Okay, first impressions not bad and a keeper not a refunder.
Not done too much in about 90 minutes so far. Ran the tutorial missions but a bit gutted to find you don't keep the loot you made. The interface makes Egosoft in game menu system look good! Also having both a Xbox 360 pad and Thrustmaster joystick was disappointed to find the game only recognized the former. I hate using the pad for flying/space games and much prefer the joystick.
Started the main (solo) game but at the moment rather confused. Dumped in the back end of beyond and after figuring out how to clear the pre-flight HUD went to the system and galactic maps. Can't get to Sol as it appears I need a permit and even systems closer or planets within the same system the Nav computer comes back unable to plot a path. So here I am, sitting in a tin can, so to speak wondering what to do now. The Bulletin Board consists of missions way above my starting pay grade. I'm sure I'll figure it out on the next load but I would have to knock points off any score for not being very start-up friendly!
You should be able to assign controls to your thrustmaster even if there is no default for it.
A few tips for new players:
When supercruising to your destination don't let your time to arrival (the numbers under the distance) go below 7 seconds and you wont overshoot it. Stay away from planets, moons and suns, they will severely impact your speed, so if you need to get to the other side of a planet stay well away and around it, if you go close it'll take forever.
When docking, once you have found your way inside a station the compass to the immediate left of your scanner will point towards your landing pad, solid dot in the centre means it is directly in front of you, hollow dot means it's behind. This is also true of outpost docks but works as soon as a pad is assigned.
Check the distance to destination when taking missions, they can be very very far away, Hutton Orbital is a classic at .22ly from the jump in point, that's a lot of time spent in supercruise to get there that will be boring.
Don't be afraid to just mess around to start with, you can always reset your save and start from scratch once you have a better handle on how the game works, money is actually very easy to make and even more so if you wing up or crew with established players (always happy to help, just ask).