What I would like is to be able to tell my ships to move sideways while firing at the enemy. I strafe around them and BAM! Has anyone played Battleships Forever? If you have you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, play it! Great game, and its completely free.

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This probably means you have oriented your ship models incorrectly in your modelling software.

To use XSI as an example, but I believe it is the same for any modelling software which uses the standard 4 perspectives (usually Top, Front, Right and Isometric), you have to orient your model so that when the model is viewed from the Top perspective, its front end is pointing down.

When I imported my first test cube into the game I had that same problem, and the above fixed it.

Erm... not sure what you mean. Select your model and use the rotation controls to reorient it. Any 3D modelling software should have rotation tools...

When you look in front view of a model, the front of the model should be facing upwards and the top of the ship where the front would normally be.

In short, I believe that means you should rotate the ship 90 degrees over the X axis and 180 on the y.