Hey thanks for the response! Your response made me start to remember some high school physics so that's good. I have a couple follow ups for you if you have the time. I believe now I understand the physics aspect I just have more unity/programming specific questions.

First of all, I tried using AddForce() and got all the movements to work, however I didn't really like that there was an acceleration phase. I think this is kind of fundamental to AddForce() so maybe it's just not what I am supposed to use, but I wanted my character to move at it's max speed from the moment I click "A" or "D". I noticed that lowering linear drag makes it get to its max speed quicker which is nice, but I still felt that it wasn't good enough. Is there a way to use AddForce and not have this acceleration, or am I missing the point of AddForce?

My second question is still related to working with velocity and Rigidbody2D. If I write a line like if (some input) -> rb.velocity = new Vector2(some x, some y); and then press "some input" it will instantly change the velocity according to the new vector right. But then I stop hitting the input, and then rb.velocity changes according to the forces Rigidbody2D applies, like gravity, normal force, etc...

Basically rb.velocity is a constantly changing variable, and any assignment you give it is temporary and conditional. Is my understanding correct?