Ok, so I''ll jsut assume you didn''t bother reading the links I passed ... so I''ll just summarize them for you, and add some of the thoughts I have on the sucject of battleship conflicts in space.
First off, you have to make a choice. I don''t think you can give the feel of tremendous power and weight of battleships with an arcade interface/graphics. I mean, look at Starcraft Battelcruiser ... we''ll say that this is the kind of stuff you want to avoid. A puny little ship crawling across the screen. What would be damn cool would be something more in the style of the Mechwarrior series. I have always thought that this serie was utterly cool at giving you the feeling of being in control of a 30 tons robot. The powe management, the weapon management, plus keeping your robot going the proper way while aiming at incoming enemies, was just .... raaah
And I dont even mention the customisation part, a dream come true.
Some of the elements there could (and should, IMnsHO) be taken. Namely, energy/weapon management, customization of ship.
Graphically speaking, a mere ship on the screen is not enough, you need to give a sense of scale, a sense of weight, of power. For instance, seeing a battleship crawl on the screen is a good attempt (the Starcraft battelcruiser, again), but htere is just something missing ... if you look at the cutscenes, you would expect something MUCH larger. The sprite should be bigger than the screen, or at least be in proportion with the other sprites... One good point is the tremors during shootings, the flashes of light from guns. Theses are cool tricks to use to give the feeling of something big shooting. The nearer to the ship, the more tremors and flashes. Personally, I''d go for full 3D, but of course, it''s easier said than done
I think Homeworld is a pretty cool reference. The only problem I''d see would be again the sense of scale. Being able to zoom out of the action just killed the whole effect. Now on the other hand, if you''d zoom in, you could see some really cool details, like separate turrets tracking their targets, you owuld hear more sound effects like the pilots speaking and the sound of the guns...
Another good way to make the player feel all the power of the ships is to give them numbers, but for this to make any effects, they have to make sense in context. In Mechwarrior, the customization part, I think, give you the opportunity to see what''s inside, to get an idea for yourself of what you are controlling on the map. It''s much more different than using the external camera and looking at your bot running on the map. It makes the robot more tangible. When you are on the map, you know what you are driving, it''s not just a robot with blazing guns, it''s YOUR robot.
As for hard science, I think the only science you should put is the one you need to make the player feel like he is driving something real. That means details on what type of warp drive are you using, what ammo type you''ve loaded, what mass is this ship, or that one, what is the crew, the capacity, etc etc ... the idea being to use details that you would use for something real (like a naval battleship) rather than use scientific details to explain everything.
For one, if we wanted science, we could just drop sound effects altogether (sound in the void ??? since when ?), and forget about all the dogfighting stuff, there is no air in space, so no way to make turns, loops, and all the nice style figures we all love. If you can forget those basic rules for the sake of style, I think you safely go ahead and use warp engine for Faster Than Light travels, and other beam weapons.
Some ideas for the gameplay :
Energy management. You definetely need that. Have your engines be able to deliver a certain amount of energy, if you use them to more than 100% you start taking risks. The amount you can go over 100% depends on the engine type, as well as your technicians on board (think the number of times Belanna or Scotty saved the day in Startrek ...), or things like heating vents (the system cools down faster). Energy powers your warp drive ("we don''t have enough power to jump now, we need more time..."), your normal drive, your weapons ("all power to weapons!"), your shields if such technology is available (don''t make those standards for some interesting ideas later ...)
The problem there would be to make an interesting interface so that you can do this power management easy. I''d personally use a nice layout diagram, where you''d simply set the different levels for the different systems of the ship.
Weapons. Dont control the weapons directly. This just kill the whole thing. You are a captain giving orders. And you should be doing jsut that. Being busy dealing with incoming communication, while trying to figure which bearing to choose, and if you should arm your weapons just in case, or keep them down in sign of peace ... control the weapons in a simple manner. Anti fighters batteries would be automatic. They just defend you from incoming missiles, fighters, eventually corvette scaled ships. Then you''d have the more important turrets (corvette sized ?) to deal with ships more specifically. Lastly you''d have the main batteries. Front, rear and sides should be taken into account (up and down as well ?)
You could even have special weapons. Ion cannons in Homeworld come to mind. But I am also thinking of the Dominator cannon in Space Fleet (see my previous post), a cannon so massive that the ship is basically built around it. Of course, the hard part is to aim ...
Other weapons would be, for a capital ship, to have boarding troops. Ram the enemy ship, and assault !
You could have carrier ships. Less weapons, but a fleet of fighters.
I said earlier to make shields something rare, because you could have ships specifically designed for the purpose of being a shield (taken from th Castellan ship in Space Fleet). The energy required for shield technology is so high that a ship was built with the only purpose of being a shield to other captialt ships. There is no other system on board than a shield generator. The ship also serve as a deminer, simply opening the way through minefields like a bulldozer opening the way on a snowy road...
I dunno why, but I always thought tractor beams sucked ... but grappling hooks, now that''s another story. Ramming action, massive freighters going on a kamikaze run, now that would be cool
Make the ships be a bit more in contact ! That gives you opportunity to make lots of metallic noises, that give you the sense of scale you need. dont just use those clean laser beams, use bullets, shells, ramming prow, boarding ships, etc.
Ok, I think there is quite a bunch already, so tell me what you think.
I have had all this in mind since I discovered Space Fleet, quite a bunch of years ago (9 years actually ...), so there is probably more to say. Reading the links I gave above would help a bit. The ideas for scenarios and subplots are very cool for campaign games.
Anyway, youpla :-P
ps : BTW Wavinator, did I mention I love those ideas of yours ? I dunno for sure what you are up to, but I feel I like it very much
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