The HOTAS thing sounds like an issue I've been having for about a month and two weeks now.

Is it the rudders that are not activating by any chance? Rudder controllers have been broken (and I mean true broken as the "steamdeck and controllers" update has rendered them unusable for the last few updates. very frustrating on my end)

If it's the Hotas itself, have you tried pushing a button on the controller? Thats the new method as of that update.

You can also go into steam and right click the game, go into property's and hit verify game integrity.

That'll scan the game and check if any of the game files got damaged and fix them.

Just a theory but maybe the new controller activation system got damaged in the crash. Not 100% on that but it would cause such an issue. Its not the first time I've seen that problem

mainly because it's come up allot with the rudder issue

Is it specifically Axis 3 that is broken? I saw a few people talking about how it was a problem with using multiple controllers. Personally, I use a Saitek (Logitech) system, so the rudder pedals are separate from the yoke and throttle.

no, rudder controllers as a whole won't work because they don't have any buttons on that style controller.

The game as its set up right now listens for a button press to activate and tell axis are in use. Pretty much due to the game listening to buttons instead of axis it broken the functionality all together.

This kills me because you can't have a correct feeling flight setup without a set of rudders, and I have a set of saitek proflight pedals I can't even use right now because of the issue.

It just downright kills me because that how I play this game.