I'll have you know, with the exception of Privateer and Armada, the Wing Commander series had excellent mouse controls. I played the whole series with the mouse, and I can't understand why anyone would give up the precision of the mouse for a joystick... except when it comes to Privateer and Armada, of course.It's easy enough to run Freelancer with a joystick mouse emulator (practically all of them work) but...it's not worth it. Freelancer was designed to be played using a mouse, and trying to fly ships in Freelancer with a joystick is quite a lot like trying to fly ships in Wing Commander using a mouse. You can do it, but you are aware your controls are less than ideally responsive and it feels like trying to fly while operating the controls using a robotic arm or something.
I'll have you know, with the exception of Privateer and Armada, the Wing Commander series had excellent mouse controls. I played the whole series with the mouse, and I can't understand why anyone would give up the precision of the mouse for a joystick... except when it comes to Privateer and Armada, of course.
Freelancer isn't really a space sim in any event. It's more of a third person hack and slash in space.