That game rocked.
I remember a recon mission from the first game in which you had to dodge enemy fighters while waiting for your hyperdrive to repair. First time I did it, I tried bolting into deep space and was blasted apart. Second time, I tried hugging the skin of the enemy super-capital ship (was it the Lucifer?) and the ship was big enough that this strategy was actually plausible.
Interesting that he compares it to Tie Fighter. That was my big starfighter sim before the Freespace series too.