I think the sound effect that plays when you press tab for the huge engine/full speed sounds too much like gunfire. Whenever I hear little ships thrusting around me I always think I'm being shot at! Could you guys possibly replace it with a quieter (compared to the guns) sustained noise, possibly lifted from a torch (such as an oxy-acetylene torch), or really any noise or the current noise but sustained instead of a single impulse noise like the guns. Some other sound effects that might work are nasa rocket sound effects or jet sound effects, both of which are available on youtube and google video search....or a neat way might be to buy a propane torch at a hardware store, get a decent mic, then record a few minutes of the torch burning near the tip (it even looks like a spaceship engine!), then maybe edit it and raise the pitch a little, get it to loop, then play that recording looping at 35% volume for the big engine and 15% volume for the little engine. Guns are still at 100%, unless they're silent guns.

No.

get yer ears checked out dude, or slow down on the magic mushrooms :P
either one should work.

ksshh.... vs pew pew? I assume you're referring to the turbo startup noise the bots make. The difference is pretty obvious to most people. I think you're the only one that's ever had this complaint, maybe they'd put in the effort to change it if a significant number of other people said so..

I've never mistaken it for being shot at, however... a bit of variety in the turbo sounds for various ships would be somewhat cool.