The physicality of flying the ship with a HOTAS. To anyone who hasn't yet, get one. The muscle memory that goes into maneuvering with six degrees of freedom.
This turns into the tension of a PvP confrontation. My body is awash with adrenalin even before the tug of war of the interdiction ends. In the cluttered scanner of Lave on a Saturday night, I'm not even sure which hollow triangle is interdicting me. Which way will this one go? For one or the other of us, a considerable investment is about to go up in smoke. Does my interdictor realise I've built up this Adder specifically to surprise those preying on the Rares trade?
I wrestle the ship to get my attacker in my sights, as my brain blisses out from the bandwidth of information the game is feeding it. Will my guns come to bear first or his? He's not firing - time to put some pips into ENG. Going over my shoulder - roll that way so the dorsal turret can keep firing. One blue ring left and incoming fire from the light multicannons, my thumb slips onto a distinctively knurled four way on top of the joystick and twitches it backwards, and like when you pull the ring on a frosty can of pop under a glaring sun and hear the aluminium tear and the gas escape, I relax a tiny bit as the banked energy of the cell pours into my shields. Just in time, as his fixed beams rake my hull. I check our separation and roll ninety degrees so they won't both be able to hit me. Pip-pip-pip as I give the thrusters all the energy they can use and yank the throttle back into the middle of the blue zone. Pitch back and thumbstick down and as I start to slide backwards my attacker flies over my head. Satisfying cheeps as the burst turret lands its shots. The big flat Cobra hanging in the yellow starlight like half a pizza. Back up the WEP cap, track him and lay on the railgun. He puts on the power but I have no problem keeping the dot centred between his engines. His shields go down, 20% hull. He boosts and becomes a hollow rectangle. I boost to close but he's gaining. I have one bar left in WEP.
Right now he's asking himself, 'Did he fire six dumbfires or only five?' I line up the ridiculously broad sights and hit the pinky trigger and his Cobra turns into so much tinsel. I hit Escape and Exit To Main Menu, push away from the desk, and stagger to the bathroom.