Target the ship -> Press G, shows target (targeting)attacking friendlies, works in reverse too (shows you friendlies (targeting)attacking hostiles).
And actually Woolie, I have a mission which does just that, it has no narration though and it's probably a mission that would frustrate people who aren't commited to mastering the game.
I had to ask for a new piece of functionality to be added to the game to do it properly though.
- R is a very useful button too, K as well.
All of the orders can be short-keyed (defaulted to Shift-A/S/D/P/Z/X/C/J/E/W/I)
Nothing is bound to D, yet equalise energy is bound to Alt-D.
V isn't that useful when sniping from long range for a combination of reasons (reticle isn't exactly centred + multi subsystem/turrets in similar places + V doesn't distinguish between nearside and un-hittable targets on the other side of the ship >.>).
Honestly buttons I *regularly* use in a coop on insane;
Ctrl, Space, Tab, 684279(numpad), E, Q, Z, D, H, R, V, K, Y, G, B, N, S, F, Alt-R, Shift-R, the shift combinations mentioned above, 123456789 (above the qwerty part of the keyboard though I tend to only use 3 heavily in that), home, insert, delete, end, page up, page down, arrow keys, F5-12, backspace, /, shift-/, ., ,, and I'll always press L once per mission.
Occasional usage of F4 for important stuff, F3 used to make the other F keys work.
Then 1 for typing to other players and all the external camera angles I use too.
And Shift-End gets a fair bit of usage on some missions too.
Bonus points for spotting the obvious odd one out.
In TvT this is somewhat simplified since I don't use E, R, V, K, B, N, any of the AI orders (apart from depart) even remotely as much.
Nevermind that all of this is assumed knowledge in multi there are a hell of a lot of anti missile and advanced turning techniques that you need to learn too, as well as shot timings (TvT furballs happen more in jousts amongst skilled players than tail-scampering like flight sims, though to unskilled observers this will still look like LOTS of circles).
And for a lot of people who played the game, for a long time, multi was all there was to the game.
If a proper and well structured mission was made it could save a lot of newbies a lot of embarrassment since a fair few of them come in (even having beaten the game on insane) expecting to be the beesknees, and fewer still - but a significant number of those just wont get it through their heads they're not particularly good until you crush them utterly (though the ones that pay attention when you do that tend to learn fairly quickly, especially if you explain after you beat them 11-0 in a game where 1on1 is intrinsically fair).
You're quite right I could have played through both FS1 AND 2 without the tutorial but it;
A) Made my first playthrough smoother.
B) Introduced me to the style of narration in the game in a natural way.
Quite a lot of subsequent games went on to do this as well.
The most recent I played that made a big thing of it, was CoD4.
A console version of this game would be so stripped down and barren it'd barely be any different to playing freelancer.
It wouldn't be freespace anymore, nor is that the generation a game like this should cater to.