I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it took me ENTIRELY too long to figure out that pushing the left stick up and down accelerates/decelerates the ship. :( I had been using the boost to go anywhere and didn't know how to slow down.
That's hilarious. I'm confused about boosters (or is it thrusters?). On PC it's pressing the space bar. I think they're for turning around faster, but it seems they only work in the up direction. I've started trying to orient my ship so that the enemy I'm fighting is "up" for my turns, but it's kinda wonky. Anyone else doing this?
Hold space and press the movement key in the direction you wanna go. When space is held down(and you're using default controls) your wasd controls the booster movement not your ships yaw/thrust. Another tip is you can combine it with your mouse turning to get insanely tight turns on other ships. Also if you boost slightly then thruster boosters you'll temporarily carry that momentum too.
I've been messing around with it (got a big class C ship) and it's a lot of fun to face the enemy while still going in the other direction. I'll have to try combining too, though. Thanks for the tips!
...unless you play Il-2 or DCS. Put simply, all fighter aircraft have an optimal maneuvering speed, below or above that your turn rate will suffer. Managing your speed is the key when you're rate fighting. Same mechanics is used in Elite.
@Tylerdurdon@jordanlund thrusters enable strafing but more importantly they turn off "flight assist" and engage realistic Newtonian motion. So accelerate to top speed, hold Space and turn around to continue in the same direction and shoot "backwards".