I'm thinking of buying all or some of the X-wing series games, but I'm worried about the difficulty(I meant difficult as in difficult to control, not difficult missions) since I'm not much of a hardcore sim player. Where would you put each of the X-wing series game's controls difficulty on a scale of 5, with 5 being modern hardcore sims like star citizen, elite dangerous, DCS, IL2 BoX, and falcon 4.0, and 1 being modern arcady games like EA star wars battlefront 1/2, battlefield, etc?

Also, should I but the Steam version or the GOG version?

Thanks.

P.S. I already have a joystick.

The biggest difficult in the game when you first start playing them will be managing the energy for the ship (shields/lasers). The slower moving ships like the Y-Wing take a little while getting used to, as you can't really dodge very effectively, particularly when you have multiple enemies on you. You learn though fairly quickly, and once you feel confident in your abilities, you can attempt to take out even the Star Destroyers on your own with just an X-Wing.

In TIE fighter, most of the fighters you fly at the begining have no shield capability, so it only takes a couple of shots to take you out. You learn to dogfight much quicker in this game, and taking out capital ships in an Interceptor - though difficult at first - is not impossible.

The controls are the same in each game. Probably only 5 or 6 controls will be used 95% of the time. The control scheme is not difficult at all. It's more arcade style than simulation style.

Does anyone have any more answers?

Start with Tie Fighter: it has plenty of tutorials, difficulty levels (selectable in the options menu recalled by pressing ESC on the main inferface) and cheat options that while they deprive you of points IIRC do not block progression.

X-wing is NOT recommended if you worry about difficulty, even with the manuals the game is much more opaque and the mission design is often rather unfair, if you are going to try it I suggest you do after Tie Fighter.

Only keep in mind that the tutorials and training aren't incorporated in the main campaign ("battles") but in sections called "Combat Chamber" (which also allows to replay the missions from the campaign you already unlocked) and "training simulator".
The CD versions comprised in the GOG and Steam package also have a handful of save files with everything already unlocked (the same is true for X-wing but the other points a about difficulty still stand).

Also I suggest you use the DOS cd version as the windows CD version at times is more difficult.

The other good point to start is X-wing Alliance but I always got the impression that it doesn't as good a job for new players and it doesn't help that you need to use a workaround for playing with a mouse if you don't have a controller like all the windows games in the series.

X-wing vs Tie Fighter has some balancing issues, while it has plenty of single player content it is balanced primarily for multiplayer and that makes it more difficult than TF and XWA, but still more fair than X-wing somehow.

First, I want to say thanks for your answer. Now I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I did emphasize that I was talking about CONTROLS(and general gameplay) difficulty, not missions difficulty or balance-related difficulty. And I have a joystick, so problems related to not having joysticks don't apply to me.(added joystick info to first post)

Ha, fair enough.
There are less controls in X-wing but overall it's more difficult because the low resolutions makes most fighters become invisible and there are no targeting brackets/boxes to tell you exactly where they are other than "vaguely in front of you", it's better in the windows version BUT it's a heavily stripped down version when it comes to presentation. Tie Fighter has more controls but the controls themselves are usually helpful quality of life things (like a button to review mission objectives for example, or another for a more detailed target view that allows to see for example how much time will it get for that ship you are escorting to go into hyperspace), XvT has more or less the same controls as TF, XWA adds a few controls for transports and introduces some HUD menus (also introduces laser convergence which makes aiming a bit less difficult).
When it comes to joystick controls, avoid the floppy version of X-wing because it has some input problems, che CD version solves them.

Analog throttle control is not supported in X-wing and Tie Fighter, that would be introduced in XvT, rudder control is present only XWA (I once used some software trickery to try and enable rudder in the older games but it acts extremely weird).

Thanks a lot.

Added a few things to the post.

An issue with XW and TF I ran into back in the day was the face that when you centered your reticule on a target, I would get some strange issue with the reticule not wanting to stay in that spot. Almost like trying to force two magnets together on the side with the same charge. It may have been my system or could have been an issue with the DOS versions. Not game breaking, but it was annoying when trying to line up a shot with a target at far range.

For your secondary weapons, you can fire them without a lock on the target. Helpful when carrying the heavier ordinance to take out the stationary targets or slow moving targets, and the fighters are all over you.

It's an issue with the engine they used, basically you can't look straight above or below the mission plane, it's the same in all games but the windows titles disguised it better.

X-Wing can get frustrating to be honest, especially after playing something much more streamlined like Freespace. It requires pixel perfect aim against all TIE opponents and, coupled with the fact that ships tend to jitter around in an odd way, it makes a lot of ships dodge laser shots in point blank range (And has me shouting "this is bullshit" at the screen quite a few times).

If by controls you're only reffering to how many buttons you need to press and manage, then there are really not much and I'd say it's fine for people not that acquianted with space sims.