Good.
Can you, for example, make tight round around a space station (inside the ring), then come to a complete halt just before the docking bay without using anything, but "engines-off" mode?
That's pretty good, actually. When I first tried it it was 2-3s tops.
It was literally a "<s>Rocks fall</s> Alarms sound, everyone dies." scenario.
Now I generally can survive duking it out with the police above the spaceport (albeit unreliably). I fly an Asp.
Ok. I have one good tactical hint. The most important part is surviving the first attack run enemy craft make. To do so quickly rotate so that you're approximately facing the enemy, then thrust at full burn towards them and to the side - this means that you're moving off their line of fire, while at the same time you close distance forcing them to rotate faster until they eventually can't keep you in their sights and have to break off. By the time they break off you should be sitting cosily on their six, having cancelled your approach velocity using main thruster, and melting their butts off.
As for the equipment, I generally favour 5MW pulse or 30MW mining laser plus more than 8 shields - pulse lasers are lighter, doing more damage per ton, and don't force you to sit there keeping the enemy in your sight allowing for more freedom of movement in combat - if you're any less of a sharpshooter (especially when it comes to mining laser - this thing isn't generally considered a weapon for a reason) you'll do best fitting a 4MW beam instead, or even 1MW beam if you need more shields.
Those are loadout suggestions for Asp.
