When flying with "flight assist mode" disabled, I want to see a visual indicator - arrow/marker/point that indicates the direction the ship is currently headed (sort of like the blue circle in mouselook mode).

It could be a simple 2D marker like the mouselook circle, or it could be a 3D arrow indicator, making it possible to show the ship's direction, even when I am looking 90 degrees left or right of the flight direction. It could change colour when you are looking in the opposite direction to ship movement - i.e blue for the front 180 degree hemisphere, purple for the rear hemisphere.

One would think that this would be one of the most basic interface elements of a real ship's HUD, if it were to be flown visually.

Maybe just use something like the mouselook icon except smaller (1/4 the diameter or less) that points in the direction that you're travelling. It only appears when mouselook is off.

Yeah, that would be fine.

Pidgeon, can you tell me what the heck mouselook is for anyway? It doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. What's it supposed to do?

options, graphics, turn space junk on. helps me anyway