Back in the R1 days, you could download a primitive Battle of Hoth map by a French guy whose name I can never remember. It featured X-Wings for the Rebel side, without speed reduction, and I can promise you, trying to strafe AT-STs at full speed was nearly impossible.

Fighters move extremely fast in FS, hence the hit indicator bug when you hit them and they're not moving directly towards you or away from you.

Try to record a space battle in BattleRecorder and then open the clip and try to follow a corvette at flank speed with your camera. This is what made me realize how fast they really are.

In order to reduce the tendency for dogfights to become never-ending circular chases, remove the red enemy-off-screen icons. They're only going in circles because they're chasing that red icon; remove the icon and they'll have nothing to chase.

I agree with removing the red icon from space battles. I was recently in a hoth escape map where all the transports got away because there were 20 or so fighters circling eachother! I also saw the same thing around the vent in battle of yavin!

I personaly think the dogfighting space craft have too slow of a max speed and would like to see them move faster at high speed.

Are you saying you want to put real world physics in the Star Wars universe?

Is there a suitable penance to atone for this mortal sin?

I think the starfighter speed is just about spot on for re-creating the feel of the original Star Wars movies. Job done on that account – and done bloody well!

In real world terms, you are right, Crayola, Star Wars starfighters are slow. That's because Mr Lucas based the starfighter sequences in Episode IV on footage of WWII aerial combat. Those old F4U Corsairs and Mitsubishi Zero Sens were lucky to attain 400 knots in a dive.

Just be thankful for the game's improbable turning radii; those old kites weren't anything like as manoeuvrable as a First Strike starfighter!

Getting back on topic, I've recently discovered an advantage to those auto-locking missiles, so the only changes I'd make are:
- Reinstate the TIE Defender's boost,
- Reinstate the crosshair-coloured bounding boxes, and
- Lose the red chase icons.

Of course it could just be that the deathstar is HUGE!

That's exactly what it is.

i have noticed that if u do not move ur mouse, the hits register, if u move your mouse while firing the chance for a hit is minimal

I use a joystick for flight.  So I guess I'm screwed if that's true.  lol

Sensors, like a radar ping or homing beacon effect would be almost useless in space, because they will detect anything in the radius infinitely up and down.

I disagree.

When a teammate radios in a spotted enemy fighter, once you're in visual range it's pretty easy to spot them.  Players never stray too far from the plane of combat too far up or down the Z-axis, to be honest.

Though on ground maps, there's always the good ole "attach a homing beacon to your hull and send up a sensor droid, then take off" trick .

It's the same in BF2. It's a limitation of the engine and i think other engines has the same problems.
64 players and a central server what calculate the hits would affect to all engines...

About sensor field for fighters:
I think it would a benefit for squadplay if all members of a squad can see an enemy in a squadmates sensorfield.
In vanilla BF 2142 the net.bat system works this way.

I would also like to use the spotting system to mark & track a enemy fighter for your squad. Because of the fast movement in game spotting only works in long range combat.