Hi Mustang -
I've used joypad/gamepads a lot with Blitz3d and blitzplus (they work the same in both).
Usually the left thumbstick returns values to the joyx() and joyy() commands, the buttons are simply detected with joyhit/joydown as normal (except there are more buttons - abut 12 I think).
The right thumbstick varies from game pad to game pad as to what functions it uses to get the input. Not only that but it can return different values (ie not just from -1 to 1). It also depends if the gamepad is in analog or digital mode. Commonly the right thumbstick is polled using the joyz(), joyroll() commands although it may be joypitch() or joyyaw() sometimes (depending on controller). The values can range from being -1 to 1 or 0 to 1 or -180 to 180 - it depends a lot on the controller.
The little D-Pad is often the same as the left thumbstick in digital mode but in analog is polled using joyhat() which returns a single value between 0 and 360 depending on direction pushed.
Possibly the best free code sample is the one right in the docs themselves which simply outputs the value of each of the 'joyxxx'() commands to the screen:
it looks something like this:
Graphics 800,600,0,2
Repeat
Cls
Text 0,0,"X:"+JoyX()
Text 0,15,"Y:"+JoyY()
Text 0,30,"Z:"+JoyZ()
Text 0,45,"U:"+JoyU()
Text 0,60,"V:"+JoyV()
Text 0,75,"X Dir:"+JoyXDir()
Text 0,90,"Y Dir:"+JoyYDir()
Text 0,105,"Z Dir:"+JoyZDir()
Text 0,120,"U Dir:"+JoyUDir()
Text 0,135,"V Dir:"+JoyVDir()
Text 0,150,"Yaw:"+JoyYaw()
Text 0,165,"Pitch:"+JoyPitch()
Text 0,180,"Roll:"+JoyRoll()
Text 0,195,"Hat:"+JoyHat()
Flip
Until KeyDown(1)
EndGraphics
End
EDIT - sometimes in digital mode the right thumbstick actually causes the joydown() to return a '1' value for some buttons when moved (well it does on mine anyway - pushing it up/down causes joydown(1) to return a value.
Regarding force feedback - I've no idea if it works with a steering wheel, it does work with a single joypad but from memory I read a while ago in the forums there are problems with force feedback on multiple gamepads (not a concern to most people) and that it can be a little unreliable (although can't verify this).
EDIT 2:
Blitz doesn't seem to detect a gamepad or joystick which is connected after the game starts - it has to be connected to the PC before starting the game. A little annoying if you have a game where you want people to just plug their gamepad in and join in at any time.