Rogue System looks promising as a semi-realistic combat space sim: http://imagespaceinc.com/rogsys/

Pioneer also exists as an open source Frontier remake, with the same sort of flight model and universe: http://pioneerspacesim.net/

Same, it's why i retracted my original backing. I do understand the issue they faced, since they wanted to make a multiplayer game. But they sacrificed their original fanbase on the throne of that.

realistic physics is mega boring in space games. The first elite was much more fun with arcade physics. Frontier combat was rubbish, you just yoyo'ed past each other with 5 seconds of shooting between oscillations. That's with a human pilot driving.

Realistically a space battle would be, does the evader want to evade and has more thrust? => they evade, else, the attacker approaches and both get to shoot until one is dead. There would be no real combat other than weapon size and armour plating. I don't think there would be space dogfights as the onboard computers would just be able to track each other too accurately / apply optimal game theoretic evasions given the constraints. Boring ... might as well play spreadsheets.

They are boring when the player's tools and gameplay are not adapted to a situation involving relativistic distances. In space warfare sensors, delay of signal reception, interpretation of sensor input, projection of positioning both human-based and automatic, as well as weaponry built and programmable to relate to all of these things become much more important than:

See, point, shoot.