Freelancer is still the best of its genre, IMO.

It's abandonware, so you can download it for free, and the community has released a ton of mods over the years.

NO Mans Sky. You can dogfight space pirates. I need to spin the game up again now that custom ships are a thing.

Star Wars Squadrons is pretty good fun.

Everspace 2 is a blast(er). The combat is pretty arcadey but has some decent crafting and upgrading mechanics to it

If you want bigger ships than fighters:

Rebel Galaxy(its completely different compared to RG Outlaw) - big ships, can hire a single mercenary, combat for you happens in 2D and its more of naval style with broadsides and automated turrets.

Between the Stars - you have a spaceship with a crew and can also hire 2 more ships to help you out(once you gear them), game got plenty of quests with some puzzles to boat, "ground combat" which is using dice(or can be disabled completely) and space combat takes a bit to get used to.

I haven't played it in years, but I have fond memories of FreeSpace 2 and its open source community version. A quick search turned this up.

I like x4. It's kind of like Elite Dangerous but the flight mechanics are a little easier and you can command much larger ships and hire NPC pilots and build fleets.

In increasing order of casualness I recommend: Elite Dangerous->X3/X4->Everspace/Everspace 2-> No Man's Sky.

Everspace 2 is a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so probably your best bet ( Everspace 1 is more roguelike, but holds up nicely ). Speaking of Freelancer, I hear the game is still alive and has a vibrant community around it.

If you ever want to revisit Elite shoot me a message, I may help you with starting up. They say Elite doesn't have a learning curve but a cliff, so help is usually needed. Luckily the game has the most welcoming and helpful community I've seen in/around a video game.

Other than these, there's Chorus, but I haven't played that one and it seems more story driven than open-ended.

If you don't mind a bit of a grindy ARPG aspect to it and REALLY annoying progression for traversal? Everspace 2 is probably THE best space combat in a modern release... which is sad but it is still actually really good and has some great set pieces. It is basically Freelancer 2, if that helps. If you just want shooty shooty boom boom then the original Everspace may be a better fit but... there is a reason so many of us slept on 2 after trying to like 1.

If you want something that is basically a love letter to Privateer? Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. I personally don't vibe with it but I think that is because it is too close to what I expect to be using a HOTAS with (it is very much a gamepad/m+kb game) and the "vibes" of the Rebel Galaxy series are more "space redneck" than "space western".

I have yet to actually get around to it (just been, what, eight or nine years now?) but I hear that some of the player origins in X4 are really good for getting into combat. I sincerely doubt that because the X series has always had REALLY good combat... broken up by 10 hours of trading so you can afford repairs and the missiles you use. But worth a look.

If you don't mind getting out of a fighter and into a corvette or even a capital ship?

I REALLY like Cosmoteer but it is pretty grindy to start with. Space Pirates and Zombies, shitty acronym aside, has much better onboarding and similar gameplay but also much less control or a sense of "this is mine".

And it is a love it or hate it kind of pseudo-series (really more like major functionality patches sold as a sequel) but check out Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. You control capital ships in the 40k universe and Tindalos very much understood the assignment Just understand that 40k doesn't pretend that space combat is anything other than romanticized WW1 naval fleet combat and it really feels like you are controlling ships of the line as it were.

Try out Star Conflict https://store.steampowered.com/app/212070/Star_Conflict/

It has the following gameplay types that you can switch to and play as long as you like:

• PvE missions where you and other humans (team or randos) battle AI
• PvP missions where its you and your team up against anther human team
• Free Space missions that you can complete solo or in teams
• Free Space exploring where you can jump system-to-system and explore without any objectives

The game studio, Gaijin, is Russian-based and has a tank game War Thunder (infamous for real-world military leaks) and a vehicular combat game called Crossout, though I've never played them.

Anyway Star Conflict is free-to-play, pay-to-win (PvP), but if you play the PvE and open space parts you don't need to invest any money to have fun. You can stick to the lower ship tiers for casual gaming, and switch between fighting styles and ship roles easily. You can pilot blazing-fast interceptors, balanced mid-size fighters, heavy-hitting frigates, or super-slow but massive destroyers, and customize each one with a huge selection of weapon types, shields, and auxillary syatems. The underlying fighting principle is kinda like rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, so an interceptor can easily solo a destroyer, a destroyer can take out a group of frigates, frigates outpower fighters, fighters hunt interceptors, etc. And the same goes for weapons and shields too, with thermal, EM, and kinetic types and their shield counterparts. If you venture into a space region infested with pirates who use kinetic weapons and thermal shields, then equip your ship with weapons of the opposite type of their shields to maximize damage, and equip shields of the same type as their weapons to minimize damage.

Anyway go try it out and let me know what you think!

If you want something a bit closer to Starfox, rather than an all-range flight arena, try Rogue Flight. It definitely evokes the power fantasy feeling, living up the classic arcade trope of "one ship being readied on a mission to save humanity". There's some very big-name voice actor work in it, as well.

Another good game for the "power fantasy" trope, though it's a bit more outside the target, is Ace Combat 7. Or, perhaps any games in the series, but this one is pretty accessible. The combat is close to what you'd get in X-Wing/Tie-Fighter, but with fighter planes. It breaks from realism a little bit where needed to make the stunts fun. And, the story very much orients around the silent player character being "scary tough" in a fight, to the point enemy fighters are retreating just from seeing your wing markings.

+1 for Rebal Galaxy

everspace 2 should scratch that itch

Everspace 2 might be what you're looking for. It's fighter piloting and npt battleship style combat bit it's one of the closest feels I had to what Xwing vs Tie Fighter was back in the day. You can drift and swap end for end just like XvT.

You might also like the spaceship portions of Star Wars Outlaws. I've been having fun in there, too.

For a game that's themed as space battles and isn't an action game, check out Cobalt Core. It's a deckbuilding adventure about a space crew trying to escape from a time loop. The characters and story moments are fun and combat is like a turn-based puzzle of trying to position the ship to line up with enemy weak spots or to dodge missile barrages.

If you're into Babylon 5, there's actually a game called Babylon 5: I've Found Her that captures the spirit of the fighter combat pretty well IMO. Might be worth checking out!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Afu8wpL3_j0

Everspace is very cool - it's a rouge like where you upgrade your ship as you progress with very unique skills and different branches.
I'm also in love with Cosmoteer - 2D game where you can build, rebuild, salvage enemy ships, eventually create a small fleet and experiment a lot with different designs.

There's a new game in early access called "Jump Space" that has been pretty fun so far. You can play it solo but is more fun with others, as you work as a crew with roles such as pilot, gunner, engineering etc.

You might want to check out Chorus, it's on sale super cheap on GOG right now. It's an action game with some levels on foot and others in space.

An honorable mention is Star Wars Battlefront 2 (classic) - maybe not exactly what you want, but it has space combat where most of the action is with ship dogfights, where you can also attack the opposing capital ship and disable its core systems to win the match. The whole single player game ensures you'll get one hell of a power fantasy as the ace/hero, even on harder difficulties.

Might be old now but Freelancer?

It has a campaign but there is also free play.

The X series (X3 and X4 in particular) might be fun. Very sandboxy. The late-game turns into more of a management game than a 'fly around blasting stuff' game, but you don't have to go that route if you don't want to.

Even though it's an old game, Tachyon The Fringe is a great space shooter, it's available on GOG and well worth it.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/tachyon_the_fringe

FTL

House Of The Dying Sun is pretty good for casual fun from what little I've played of it.

X4 foundations is a space shooter sandbox, with empire building, diplomacy and all what you can expect from a space game.

A lot of different ships and loadouts.

FTL and star command come to mind.

No mention of Starlancer? It kinda flew under the radar but had a nice setting and good controls.

star trek online, i never gotten used to liking the game, eventhough i dont play it, but trek fans do. it doesnt jive with me, eventhough i like the franchise. probably not for the casual gamer, as it seems pretty complex.

maybe elite dangerous?

Rodina.

Very cool, very indie game where you explore a solar system, and the Newtonian-style dog fights are wicked awesome. But it's also got boarding ships, and realtime atmospheric entry.

It's one single developer creating it, and it's been 2 years since the last update, but there is a recent post saying a new one's coming.