We currently have 2.

1. Ship moves where it is pointing.
2. "real" physics - I put real in quotes because a rotating ship should continue rotating indefinitely.

I think there should be 3 more.

3. Real physics - you put your ship in a roll, it keeps rolling until you tell it to stop.
4. Target mode1 - your ship constantly moves you to your target, independant of the direction your ship is pointing.
5. Target mode2 - your ship matches speed and heading with your target, putting you parrallel to the target. Making adjustments would make changes relative to the other ship, not to the universe.

The ship correct itself using thruster preventing uncontrolled rolls. If it didn't, I dare say that you'd have a hard time stopping a roll and would always be rolling one way or the other.

If we add those 'target' modes then the game becomes more like a 'press a to autoattack' RPG - and that's something most people here *don't* want to see happen. I for one would be gone back to X-Wing Alliance in about 5 minutes if an option like that appeared.

Uh, Freeman, I think he borrowed the idea of "match speed & velocity" from X-Wing. I haven't played the game in ages, but I remember an auto-set button. ;-)

Match velocity of target is a fairly common button in most space combat games. When you engaged in combat in X-Wing, it seemed like you were hitting that button every half second.

I'm not sure how handy it would actually be in Vendetta, because if I'm not turning wildly I've got the turbo held down, and it would get kinda wierd if you autoturboed in order to keep up with the target.

Neither of his buttons work exactly like match velocity of target. The first one is more like 'make my course bear on target', which would fly the ship for you - basically an autopilot. I have no idea how it would interface with joystick inputs. Presumably a course correction would override the 'make my course bear on target' until you hit 'make my course bear on target' again.

The second is more like the instruction 'escort target' or 'maintain range to target'. Again, its basically an autopilot, and again would take over steering for you.

I'd be terribly afraid that people would start steering thier ships by alternating autopilot modes. All you'd have to do is add a third autopilot 'evade target', and heh you could let the AI fly your ship.

He didn't say 'match speed and velocity' (besides, speed roughly could be caalled velocity) - he said the ship should actually turn automatically

A limited version of Autopilot would be very welcome (at least by me)... not for fighting but for convoys. If it were easier to fly in packs over long distances, it might just promote teamwork more...

Anyone of you remember Elite/Frontier?
I miss it a lot. The physics was real, and you could move relative to the sun, the nearest planet or the ship you were hunting.
Also, you didn't set the speed, but much more important in real physics, the acceleration. Fighters were able to accelerate more than freigters, and the deceleration ('breaks') was smaller than the main engine acceleration, so you could play tricks like pointing your ship backwards and using the main engine to decelerate.
I liked much the difficult to dock, since you had to land in planets, or sincronize your rotation with the station rotation speed.
If you atacked a station, it launched a lot of police fighters against you, and imposed you a large fine if you wanted to dock. Failing to pay the fine after docking meaned the hail and your character was lost.
A thing i don't like from current 3.2 versions is missiles. It's too easy run away or avoid them, so they are almost useless.

I think some of this could be implemented in Vendetta with good results.