Ion drive instead of flames — with thrusters that follow your movement.
- Light instead of fire: The orange flames at the rear are replaced by ion beams — a white core, a cyan cone and a blue halo. At full thrust, bright shock nodes travel through the beam, and fine ion sparks stay behind in space as the ship flies on. The beam pulses evenly instead of flickering.
- Much stronger: At full thrust a good half ship length, during a jump almost a full one.
- The nozzles sit where the ship has them: two engine pods, two rear nozzles and a small one in the middle, plus brake thrusters at the front canards and two attitude thrusters on each flank.
- Following physics: Forward, the main engines work. Braking and flying backwards fire the front brake thrusters, pointing forward. Flying sideways fires the attitude thrusters on the opposite side — they push the ship away. In Orbit this is relative to the nose: aim up and fly right, and you’ll see the left side thrusters working. Turning fires a cross pair (front left and rear right turns clockwise). Attitude thrusters flash on and fade out softly.
- Player 2 flies with amber ions. With effects set to “off”, shock nodes and sparks are left out.