Unity based games unplayable for many flight sim users

Just getting in early for any idiots that want to say it... "Unplug your joysticks" is not an option for someone with a disability that can't be crawling around under a desk on a whim.

On to the issue.

For years Unity based games have had an issue where inputs are messed up for people who have a couple of flight sim joysticks plugged in.
The issue is that non commanded inputs are happening in the games and menus.
It seems Unity is accepting Joystick input regardless of weather the user wants to use a joystick or not.

Examples of games with issues that effect me currently...
Meeple Station
Yet Another Zombie Defense
Yet Another Zombie Defense HD
Fallout Shelter

These are the only Unity based games i have installed, and the issue effects all of them, a 100% failure rate.

There are a bunch of other games I'd like to buy, but can't as this issue is pretty much guaranteed to make them unplayable.

One right off the bat is Cloudpunk... watched some of the art in the development of that... alas i'm 99% sure it will be unplayable for me.


What's wrong, how to fix it.

In my case i have...
Thrustmaster Warthog Joystick
Thrustmaster Warthog Throttle
MFG Crosswind pedals

In Meeple station it causes permanent scrolling up in lists making it impossible to scroll down a list (ie to select a profession)

In YAZD it causes perment scrolling of the buy menu making it impossible to purchase upgrades and spend skill points.

In Fallout Shelter if causes the game to scroll up and left and stick in that corner of the screen.


Seems the engine is taking input from one, some or many of my joysticks.
If i press my left toe brake on the MFG pedals to just the right position (~ 50%) the permanent scrolling eases for a moment, so clearly the engine is capturing that input and using it, weather i want it or not.

It did take me a while to pin down the issue, i think it affects many many users, but the way the issue presents itself it could appear as if it were some glitch of unknown cause, and dismissed as unusable and moved on.

I suspect many have suffered this and not known the cause, and hence this issue has little to no representation.

We need Unity to step up and provide a fix for this.
No game or engine should simply take joystick input from a random axes and use it without offering the user a choice.

I'd love to hear from game devs and Unity themselves on this.

For the game devs I'm left unable to play your games.
I've had the dev of YAZD deny the issue exists, but i can prove it does.
That said i don't think it is that devs fault, i know little of game development, but i suspect it is something the engine is trying to do unbeknownst to the dev and player.

Again, really keen to hear back on this.
I'd love to see this problem fixed, it shouldn't have to be worked around.

If my descriptions are inadequate i'll try to capture some narrated in game video.

Cheers,
Virt.

 

Still an issue in 2024.
Was really keen to play Scanner Sombre today but couldn;t move past the main menu.
Make me really cautious when purchasing games now.
Unplugging and re-pluggin all the time is not practical in my situation.

Meeple Station...
- seems playable mostly now until some types of lists show.

Yet Another Zombie Defense HD
- can now progress into the joypad settings menu and disable all joypad input
after this the game is perfectly playable, but this needs to be done every time i launch the game.

New game trying out...

Scanner Sombre
Mouse seems unable to select any menu items, though i did seem to accidently click on new game once and was stuck inside what looked like a tent and moving only in circles (possibly the direction of one of the very many axis i have connected to my PC?) Had to force the game closed.

Really sucks that Unity assumes all joystick type devices might be appropriate for input.