He means on the map scale.
No, there is no other way.
You have to orientate yourself by using planets, nebulaes etc you can see on the system map.
Its tiresome in the beginning, but you grow acustomed to it and soon you will fly by your feeling
Yeah, it's pretty much navigate by dead reckoning, which does kinda spoil the illusion of being in command of a starship. I really wish you could click on targets in the main map or on the radar map.
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In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
Whereever you left-click on the game screen (or use the right and left arrows on the keyboard) you will point in that direction. You can also use the mouse to click the amount of thrust to make your ship move forward or the '[' ']' keys to decrease/increase your thrust, respectively.
One can navigate easily enough by the compass near the top right of the control bar, but it is a little weird because 0 is north in a system not east as it would be according to the unit circle.
I didn't even think of using the compass, and I won't, its space after all...most of the times I use the sun and nebulaes to navigate...but yes, its kinda strange, one would think spaceships have sophisticated computers and navigational equipment