You simply cannot go past the X-Wing series of games. I mean it. You may have to jump through a few hoops to get them running on a modern computer but it is 100% worth it. Especially for TIE Fighter- widely regarded as the greatest space sim ever made.
The main difference between the X-wing / TIE Fighter games and most everything else is that every ship in a battle -and there are often dozens of fighters, bombers, frigates and capital ships twisting every which way- has it's own objective, target selection, and current task to perform. you might see a boarding ship dock with a disabled shuttle to capture prisoners while the space battle rages all around, and when two capital ships move within firing range of each other, the turrets open up and fill the screen with an amazing display of criss-crossing laser fire, whether you're 6km away glimpsing it while trying to get on the tail of your target, or getting caught
between the ships when the fire opens up.
Unlike other space sims, most notably Rogue Squadron and Battlefront, X Wing/TIE Fighter understand that in space, there is no 'right way up'. Otherwise it's just a flight sim with space wallpaper. As a result, dogfights get truly chaotic as you hurl through a mass of bombers, with enemy fighters streaking past your windows upside down, or narrowly missing in a head on collision. Capital ships, too, don't confine themselves to any particular axis, and you may finish a duel with a fighter, swing round to find your frigate to see it seemingly standing on it's nose in space.
Finally, battles don't just have two sides thrown at each other without meaning. Usually specific primary, secondary and bonus objectives will be present for the fleet, and failure conditions exist too that are more than just 'everything got destroyed'. In this way, the missions are far more dynamic and interesting than just about any space sim before or since. Quite a shame, really, since this benchmark for how it should be done occured almost 10 years ago.
So yeah,
TL
R: Get either X-Wing, TIE Fighter (go the collector's CD ROM for best results), X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance for the best damn space combat action you'll ever see- PC or console wise.