth it. It can set any action you want from a keyboard and mouse from games that don't support/partially support controllers, create profiles from every configuration you create and even, you can use your gamepad to control your PC in the distant (I use my wireless 360 controller to navigate in the internet, or control my video player, among other things).

I know I wasn't much of a help, but I hope somebody can help you better.

Thanks. As far as I can see, there are no sensitivity setting in the Joystick software menus Thank you. That was mostly just confusing. I did eventually get the game menu to accept the throttle lever by Slamming it hard. However, the biplanes still bob and weave around wildly even with small joystick movement. That is what bothers me. A very similar game, "Secret Weapons Over Normandy" runs perfectly, the planes do just the right amount of movement.
Move the joystick a tiny bit, the plane moves one inch on the screen. In Air Conflicts, move the joystick a tiny bit, the plane moves FOUR inches across the screen.