Thank you so much!
Tip: you can shoot from the hip with missiles. As long as fire on or slightly before an enemy ship when crossing its path, the missile will hit. They're hard to take out with lasers because their shields regenerate and they constantly move, but hitting them with missiles is easy once you get the hang of it.
As for controlling the ship, the reason you can also stop with x and \ keys is because one of my playtesters was having a lot of trouble stopping with the 5, and the 5 on the top row was too awkward because it's not by shift.
No music? Didn't hear that from my playtesters. They're OGGs using the Maniacs Patch. It's the Steam version of 2k3, so it SHOULDN'T be having a compatibility issue. It's probably something not reading right on your computer.