how much of the advanced options and additional buttons on a joystick does the game support?

does it support the thrust control slide bar type of stuff?
will it support holding down a key to use the joystick to strafe, to move up and down, or to roll with joystick movement?

am I just better off sticking with a mouse and keyboard?

currently i have a sidewinder joystick that has 9 buttons (excluding HAT, and thrust). it has thrust control, hat, 4 buttons on the stick itself, and 5 buttons on the base. i was recently a mouse user due to a former game like this. overtime i started using my stick and never went back :P

within windows everything works. in linux the HAT controls do not work.

You can bind joystick buttons the same way you do mouse buttons and keyboard buttons. You can also bind axes in the joysticks tab. A joystick is worse in combat, though, due to the difficulty of the strafe-roll type of maneuvers that are easy with the mouse and keyboard.

I use an X-45. Lots and lots of buttons and combo possibilities. Prices also dropped with the advent of the X-52.

panic, you clearly do not have your joystick configured right then. :)

I fly stick/keyboard all the time wit no trouble in combat.

I dont think vendetta supports using alternate bindings to the joystick buttons, but I use a 6 button joystick and the keyboard quite efficiently.

Vendetta does support using the Z axis for throttle in flight assist mode, however the z axis doesnt work for thrust without flight assist because of the way those commands are processed.

personally I find joysticks to be superior in combat, I have just used this mouse for so long I refuse to switch:)