Hi Cuda, welcome to TLR.

There was an article posted in the News about converting the game to use a joystick, and doing a search of the Forums (look above this message, you'll see the Search Forums link) will show you lots of links from people who wanted joysticks.

Basically, though... the answer is, "yes, you can support a joystick, but you have to do odd things, and it'd be almost impossible to aim". Freelancer was designed around the mouse-flight interface, which I expected to hate. To my surprise, I found it very intuitive and easy to use, and even with my mod (where there are guns that shoot straight ahead, as opposed to following the mouse) I like the mouse control. Try it for a little bit, if you haven't already... it grows on you

If you get really desperat about the joystick read this.
Cotains link that MIGHT make it work.