Bring on the Kaysers to teach the heretical spawn proper manners!
Kidding aside, Ruatha titled his thread "space combat game", but added "simulator" in the post. I would agree that Freespace fits the bill of a more arcade-based game (though it's far from being Tyrian, or a similar game), instead of being a "true" simulator, pretty much like Vroom is hardly the same as a F1 simulation.
I am not sure about a suggestion in the simulation department though... but I will check out that Starshatter PvK mentioned.