@PHeMoX
That's true, I don't play it, too.
The control was made quite simple, it still is AI controlled, only the target vector is replaced by a vector created from the key input and firing is blocked as long as no mouse button is clicked.
And I think in Lucas Arts games the Lasers are more like "Blocks" and their collision detection is not polygon precise but more bounding box based.
@Germanunkol
For a 3D radar I'd use the mathematical distance-dot-line (Abstand Punkt-Gerade) to get the "x-y distance" of the targets relative to the direction of view.
@mpdeveloper_A
Is a skymap as static as model sphere?
At least it is square but however, I don't have a pic with such a huge size a I faked it with the tiled space sphere.
@mk_1
I used the normalmapping shader from the wiki.