you can do a power slide by setting high damp factors in the ships tbl. i used it for the seker, its a cool effect. actually by jacking up damp factors and velocitys freespace seems
like tachyon. i didnt like tachyon's slide control though, it would have been better id you had to hit your burner, then cut the throttle and turn hard. the slide key made that all too easy. my problem with freespace physics is that it seems as if you are flying through an atmosphere.
the thing about flying is space is that you burn fuel for every change in direction you make. when nasa flys around up there every thruster burn the shuttle makes is calculated months before the launch. in space you cannot afford to waste fuel.
with current space technology reaction control thrusters (im not sure if thats actual terminology of something i heard on star trek) and vectored thrust to get your ship to change direction. you can also rotate using kinetic wheels (simply a flywheel hooked up to an electric motor) that vary their speed to cause changes in rotationan velocity (satilites use theese). im not saying that freespace should use fuel tracking, but i am saying that all sources of movement should be taken into account when determining how ships move.
thrust vectoring's effect or turning is dependant on how much throttle is given to the engines, more engine power = faster turning (star lancer). rcs thrusters are usualy dependant and kinetic wheels are always dependant from the main engines and give constant turning rates, kinetic wheels having a lesser effect but are more eficient. some rcs thrusters draw exaust from the main engine and work in the same way as thrust vectoring.
