Hello,

I've heard, that the older space simulators, like the Independence War series, are most enjoyable with joysticks. I already have an Xbox 360 controller, but I wonder how good it is compared to a joystick. Is joystick is a must, or my current device is good enough for these games?

Can you use a controller with one hand? You must have one hand for the keyboard but maybe it could be setup with voice control instead if there are enough buttons on that controller thing, something I do not know never having owned one.

Have you looked here: https://www.i-war2.com/ ?

EDIT much later: I think voice command + pedals + a good controller should work.

I looked around on the GOG forum, and there are posts about using a controller. There were some pictures about the control profiles, and they look good, but I didn't tried them so far.
A controller have two analog sticks (can also function as buttons) that can be controlled by thumbs, and there are 8 buttons and a D-pad.
I tried it in a couple of flight simulators, and they are better than the keyboard and mouse combo, but a joystick is different in the aspect, that it is directly designed to be used in flight and space simulators (and in older Mechwarrior games, as I heard).
I only wonder, how different experience the joystick is compared to the controller.