Advanced play for the Helms station

Warp 1 isn't very fast (or inefficient) for a reason; an experienced helms officer should be spending a good deal of time using warp 1 to control the battle. Remember, the Artemis out-turns everything else, and no other ship has warp, so you should be literally running rings around the enemy.

The J-hook is a simple technique.

1) raise shields, since you're going to pass the enemies closely
2) warp past the enemy
3) coordinate with the engineer to perform a High Energy Turn 180
4) warp right up to the enemies' back door

Ramming can actually be quite effective if you need to separate a group of enemies before you engage. (And last I checked, it doesn't damage your ship, possibly your shields)

Helms and Weapons should be working together closely with Engineering, since unfocused blasts to the enemy's shields will do nothing. You should choose one side and try and keep the weapon lock solidly on that half of the shield. You'll save time, energy, and maybe some space stations, too.

It is sometimes useful to not engage in a turning fight with an enemy. Even though the Artemis class ship can out-turn anything else, you will at best, be firing with one beam at a time during parts of your turn. And depending on which enemy you are fighting, and your skill level, this situation may continue for a relatively long time. And remember, the longer each fight takes, the more energy you are burning, and the closer the other enemies are getting to your starbases.

It is often best to break away from a turning fight and either turn the other direction, or at least veer away for a few seconds to get a better angle. Yes, that means that you won't be shooting at the enemy for a few seconds, (WEAP, now would be a good time to shut off the beams to conserve energy.) but once you get him back in your sights, you can do so with BOTH beams, and more quickly kill him and move on.

And with good coordination, you may even be able to fire off a few rounds at another enemy ship while swinging around for the second pass on the first enemy ship.

Remember that keeping the enemy on the fringes of your firing arcs is not as useful as flying straight for a few moments and then executing a hard turn to get him back in your full-powered arc. (Again, good coordination with ENG for more impulse/maneuvering power will make your job easier, but you don't want to be hogging all that power yourself all the time so try to learn how to do this with as little extra power as possible.)

Another advanced tactic is keeping track of multiple enemies. Since you can click to turn, or even use a joystick, there is no reason that you can't focus on more than one thing at a time, which means that you should be aware of what the other enemies in the area are doing. If SCI has told you which ship is the battleship, are you maneuvering your ship into his aft firing arc? Can you coordinate a rapid target-switching maneuver to fire a couple shots at each enemy to get them to break formation and become less threatening for a few seconds?

An addendum to my previous posts' point about not using extra power unless you have to:

There is not a huge difference in turning ability when you have full power dedicated to maneuvering. At normal power levels, it takes an Artemis class starship 36 seconds to make a full 360 degree turn. (And this time does NOT scale with impulse speed. Only the turning radius changes.) With full power into maneuvering, that time reduces only as far as 21.5s. That is only a benefit 1.67 times the maneuverability for 4x the power. So, don't take up extra power that could be going into weapons or shields unless you are REALLY certain that you need it.

More often than not, you need more practice or forethought, not more power. That's not to say that you shouldn't request more power when you think you need it, but you shouldn't rely on it. Instead, learn to accomplish the same maneuver without that extra power, just by fine-tuning your timing.

If you're interested, with minimum power into maneuvering, your turn time increases to 41s, and at half power, it becomes 29.5s