Ok, here is my rudimentary foolishness:
W = Forward, S = Backwards, A = Slide Left, D = Slide Right, Left Shift = Slide Up, Spacebar = Slide Down, Q and E are Banking, C = Flare, X = Proxies, R = Rearview, 1 = lasers, 2 = Vulcan, 3 = spreadfire, 4 = plasma, 5 = fusion.
Mouse is normal (I use a Roccat Lua Mouse, and it is very nice, but I aspire to buy a mouse in the Roccat line with some side buttons to put flair and bomb on, I miss a TON of my flare moments because its hard to reach down and maneuver while flaring accurately, and my proxy placement isn't what I want it to be due to the same inssue--I use my left pointer finger to slide right and bank on the d and e key respectively, so reaching down to flare or drop proxies means I cant use either of those keys to maneuver... plus I kill myself with proxies a lot when I try to flare, so stop making fun of my flaring, Morfod
)
So left click is primary fire, right click is secondary's, and I use the scroll wheel scroll up and down function to select smart missiles and homing missiles. I haven't used Afterburner in D2 since my Orb's last hurrah because I can't find a place to put it where it is reliable and consistent. I aspire, as well, to put AB on an extra mouse button (I used my scroll click back in the day, but now that I use the scroll wheel to switch between smarts and homers I can't do that).
That's it... Why do I use it? Well, my original controls were all keyboard (demo in late--if I remember correctly--94, full version when it came out), that was a funky setup that took all of my brain power to come up with back then.. but it worked. I kept the left hand's responsibilities from my old keyboard-only setup... So most of that was my left hand's responsibility on the keyboard when I was keys only (Plus it came naturally to me to do almost all my major movements with my left hand because I am ambidextrous and so switching to orb, which utilizes the left hand, and moving on the keyboard mostly with left hand was very second nature).
When I was still on keys only I used Num lock as pitch forward, 7 on the keypad to pitch down, Page down to turn left, 8 to turn right, Left arrow to shoot primaries, Down arrow to cycle primaries, up arrow to cycle secondaries, + on the num pad to fire secondaries, Enter on the num pad to flare, and page up/end buttons dropped proxies--so I moved flare and proxies to my left hand when I switched to mouse. I used a Thrustmaster Joystick in late '96, moved to Thurstmaster Platinum when it came out, then sometime in '97 I got to play on LAN with a guy of the callsign Xevious. He used this wicked looking controller that was SO MUCH FUN to try! The SpaceOrb 360. I was in love with that controller, so in late '97 I started the transition of switching to the Orb. It took me almost a year to completely master it and stop using Joystick or keys only when I was playing seriously. So, in late '98 I switched to the orb exclusively until 2001. I started using mouse for most of my gaming after some opponents refused to play me anymore after I beat them while I was on the Orb... Because many competitors were adamant that, 1. My Orb was cheating, and 2. There was no way I could continue to beat them without it (Challenge accepted). So I started trying to use mouse and adapt my old keyboard only style in late 01. I probably would have gone back to the Thrustmaster Platinum joystick, however, I couldn't find any that were working, and mouse was readily available. (If anyone wants to know more about my Orb style let me know, I never had the ability to use the legendary instant flip, that was only an option I the first style of software for the Orb) After a while I got decent at it mouse, beat those guys telling them I was on mouse, and they accused me of still playing on the Orb and said my flying looked just like I was on the orb, and my aim was better. So, I gave up playing some of those people (unless they asked me), but I switched to mouse exclusively to avoid any ridicule. I was a kid back then, so I thought that not using it at all was the only way. The final time I flew on my orb was in early '02 when Djcjr said he wanted me to use it in a 1v1 we played in d2. That was the last time my baby saw the light of the mines and the flash of the cannons... *Teardrop*
/end meaningless history review.