Thanks so much for trying Bling Hustle! Everyone pretty much agrees it's a nightmare for new players. I try to implement systems to make navigation easier on the players, but they don't help if the players don't know about them. For instance, the "air brake" system you suggested basically already exists as the "Autobrake" (Z key) , which automatically directs your thrusters to nullify your velocity relative to your nav target. Similarly, the "Autopilot" (A key) helps the player traverse vast empty spaces and slow down at the destination without needing to spam click the thrusters. And the "Booster" items (used with B key) can be used to quickly accelerate (or decelerate) in any direction without needing to spam the thrusters (1 booster is equivalent to 32 thruster clicks if I remember correctly).
The problem, as you've clearly seen, is that the player needs to know about these things and how to use them. Many games in the genre like "Elite: Dangerous", "Eve Online", or the "X" series expect players to spend lots of time learning how to play. However, I'm aiming for a faster paced experience than those games, and yet I still want all the depth and complexity of those nerd-gated space games. I'm confident I've achieved much faster pacing, but the learning curve is just as bad. The tutorial / text dump was never the solution I wanted, but I thought it was better than nothing. However, I'm starting to think that maybe I should delete the tutorial entirely and just tell people they need to read instructions or watch a video out of game.
If you do give the game another go, I'd strongly suggest trying the "Pocket Universe" option, which provides a much more action-oriented game without needing to worry about navigation through vast empty spaces. The physics is still basically newtonian, but there's no gravity and the distances are all very short.
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Honestly, you don't even need to gate things long. Legitimately, I would suggest doing something like this:
1. You start in the game. If it's a new game, it gives a piece of dialogue with something like "Hey there, you look new to flying an interstellar vessel. You need some help navigating?" The player has to choose either "Yes (Highly Recommended For New Players)" or "No (Will Skip Tutorial, For Advanced Players Only)" and can't do anything else until they do. If they choose No, it's the same as skipping the tutorial and giving them everything. If they choose Yes, it initiates a gated tutorial. The rest of this is for the tutorial.
2. The person on the radio tells you to head towards the the place to get a job. It actively will tell you how to do it. So first, you gotta do it manually. So the player learns how velocity works, and they're also told to autobrake. The dialogue about how to move and turn goes away once you're moving towards the target. The dialogue about how to autobrake goes away once you're at the destination and trigger getting the dialogue (which, if memory serves, takes a moment to see if you're slow enough so it's the perfect time to change things).
3. Radio dude explains how to get jobs. For the tutorial, it only has one job available, cargo.
4. Player does first job. Again by manual, but no dialogue this time.
5. Return trip back to place to get jobs. This time, you teach them about Autopilot and how to use it and any inherent risks to relying fully on it.
6. New job is available, this time a combat one. Player is told how they can use autopilot to get there, but it can't do the fighting for them.
7. Player does entire mission.
8. Continue this process for anything else the player needs to know. Once all done, you end your tutorial.
In short, integrate a tutorial into the gameplay and in a way that allows advanced players to go wild.