In an attempt to help Corralis out, rather than keep saying "go to SC":
Yeah, I agree that roll+pitch on mouse is a really awkward control method for those of us who have 10+ years of gaming on a mouse in muscle memory..
One thing that cannot be helped: ships will prefer to roll and then pitch. That's just how Elite is (think the style of flight that airplanes use). But, you can get controls more comfortable.
1) Mouse - set to pitch + yaw, in the virtual joystick emulation mode (the one where you don't have to keep dragging all the time to move the ship).
Now, increase the deadzone and decrease the sensitivity a bit. That helped for me.
2) Keys:
WASD for strafing. up/down/left/right strafe on wasd, works very naturally.
Speed: mouse wheel, and maybe some hotkeys for 100%, 50%, 0% speed.
Rolling: I like Q+E. (I also assigned rolling to extra buttons on my mouse, so I have full direction control in one hand. Your mouse may not have extra buttons to spare, though).
This gives you the fundamental controls for your ship, such that you can still fight reasonably well and fly reasonably well, without re-learning how you use your mouse/kb.
What you'd typically do in a flight:
lock target, roll with keys such that it's on the vertical to you, them move mouse and keep the aim on him. If the target leaves, say, the top vertical +-15 degrees, then roll to keep him there.
As for a more radical idea:
yaw+pitch on mouse axis, *roll* on RMB/LMB. And rebind "shoot" to, say, spacebar. This might be reeally weird - I haven't tried it - but it might also feel natural, as you'd press down on the right mouse button, and ship would roll right as if you'd pushed the ship itself. Maaaybe worth a try?
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