Physics

Sorry to disappoint you, but there are no "simple" aerodynamics.
Basically, what you need to do is to divide the game world into small parts and calculate the air pressure in every one of them and then calculate the effect of the air pressure on the model.
And that's not easy.

No, not in that meaning. I have some properties of the spaceships, and I want some simple formulas that /roughly estimate/ the result.

Why would you need to consider aerodynamics in a vacuum?

There is drag in space due to "air" friction, its usually so small though that its not worth calculating. In fact if a spacecraft is orbiting the earth at about 150km it would fall back to earth within several days due to drag if it didn't keep its speed up. You also can't forget radiation emitted by stars, which can also cause "drag".

If you are making a sim where spacecraft orbit planets then you will need drag, atmospheric properties, and drag coefficient. All that is really basic stuff and it would greatly help you if you researched fluid dynamics and orbital mechanics before beginning.

[Edited by - Caitlin on November 2, 2005 9:04:16 AM]

Simplified fluid dynamics. The example discusses a boat application: the FluidSample concept applies to any rigid body moving through a fluid. Given an existing rigid body simulator, FluidSample-based aerodynamics simulation is very easy to implement, runs fast, and produces highly realistic results (I have used it for boats, aircraft, and cars: it can even run stably in fixed-point integer with a 30Hz dt).

Drag and lift per triangle
Thrusters