I found a simple and cheap solution some months ago. My 'main' stick for flightsims is the excellent Saitek Cyborg EVO (bolted down as a sidestick and modded by me with extension leads to a seperate throttle and a proper homemade rudder bar). Like most stick units it ain't really suitable for shipsim.
I then bought a 'game controller' style handset, mainly to use on R/C flight sims, until I discovered it is a good controller for Shipsim. Since it has a little stick for each thumb, a POV thing, and many other buttons it is easy to set up for everything (except maybe the Red Eagle). A proper USB R/C 'Transmitter' would also work i think. The sticks give easy Port/Starboard Rudder and Throttles.
What works for me is to use the mouse and onscreen controls most of the time, then I pick up the handset for docking etc. The best example of this is the mission to sail the 'Pride' up river to its berth (with the mouse), pick up the handset, then easily use differential steering/thrust and bowthrust to slow it and swing it parallell while slewing slowly and majestically into a perfect landin -er I mean docking.
If you have one, set it up and try it - if not you can get them for very little these days. Hope this helps.
