I first tried just playing via Mouse/Keyboard combo. The first few seconds of flight are OK. Ship seems responsive but then turns into just a slug. I am toggling travel mode on / off. Tried switching off the 'flight assist' . None of these things help. Once it goes slug mode, it is slug mode until docking and undocking again. Then its responsive for like how ever long. When I say slug mode I mean if i wanted to steer the ship left , I'd swipe the mouse all the way left and the ship would move " " diss much, pick up mouse, and do a nother full swipe left " " dis much ship move, etc etc.

I've adjusted mouse sensitivity etc, no love.

Then I tried my old Logitech Extreme3d Pro (yes OLD) joy stick. Had to program in the controls each individually. Got it all set up. It woooorked sort of. but everytime i went to a map or anything else the map would just start scrolling scrolling scrolling. As though the dead center of the joystick was WAY off (which I had calibrated using the windows 10 joystick calibration settings ) (which is sorta buried in the settings)

I tried adjusting the dead center of the joystick in the game settings , no help.

THEN then joystick just stopped being recognized by the game at all. Doesnt acknowledge it even exists.

Whats the best way to play this game? SHould I get one of those like Xbox controllers? A newer joystick? SHOULD I be able to play this with keyboard mouse (my preference) ????

What IS going on here. I've watched the X4 videos and I know the controls are being WAY more responsive for other people. It is making the game completely unplayable for me.

Sadly no clue. Game must be unplayable like that. I also want to play using mouse and keyboard and am not quite happy with how that workls for me neither but nowhere as hopeless as the OP. I think you need to go look in Egosoft's forum for help.

nvm for now

I prefer keyboard and mouse at the moment, but I'll take a stab at setting up my X52 Pro soon.

When you launch, try pressing 'Shift + Space' to switch into Mouse Steering Mode, otherwise you have to hold the left mouse button to steer. When you go into Travel Mode 'Shift + 1' at first it will control as normal, but as your velocity increases the ship will, quite realistically, become less responsive as it would in real life.

I would also highly recommend mapping a key for STOP (I use CapsLock) as things can get a bit crazy sometimes and you just need to come to a complete stop to regain control and situational awareness.

Backspace is mapped to STOP.

By default yes, but that is not a very convenient key. As I said, moving it to CapsLock works much better in my opinion.

Map the keys to where they are convenient for you, of course. That is always best :-)