The TC and AP games were on sale on Steam's summer sale for less than £10. I'd wait for them to go on sale TBH, but if you are 100% sure you want them, I am having lots of fun with TC at the moment playing the Humble Merchant start. I'm just starting to build my factories now and dabbling in combat.
IMHO, the keyboard and mouse are the best tools for this game, with all the menu-navigating you need to do. I don't "fly" my combat ship very much, 99% of the time I use the autopilot. Even in combat, I use the AP to get close, then press the Spacebar so that the ship follows my mouse cursor and use the mouse cursor to fly and shoot.
Looking forward to X3 Rebirth so if you're on the fence about TC/AP, you might want to wait and see how Rebirth turns out.