For me, I have CH Products Flightstick and pedals, which I'm completely happy with.
But from time to time, I get friends set up for AH to fly with me in AH Scenarios, which sometimes includes me buying them joysticks.
That's what the Logitech 3D is for.
I've just been flying around some with the Logitech 3D today. It seems OK. Very stiff compared to CH Products, especially in roll, but workable. Far better than Saitek Aviator and Cyborg level stuff.
My bad I miss read your original post I got the impression you needed a stick to tide you over until the market unscrews itself.
The Logitech 3d pro I would have to say are worth no more than $75 mabey $80 max. If you can get them for less than 50 go for it as it is the best of the low end twisty sticks. It's even better than the T.Flight Stick, which I actually had two of but unfortunately I gave away both of them for the same reason your looking for a 3d pro. Hopefully at least one of them will give us a new player.
pilotshop.com sometimes has the 3d pro in for $42 USD but are currently have no stock but I think you can 'pre-order'.
mypilotstore.com has the Thrustmaster T.Flight Stick X Joystick instock for $50 usd.
You know I'm thinking maybe some of the old players should form a group to help new players get started, with some one that's been around for a LONG TIME that is In Tight with and trusted by the community taking the lead. You know some one we can dump our old gear on and such that we can trust to make sure the gear makes it to the newbs that really need it.
My CH stick and pedals work fine with AH. I don't want any software between my stick and AH.
The resolution I have currently is totally fine. I don't think I would get any benefit or even notice if it were higher.
However, feel of the stick/springs matters a lot to me. It has a significant impact on my flying precision.
That's where CH Products sticks excel compared to Logitech 3D and Thrustmaster T.16000M.
But for a new guy, who isn't sure if he's going to be in AH for the long haul, or a guy who isn't into AH as much as I am, or doesn't care about such fine points, a Logitech 3D twisty stick is acceptable and cost effective.
CH has Deflection in spades. MY Warbrd Base has 22 degrees of deflection, CH which has a shorter stick than my T50 CM2 Stick, yet it still has the same length of travel till I drop an 5cm extension on my Warbrd. I think CH has 24 degrees of deflection, It's also modeled after the f-16 A-10 stick which gives it a really good feel.
Interesting trivia on "software between my stick and AH"
My old gameport CH gear used an EEPROM so when you programed it with speedkeys it kept it's profile even if you moved it to another computer that does not have the speedkeys software.
The new(er) USB CH gear and Control manager software works the same way but the controller uses RAM not ROM so the Control manager software flashes your controllers like the old gameport gear and speedkeys (CM did it Faster) but since it uses RAM if you unplug it or restart your computer the profile gets lost, This is why the old Control manager software came with CMStart. It would start up with your computer, lunch the manager software software in the background, flash your last used profile back to the controller's ram, and then terminate the manager software. Unfortunately CMstart does not work in win10 to the best of my knowledge. The Control Manager software is a real PITA after XP specially in windows 10 64bit.
When APEM purchased CH they threw gamers under the bus for industrial and commercial customers. They moved manufacturing and assembly to China and Mexico. They stopped selling replacement parts completely, They made absolutely no improvements to their product line, Killed their in house support forum, killed the 'ch hanger' forum, and to add insult to injury they stopped updating and supporting their Control Manager software. You need control manager to program Macros Keybinds and you need to for shift functionality. The Fighterstick, Pro Throttle, and Eclipse Yoke need the control manger for Profile switching functionality as they each support 3 profiles per device.
I gave my old CH gear (Fighter stick, Pro throttle, Pro Pedals) to my Son except my Yoke and Throttle Quadrant. I still have an Extra Fighter stick that had a sticky hat switch (Down Postion would fail to engage) and Pro Pedals that have a broken toe brake data cable (Easy Fix) that I keep around for spare parts. The only reason I don't have an extra throttle is that I got 3 defective ones in a row from amazon that I had to send back this is why I just gave up on CH products and got Virpil, that and I had the money.
Not sure what type of controller interface the 3d pro and t.flight stick x have but CH gear uses either an 8 bit analog pentameter sensors or an 8 bit USB HID controller and that is really harsh in modern games. I actually noticed a slight stutter when I pulled back on the stick as 8 bit controllers can only report 256 positions threw the entire range of the axis. 16 bits gives you 65536 positions through the axis.
My virpil gear has 32 usb HID controllers and 16 bit magnetic Hall sensors and my god it makes a huge difference for the better.
Getting back to software, I can't for the life of me remember if TARGET flashes to ROM/RAM like speedkeys/control manager or if acts as Intermediary software between the controller and the game like joystick gremlin or both.
Joystick gremlin, which is a free non proprietary universal joystick profile keybindings and macro software package, does act as an intermediary between your hardware and game.
I don't think I have ever used software with my Logitech or Saitek twisty sticks, but I don't think they really need it.
