Hey Dirk,
If you're looking for a space sim, you might want to try
Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos. The game is getting to be quite old, so you should be able to find it (if you can still find it) for very cheap. I'd bet you'd pick it up at a used bookstore for a buck or so. Certainly, you should be able to find it, if you look, for $5-20 bucks. I see the Atari site has it for $9.99 brand new.
Though the game is getting up there in age, the graphics are still quite good, even by today's fabulous standards.
Check
THIS link for the Gamespot review and screenshots.
It's a space sim, so you sit in your cockpit and blow things up. You'll need a good joystick to get the most out of this game. You outfit your ship, High Guard style, with various weapon packages, systems, and equipment. The game has a fabulous story--great background useable in a face to face rpg even.
The game can be played in two ways. Many people like the Star Wars style, where you can bank and turn like you're in an X-Wing fighter.
I can see from your original post that wouldn't appeal to you. It didn't appeal to me either. But, hit one little control, and the entire game changes. Yep. You guessed it. It becomes a vector movement game. You get going in one direction, it takes a lot of thrust to get your craft to bank or slow down--just like Traveller.
My favorite tactic would be to accelerate at a fairly fast clip and zoom through a cluster of enemies. I'd flip my craft around, Babylon 5 style, blasting away with my rail guns like I was sitting in a fast moving turret, all the while traveling on my original vector (us like in Traveller). The problem was, though, I didn't have enough control at those speeds to veer out of the way of anything that popped up in my path. Many times, I'd crash into other ships or even a station using this tactic.
Anyway, this might be the computer game you're looking for. I remember I liked how the pilot could switch to his engineering screen and rob power from one system to feed another. It's a damn fun game as the Gamespot review reveals.
Check it out.
-S4.
