Well, not really a "joystick" in the traditional sense, but a Dualshock 2.

The story goes like this: When I was at work on Tuesday, I had a lot of spare time because it's late in the month, so I fired up Wing Commander 1 and had some fun...until I got to McAuliffe 3, which is four Krants, three Salthi, and Bhurak Starkiller (also in a Salthi) versus you, your wingman, and a helpless Drayman. While I was at work, I was strugging with the way the game accept keyboard input. For example, I was not able to manuever, fire guns, and use the afterburner all at once, which resulted in my being completely unable to keep up with the enemy fighters as they trashed the Drayman. I tried that mission maybe half a dozen times at work.

At home, I did some creative control mapping to my Dualshock 2. (arrow keys to the D-pad for precision adjustments, Spacebar to R1, Enter to L1, L to R2, Tab to L2, T to Square, in addition to standard mappings of the left stick for the primary joystick X/Y axes, Triangle as button 1,and Circle as button 2.) This resulted in far better results; I've played 14 missions so far, and the only one I accepted failure on (because it was just too damn frustrating) was the one where you have to save the captured Ralari-class destroyer.

I'm going to test a similar scheme in Privateer, except using the D-pad for VDU cycling because having the joystick turned on disables maneuvering with the arrow keys.

I'm normally a keyboard guy, but for this series I needed a joystick. I tried the mouse controls before too, the controls still didn't feel right. So I dug out my old Logitech joystick which I bought years ago and never used. It took a little getting used to, but I had a blast with the games in the end, especially Privateer. :)