Only partially related, but there was a fantastic game called Star Control 2 once upon a time. The main single player game was a big long quest, but it also had a 'Melee' mode where you and a friend could go up against each other in Asteroids-style space combat- putting different types of ships with different weapons against each other. So much fun was had.
Good news is that it's been ported to modern systems: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/