I keep having this same issue and I can't get through the cold start checklist (F-14). It is a wireless USB mouse, but the mouse works just fine. When I hit ESC the mouse pointer reappears. When I resume it disappears and I can't operate the necessary switches to get through the checklist. I'm confident this is a legitimate bug in the game unrelated to user hardware. I'm using DCS World Steam version 2.8.4.39731 on Windows 11.