Ehh, for this one in particular it seems to be heavily designed for HOTAS. I bought it last night and played through the first few trainings. There's no horizontal/vertical thrust (EDIT: Well there is if you're in VTOL mode, but that's not the same as other 6DOF games where you can move in any direction at any time) so the default ship flies more like an airplane. I'm not sure if other ships are closer to 6DOF spaceflight but the fact that you can't even bind controls to H/V thrust outside of RCS mode makes me think they aren't.

It's a cool game though. I really want for more non-combat Newtonian space flight games. I just want to fly ships around and not worry about "credits" and piracy and reputation. Like a BeamNG.drive for 6DOF space simulation.

Have you considered adding drag lube like Nyogel 767A to the base of the joystick and the throttle? I have some very cheap ~~Saitek~~ Thrustmaster sticks that felt like crap, but after adding that lube to them they feel like sticks that cost 600 instead of 60. It improves precision and reduces strain because you need much less muscle force to find and hold a position, not to mention just feeling more premium. You can also mod the magnets on the X52 to improve their precision.

It's a very nice setup by the way.

EDIT: I forgot the brand of my own joysticks.

Honestly was weird to see such a big & expensive custom set-up in combination with those garbage Saitek hotas.

It's next on my list after a repair video I'm making. I've stopped making them for months and I'm going to restart and my plan is to put videos up early on peertube, then schedule them for release on youtube. I'll let you know when I do :)