Disturbedjim83
Do I really need all those buttons to play a flight sim?
Could a simple high quality joystick do, instead of the 40 buttons?
If so which one would you recommend?
For me as long as I can climb and dive and turn right ot left and fire would do since the game is far from coming out anytime soon :-)?
If a simple Joystick is what your after then either The Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X or the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro both are solid build quality have around 12 buttons to cover the basic controls and are very reasonably priced,currently have the latter of the 2 myself and it works good in both Star citizen and Elite Dangerous.
In terms of cost to get into Star citizen it depends on what you want to do if your not too bothered about participating in the alpha builds then $42 will get you this:
https://robertsspace...kages/Aurora-ES
You can then earn credits in the PU through doing Jobs to purchase other ships a la Elite Dangerous.
In my case It cost me about $130 to get in as I backed with this ship when the packages came with Alpha Access. https://robertsspace.../Freelancer-MAX
My total spend so far has been around $560 as I have these ships





It really is a case of "how long is a piece of string" you can spend as little or as much as you feel is good like E.D each ship will have its associated "running costs" in the PU ie fuel,ammunition,replacement/repair of parts and insurance.
The thing I love about Star Citizen is all backers are equally respected by the company whether they have spent $40 or $10,000