I never played Elite Dangerous, I'm very tempted to set it up, but I find space simulators that make spaceships behave like they are in atmosphere really annoying. I watched a few videos but I couldn't figure out. Do spaceships in Elite Dangerous behave like they are in gravity/atmosphere or micro-gravity/vacuum?
For example, to turn left, do you have to bank left? And the ultimate test, when you cut throttle, do you keep going at the same speed? Once you cut throttle and you are moving at constant speed, can you turn 180 degrees and be moving backwards?
Best Answer
There's a mechanic in Elite: Dangerous called "flight assist". Enabled by default, this causes a ship to behave as if it was in atmosphere. However, you can disable flight assist and your ship will behave as if it was indeed in space.
In fact, disabling flight assist is a common tactic, boosting ahead to before disabling flight assist and turning around, allowing a pilot to fire at a chasing ship while still maintaining distance.
So the real answer is that Elite: Dangerous uses a bit of both.