Giving the ship a slight constant forward moment felt nice and forgiving when testing, and user still has to tack back and forth to get meaningful enough speed to strafe a ship. But I’m definitely open to sliding the realism scale here
There's nothing wrong with arcade, but when you advertise "real physics" people like me are going to expect, well, "real physics".
My big effort has been finding tasteful compromises to keep a “real” feel but still simple enough to not be frustrating and put away the game. Hope this helps!
You are of course free to make your game however you want, but false advertising doesn’t help anyone.
I hope you enjoy the bad reviews from people who expect something and don’t get it.