Hello,
There is joystick support in the game, that I know,
but mostof those joysticks listed are so old, most people don't have them.
I use a Saitek cyborg EVO force stick, but whichever configuration I chose, the mech is just rotating endlessly to the right, even after callibration.
Any ideas how to fix this?

Sadly, I'm in the exact same situation. Made a post about it, but haven't gotten a reply.

im in the same situation.. just happened to remember one of my favorite games ever today.. shattered steel(going old school). drove about 30 minutes to buy a joystick..cuz how the hell u supposed to play this game proper without a joystick?! . It is quite unfortunate that when i bought a universal new age joystick(USB and all). i came back and its doing the same thing the previous post is talking about. i tried all the other configs. i would ask my dad to mail me my old joystick...if its even around anymore.. too bad its got different inputs for my laptop, and even if it did have the right plugs, would it even work?! interplay......GOG.com......help us out!!!! i know 5.99 is a small amount of money to u all but its NOT TO ME! damn! i bought your game online because i probably wasnt going to find it anywhere else (because u guys had raptor 2:call of the shadows as well!!) unless u guys want to suggest another website to go to for us, to buy the games proper, you help out and you guys get a tech on this issue and answer a few questions!......... i mean i guess i could be a badass and try to still play the game with a skewed joystick...but why??!! ask yourself this.. otherwise im am DONE with GOG.com
i guess i have to understand that this is an old game. and the plugin may have a problem with that. My main question is, should i take this joystick i bought back and get my 35.00 refunded because it aint gonna a work anyways.........?? because seriously...i bought it solely for shattered steel. let me know folks at GOG.com
Kyosai7... yes this is a sad fact.

I had this problem running some old dos games in DOSBox before. It is a config issue for joystick in DOSBox itself. Go into the Shattered Steel folder, double click dosbox.conf, click "select a program from a list of installed programs" then ok button. Click notepad then ok button. The screen that opens up is the config settings for dosbox that runs this game. Read the top three(3) lines, then scroll down to where it says joystick on the left side. Just below joysticktype is timed=true. Delete "true" and type in false. Exit and save and then run Shattered Steel. If that doesn't work, start experimenting with joystick settings in dosbox.conf until it works. Hope that helps :). You will need some patience. Be sure to read what each setting does first, then try to find the best one to match your joystick.

Yup! I had the same issue as everyone above, as soon as combat starts, the mech starts spinning. Kreedog's solution worked perfect for me, though it took me a bit of time tweaking the in-game options to get the controls I wanted.

This should be sticked to forum for every GOG game that support joysticks. I remember having similiar problems with Red Baron and has no clue how to repair this back then.

I have learned that I have to set [joystick] timed=true to false if I want to use my Logitech dual stick controller properly with almost all DOSBOX games. It worked for me with Shattered Steel, and I also was able to use both sticks when I selected Flightstick Pro in the control options.

Your, Sir, are a legend!
I've copied my settings for EF2000 and for whatever reason had "timed=true" set. I wouldn't have thought of disabling hat!! I can now use my Logitech X52 Pro like a charm, especially after configuring all buttons via the driver software.
Thanks!