I run an event at a gaming convention with a bunch of classic PC games for people to play. I'm going to add Decent to the list of games people can play.

But I'm trying to figure out how to set up the controls. Most of my games are shooters, and so I have to change all the controls to the standard WASD that people are used to; people sit down and expect that.
But I'm not 100% sure what kind of controls people would really "expect" when they sit down to play decent. I honestly haven't played any such game since decent 2 was new. If someone who regularly plays a free-movement flight game sits down for some nostalgic fun-time, what kind of controls would they expect?

So I'd just like to take a poll here: what kind of control scheme do you use for playing Decent?

Joystick. POV hat is strafing, there's a separate throttle switch and several other buttons for other functions (but then I've most recently played the more complex Descent 3). Also having a keyboard for switching to weapons quick is an idea. In fact I don't know if the two-hand joystick thing I'm used to is best at all.

Keyboards are not so great for 6dof games and if you have any kind of budget, and old joystick won't cost much.

This one guy had the idea of using the twist axis for turning and x-axis for yaw which makes all the sense in the world actually. Why didn't I think of that?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/273570/discussions/0/615086038673054182/

I like the movement controls the Rebirth project finally defaulted to.

Q: bank left
W: forward
E: rank right
R: rear view

A: strafe left
S: backward
D: strafe right
F: fire flare

C: strafe up
X: strafe down

I haven't decided on the key setup and ideally a 6dof controller or two joystick setup would be good but even deciding takes thought e.g do you have roll or strafe on buttons or an axis? Other games do different actions using same controls like flight sims where the planes can roll and turn but not strafe.

Controllers like the dualshock with motion sensing should be easier to setup.

Here is a vague setup with keyboard last time I played. Almost like advowson but centred on ESDF instead of WASD giving more keys at the side. If mice were designed a little better you could have had the roll on a tilting scroll wheel.

E - Forward
D - Back

S - strafe left
D - strafe right
W - Roll left
R - Roll right

Up and down could be done in a number of ways. It depends what other games people have played. Some FPS games had the Q to stand up and Z to crouch then prone mechanic.

Q - Up
Z - Down

Space - Up
Z - Down

T - Up
Space or V - Down

or two keys side by side.

I'm using D1X-rebirth and D2X-Rebirth, only utilizing the keyboard (no mouse). Thing is, I'm using both hands for movement. Mouse controls are beyond awkward for fine aiming.
Left hand rests on the default WASD position on the keyboard, the right hand rests on the arrows position.

LEFT HAND:
W: Forward
S: Backwards
A: Strafe left
D: Strafe right
Q: Roll counterclokwise
E: Roll clockwise
Shift: Afterburner
Spacebar: Missiles
Left CTRL: Weapon fire

RIGHT HAND:
Right Shift: Move Up
Right CTRL: Move Down
Arrows: Pitch movement
Numpad 0 -mines

With the above configuration I can strafe-fire on 2 directions: either horizontally i.e. cycling around the enemy while keeping him on my crosshairs on the same plane (combination of A/D and <-/-> while shooting) or vertically i.e. cycling around the enemy on the same "column" (combination of Right Shift/Right CTRL and UP/DOWN arrows).

By strafe-firing at the enemy on two planes (horizontally and vertically) you can literally pulverize robots without them touching you.

P.S. I use the same configuration in the GTA series for helicopter controls and they never failed me.