I can't remeber the forums where it's at but, if I remember correctly you have to assign it a key control in the options menu. So, like assign it to the Z button and then hold then hold that down to use it let go to stop using it. If that's wrong sorry about that. I've never used it myself lol.

i think that helps. i'll go fool around with it now, and get back to you

I am apperently an idiot because i can't get this to work at all. I set the Z axis to the "Z" key (Removed the zoom in thing that was preset to Z). I assume by tactical key you mean Alt be defualt, and every time i hit that and Z together my ship moves like it normal would. And to make the whole proscess so much more anoying, everytime my computer registers the ALT + Z combo it makes a pinging sound, and if i hold the keys for like 2 seconds the computer registers it like 20 times so i get 20 pings in a row that just never stop and make me wanna throw my computer out a window. God that sound is annoying.

not sure why anyone would ever do anything with that screwed-up thing. hugely annoying

on the subject of the z-axis control, i found that the tactical key was unnecessary. i would hold down z, then click on a point above the ship. this worked, as the ship would proceed to move up on the z-axis. i did a test, in which i put the camera on the xy plane, that is, even with the two ships i was looking at. i then proceeded to to click above the ships, once while holding z, once without. when i held down z, it moved up, when i didnt, it moved to the other side of the gravity well