DescentBB

As a mouse player that played only Single Player, but did many missions on Insane skill without saves and deaths,
it is interesting for me to know whether using joystick can considerably improve your control over the ship, shooting accuracy and overall game experience. Because I still see some drawbacks from using a mouse when you need to yaw/pitch constantly like when circling a Fulcrum or doing some sort of circle-strafing maneuver. And if you increase mouse sensitivity in order to reduce movements and number of times you have to raise your mouse off the pad, you lose precision for far- away targets. My mouse is the cheap vertical mouse with side thumb buttons that I use for banking (so at least I can move, slide, bank and shoot at the same time). This one :


Any input is welcome including one concerning multiplayer mouse vs Joystick use.

Both have advantages and disadvantages. Joystick is easier to keep up a constant turn with, and gives you somewhat more freedom of movement in a dogfight. Mouse gives you better aiming accuracy, although you probably need a high-DPI mouse and/or a large mousepad to get that without sacrificing turning speed.

In multiplayer, again both can be used, but at least in lower-latency games the mouse's advantages are easier to make use of.

Some of the best players I've ever gone up against were mouse players, although a couple of them could also fly joystick and you basically couldn't tell the difference. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages like Sirius said, the joystick gives you unlimited freedom of movement while the mouse is more precise for aiming.