To futher explain and clarify of what i mean by "positional combat" let me demonstrate the video of me playing ED. I do it not to tell that ED have ideal FM or SC should copy it, but to give an example of how ships with almost non-existant lateral thrust can do 6-dof combat.

https://youtu.be/8WT8UdEAzpM

So, what is going on this video: i fly light fighter, on of the fastest in game against one of the heaviest combat ships, it's comparable to gladius vs constellation fight in SC. In combat to use my advantage i do the next steps:

1. I accelerate towards the enemy ship to gain momentum and take position behind it.
2. Next, I turn my ship towards enemy, while using lateral thrust to preserve speed gained from forward thrust to keep maintaining positional advantage
3. While enemy keeps turning towards me and strafing away from me, i finally lose initial momentum and that gives my enemy a chance to shoot me, despite my ship being times more maneuverable than his.

What is so good about it and why it's much better than just being able to orbit enemy ship?

1. It's much more interesting for heavier ship pilot because with right maneuvering he is still be able to actually shoot at ship much lighter and maneuverable than his.
2. For pilot of lighter ship it's much more engaging, when you have to work towards maintaining positional advantage, constantly fighting enemy's maneuvering, than just pressing strafe and forward.
3. In general lower lateral thrust makes combat slower paced, aiming much easier and flying much harder which i consider a good thing for space simulator.


So what's need to be done to achieve this kind of gameplay is:
1. Reduce lateral thrust for all ships in a meaningfull way (like 50% or more), reduce ability to use 'boost' and nerf boost to something like 25% instead of 100%.
2. Reduce turning speeds accordingly
3. If it's not enough slower the combat pace by reducing accelerations even more till it's humanly possible to utilize ship's maneuverability and aim in a meaningful way in dogfight.