I loved the feeling of hovering above the ground and shooting down enemies. Then if your ship was about to be destroyed, you would eject out of your ship and you could try to snipe your enemy's ship to steal theirs. When you were outside your ship, you were very weak and ships could kill you by just running over you or with a single shot so you had to have really good aim to snipe and hijack one of your enemy's ship fast. Then you could literally drive around in their bases in their ship to spy on them and they wouldn't recognize you as the enemy (until you started shooting at them). That way you could check out their positions and defensive infrastructure to decide whether or not to mount an attack and how. Brilliant concept.
I also loved that there was a goal of exploring the map to find and secure geothermal geysers as you could only start a base around those. It was one of the first truly immersive game experiences.
This was many years before counter-strike, but the game mechanics were far more complex. It definitely didn't get the hype it deserved.