[teamonkey]

There's a lot more to astrophysics than Newtonian mechanics. Stellar formation, element abundance, extraterrestrial geophysics, etc.

Have you played Frontier (Elite 2) at all? That seems to be what you're after. Much as I loved that game, the combat was awful. It came down to judging when to switch your autopilot on and off, because there was no way you could manually track your enemy as you passed by at 5000kph.