Yeah, IMO thrusters should always be A in combat ships unless you are just absolutely hurting for power, and even then I would look for something else to sacrifice or look into prioritizing modules.
If you're prioritizing modules, I usually set mine like this.
5 - Things you can't possibly use during combat or even out of supercruise - Fuel Scoop, Interdictor, Planetary Vehicle Hangar, Cargo hatch if you don't have any cargo racks, etc.
4 - Things you need more than the above, but can't possibly (or not practically) use with hardpoints deployed - FSD, and other things of that nature
3 - Weapons and accessories - As far as accessories, I would put Shield Cell Banks, and things of that nature here.
2 - Defensive and escape modules - Shields, Heat Sink launchers (for Silent Running and boosting), Shield Boosters, Chaff, etc.
1 - Things you absolutely need to get the ship moving and basic functions - Thrusters, Sensors, Power Distributor, Life Support, etc.
If shit goes sideways with your power plant, you can always adjust your FSD to be higher priority so you can have it when you need it, but otherwise keep it lower priority because you don't need it on during combat. While it does have a boot time, if your ship is fast enough it won't matter too much. Silent Running + Heat Sinks + Chaff is a good option to counterract that.
I don't know what the controls for this on consoles are (unless you can just use HOTAS), but I would suggest getting into toggling Flight Assist. Flight Assist counterracts your movements to keep you from spinning endlessly. If you were to just pitch up with FA off, you would flip over endlessly until you counterract that force. Toggling this in battle lets you turn a bit faster as you slide in a direction, and can be quite useful.
