You should try the mod Beyond the Redline. It's a total conversion for FSOpen that puts you into a Viper from Battlestar Galactica. A bit difficult to pilot when you first start off as it also includes vertical thrusters and inertia from what I remember, but the feel of BSG is definitely there.

My big issue with FSO, and a lot of space sims for that matter, is just the frustration of having to redo the same inane segment over and over.

A screw up because the game's AI is reckless should not be pinned on me demanding I redo the entire mission. It's infuriating and just wastes my time.

A lot of games for example would add "gamey" elements to deal with limitations in the engine such as turning off friendly fire.

I installed all 45GB of mods from the FSO installer, but I'm just really not convinced that the time investment is worth the frustration, which is really unfortunate because I love the gunplay.

I don't remember Reborn being particularly different in that regard from the main campaign.

The game is old though and I'm not sure if FS2O improves the AI or not. At least, I didn't notice much change in it's behaviour. The AI is from a time period when it'd typically do silly things like it does now.

It's one of those things you need to cope with, I guess.