Reducing the amount of ships

It's crazy how much people continue making space opera. It seems like THE theme that has the most games.

I had a mechanic idea for, guess what, another space opera game that seemed similar to your card mechanism.

I wanted to use rock paper scisor in combination with a value. So it create a situation where the more valuable card would be used more often, but the weaker card would have a stronger special ability that could for example affect die roll.

For example, to use your multiplier idea I could have the following cards:

Rock x5 : weak ability: No rerolls
Paper x3 : average ability: Reroll 6+
Scissor x1 : Strong ability: Reroll all misses

But again the multiplier mechanism in warpgate works because there are multiple ships.

If I want to keep the number of ships low, I could try to use a rock paper scissor mechanism for ship duel resolution that would represent the type of maneuvre or weapons that the ship would use. It could be a way to prevent scripted combat: Fire missiles first, then shoot cannons and send assault shuttles.

It's still a very limited choice but could work for a real time game. There is a similar mechanism in Endless Space video game, but the impact on combat is limited (simple modifiers to weapons).

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I am not sure yet if I want the game to continue while ships are battling, or if I want the game to pause while combat is resolved. Programatically, it would be easier if it all happened at the same time. Thematically, it could be weird, as right now, I thought of making game time be 1 second = 1 day. Mechanically, it could be harder for players to handle at the same time as colony management.

If I do put everything at the same time, I could allow players to preselect their strategy card for their ship for the battle to come. Defenders will probably have to select their ship to intercept the incoming attacker, else they will not take place in the battle.

This way I am sure that all battles are 1 on 1, but defender can chose who to intercept. I might need to put an auto defend button, so that the AI can automatically undock a ship to intercept an attacker without player input.

The problem is that it could create more management and have issues where ships can remain lost in space not in orbit around a planet, which is something I want to avoid for the game's simplicity. The other way, I only have 2 status, in transit or in orbit.

I could have a form of RPS with the ship design. I have 2 possible solutions for ship design:

A) Use generic ships and load them on the fly with the weapons you want

- Advantage: Makes them more versatile, only 1 type of ship to build
- Disadvantage: Would require some work to all the time to load weapons on the ship. Which could be annoying in late game.

B) Use different ship type with various configuration of Tubes, Cannons, cargo.

- Advantage: Weapons could be autoloaded. Various ship models could be available for each faction. I could also ignore ammunitions.
- Disadvantage: Les versatility, only the cargo loaded could change the behavior of the ship. Unless the cargo is fixed in the ship design (assault shuttles or landing forces)

C) Variant to solution B: Tubes, cannons, and cargo has 2+ possible loadout. For example: Launch tube can send torpedoes or mines. Cannon can be mass driver, or flak defense cannon. Once you select which type of weapon you want to slot it remains there until you change it.

- Advantage: No need to reload weapons manually all the time. Give some versatility within the restrictions of the design. Allow more types of weapons.

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The second element to consider is if I want the player to make a decision during battle resolution. So far, the only decisions is the ship built with equipment loaded. Possible decisions in battle:

- Full/half/disable weapon to save ammunition if considered. No ammunition makes management easier for the player.
- Make an RPS decision (could be interesting since simple)

Or I use no decisions and combat is automated. In that case it could happen in the background without the player having to look at the results unless he choose to. Making the gameplay uninterrupted.

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For the RPS system, I don't want a choice for each weapon as ships should be using all weapons. I am thinking in something like:

Dash : Increase defense vs cannon and shuttle, end battle faster
Block : Increase defense vs missiles, or allow deployment of mines or decoy
Maneuver: Make use of weapons more efficiently and avoid missiles

The RPS would be

Block counter Dash
Maneuver counter Block
Dash counter Maneuver

A counter would negate the benefit of the action to the opponent.

The goal of the RPS would be to anticipate the opponent's action according to his weapon configuration. Not sure if you should be allowed to view your enemy's weapon configuration.

In fact configuration would be in 2 part. What you are suggesting here is what I call ship design. Now ship design would remain fixed, but will be unique for each of the 4 factions.

Originally I wanted to have 2 small and 2 large ship per faction (Ex: Destroyer, Frigate, Battlecruiser, carrier). But if battles are going to be 1 on 1, I'll have to make each ship the same size. Else smaller ship will always be disadvantaged, unless I counter balance it with something else like evasion.

What the player will change on the fly is the weapon equipped in that slot.

Launch Tubes: Torpedoes, ECM missile, Web Charges.
Cannon: Mass Driver, Flak Defense Cannon
Cargo: Assault Shuttle, Landing Shuttle, Flak Turrets, Mines

So if a destroyer ship has 3 Launch tubes and 1 cannon, he can chose for example the following configurations:

Torpedoes x2, ECM Missile x2, Flak defense cannon x1
OR
Torpedoes x3, Massdriver x1

Ship will come with the default equipment, but they could change some of their slot with different weapons.

It could be possible that technology improvements add new weapons to be equipped or improve the weapons already available. Or if I keep it even more simple, and there is no equipping. When a new tech is acquired, all ships are equipped with it in addition of anything they had so far.

But I like the idea of a fixed configuration, only 2 or 3 choice per type, then make tech boost their efficiency.

Hmm! For example, I could have a card that modify the strength of the weapons or defense. Something like:

-- Dash --
Dodge x5
Missile x3

-- Block --
Cannon x5
Missile x3

-- Maneuver --
Dodge x3
Cannon x3

This way, in a quick glance, you can see the modifier offered by the card. What is not specified remains as x1. I could use % modified instead of multipliers a bit like in Endless Space.