Not that I think you're going to do this, but just as a caveat, I think there's a design flaw in a lot of turn-based tactics games with pixel-scale positioning. It's not just because of the (pseudo)continuous positioning, but because they so often combine continuous positioning and discrete weapon ranges. This means that during movement the player has to judge continuous angular distances between invisible hitboxes, and sometimes from a perspective POV, in order to know whether or not they can attack, whether they can fit into a gap in the battle, etc. So it's hard to even gauge the current possibilities of the battle, let alone possibilities a turn or two in the future.

That's a perfectly valid concern. Thanks a bunch from bringing that up. Most designs could get away by using a color code of the movement arc possibilities, but given the complexity of my weapon system (different areas on the ship have different weapons with different firing arcs and ranges) that could be a very tricky problem to solve.

Back to the drawing board :)

So my maxim for things like this is "Continuous positioning requires continuous weapon efficacy", where a ship being 103 pixels away rather than 100 pixels away doesn't mean it can't be targeted. It might be a bit less accurate, or a bit less powerful, but there shouldn't be any actions that are 100% effective at distance 100 and 0% effective at distance 103.

I lean towards that approach as well. Especially with regards to accuracy and damage.

For example, the Scatter Cannon I use in the game currently has relatively poor stats, but the closer you get to your target, the more armor piercing damage it causes, making it a particularly vicious close-quarters weapon.

Longer-range weapons such as missiles would only have very poor accuracy at longer range (not as a random% but rather, a deviation arc at launch which simply gets worse as you move away by means of sheer geometry).

(Apologies if that's obvious to you. I just mention it because it certainly wasn't obvious in the past.)

It's never obvious, and better say it one too many times than not. Thanks again for pointing out this problem as I'll undoubtedly need to find clever means of messaging that to the player effectively.

No. I didn't allow cloaking in my game.

What was the company behind the game (now defunct)?

Master of Orion 2 it's the gold standard for 4x Turn-Based Space Games. For me it's just about the perfect game.

Master of Orion 2 it's the gold standard for 4x Turn-Based Space Games. For me it's just about the perfect game.

Problem be that I'm not looking for a 4X game. 4X is very complex, economy-bound, and has a lot to do with capturing planets, developing economy, etc.

I'm looking for a much more tactical experience that plays out as a skirmish.

For example, MoO has a turn-based skirmish combat system, that's what I'd be looking for, assuming there was "no game around it".

Know of anything along that vein?

I lean towards that approach as well. Especially with regards to accuracy and damage.

For example, the Scatter Cannon I use in the game currently has relatively poor stats, but the closer you get to your target, the more armor piercing damage it causes, making it a particularly vicious close-quarters weapon.

Longer-range weapons such as missiles would only have very poor accuracy at longer range (not as a random% but rather, a deviation arc at launch which simply gets worse as you move away by means of sheer geometry).

Yeah, that's just what I was envisioning for what-to-do.

Thinking about the continuous-positioning thing some more, one of the things that I've never seen in this sort of turn-based tactics game is elements that warp the geometry of space. You couldn't do it on a grid, but it becomes possible when you throw out the grid. That would potentially lead to some neat strategies -- say, if you have little kamikaze ships that can implode into singularities, you could use them to open up a new line-of-sight for a missile barrage, or deflect an incoming one away from your crippled capital ship. Just imagine the battlefield after the end of an intense battlefield, a twisted soup of spacetime from the "fallout" of grav weapons.

What was the company behind the game (now defunct)?

Antix labs.

They produced a cross platform gaming platform that supported binary portability. So you write the game on your pc, build it, and the compiled exe will run on Android, PC, and all kinds of platforms. Even in a web page.

I was the only one at the company writing games. Everyone else was working on the engine and making sure it worked on dozens of platforms.

For example, MoO has a turn-based skirmish combat system, that's what I'd be looking for, assuming there was "no game around it".

Know of anything along that vein?

"The Cosmic Balance" by SSI, It's really old but it is a straight up Turn-Based miniature war game in space.

Thinking about the continuous-positioning thing some more, one of the things that I've never seen in this sort of turn-based tactics game is elements that warp the geometry of space. You couldn't do it on a grid, but it becomes possible when you throw out the grid. That would potentially lead to some neat strategies -- say, if you have little kamikaze ships that can implode into singularities, you could use them to open up a new line-of-sight for a missile barrage, or deflect an incoming one away from your crippled capital ship. Just imagine the battlefield after the end of an intense battlefield, a twisted soup of spacetime from the "fallout" of grav weapons.

Too complex :P I want to build something very simple.

I found that, often, that "cool extra feature" ruins it for me, such as in VGA Planets' new mode where they fold the space as if it were a sphere (going to the far left allows you to exit to the far right). It unnecessarily makes it harder for the player to understand the game without adding that much depth, I feel. I could be wrong...

I was the only one at the company writing games. Everyone else was working on the engine and making sure it worked on dozens of platforms.

Must've been a cool job though!

"The Cosmic Balance" by SSI, It's really old but it is a straight up Turn-Based miniature war game in space.

Looking it up, thanks!

"The Cosmic Balance" by SSI, It's really old but it is a straight up Turn-Based miniature war game in space.

the reviews seem to show promising design inspiration, sadly, I can't find either actual gameplay footage (aside from menus) or an executable (or rather, an Apple II MOD) of the game. But I'm very much interested as it seems to cover a lot of the things I'm interested in researching (along with possibly being the first tactical game to include customizable firing arcs, which I'm very interested in).

Must've been a cool job though!

my job title was "Games Guru"

I had to port a lot of games to AGP as well, which was pretty horrible work. Lego Batman 2 nearly killed me. I ported it in just over 3 weeks.

the reviews seem to show promising design inspiration, sadly, I can't find either actual gameplay footage (aside from menus) or an executable (or rather, an Apple II MOD) of the game. But I'm very much interested as it seems to cover a lot of the things I'm interested in researching (along with possibly being the first tactical game to include customizable firing arcs, which I'm very interested in).

I had it on the Commodore 64 I think, probably easier to find that version.