I'm using the mouse+keyboard but even at maximum movement, I have trouble getting it to turn at the speed i need on the mouse. any recommendations?
edit: also forgot to ask. Is a joystick really worth it for this game. I don't want to go out and buy one just for this. And if it is really necessary does anybody have a good cheap one that gets the job done?

which descent are you talking about ?
descent 3 has commandline options.
descent 1 which uses dosbox I think can be tweaked by editing the sensivity option in dosbox.conf

its 1

go to the directory where descent 1 is installed
look for a file with the .conf extension.
open it.
search for the sensivity=100 line
increase the 100 to something else (400 for example)
save the file.
run the game again.

T-y Lot works well now ;)

I'm in the same boat as metalhead0043. I've upped the sensitivity in all 3 .conf files, and they don't seem to help with the mouse. (This is for Descent 1). The keyboard controls react well, but using it for navigation is just too difficult.
Anyone else having this problem (in XP)? Has this solution worked for others?

Go into the mouse settings in your Control Panel and max them out. And if you're into it, enable mouse acceleration (or mouse smoothing or whatever it's called) .
I think DOSBox should react to these settings and the game's sensitivity should increase appropriately.

oops! Sorry, I didn't mean to post D: I can't seem to find the delete feature on this forum...

Edit: nevermind, my bad.
Thanks Qbix. :)

So I've tried increasing the sensitivity line and that just does not seem to fix the mouse sensitivity issue. still have to move my mouse almost four times across the mouse pad to turn even 180 degrees

I still don't know how to manually manipulate this, but I've tried adjusting the sensitivity in windows and in the game and it does nothing. It's too damn slow.

GOG needs to fix this.