So, I've been reading this book series lately ("The Lost Fleet" by Jack Campbell) and it's given me some ideas for a 2 player game where you attempt to defeat your opponent in a space battle. The book series really helped me see how a battle in space would be different from any on land or even in the sea or the air. Anyway, I'm looking to see what kinds of ideas other people have for some of the roadblocks I've been running into in designing this game. Here's what I want in the game.
1) Three Dimensions - I want a board that can show, somehow, you space fleet moving in three dimensions. The biggest reason I want this is because spaceships move in three dimensions, but the other reason is because I want to be able to set up different formations of ships and having that up-down dimension would really open up possibilities.
2) Maneuvering - I want the game to focus more on well planned maneuvering and formation building, and less on luck or chance. As I said earlier, I want to set up formations of ships and have them go at each other.
3) Fuel Economy - I've been interested in using some system to track the amount of fuel you have and providing penalties for running too low or running out.
4) Combat - I want a combat system that doesn't deal in chance so much, but I also want my different classes of ships to have different combat capabilities (i.e. one type of ship that lays mines and another that can fire missiles) while still having some similar combat capabilities (i.e. all ships have some laser like weapon).
5) Time delay - In the books, the commander of the fleet has to be careful how he gives orders because of the fact that his ships are anywhere from a few light-seconds to a few-light hours apart from each other. He needs to be able to anticipate what his enemy is going to do and then give the orders ahead of time and not have them carried out immediately. I want to simulate that in some manner.
6) Size - I would like this game to be somewhat modular in size, so you can play a short game with 4 ships on a small board or a longer game with 100+ ships on a giant board.
Those are the things that I've been really thinking about the last week or so. I have got a few ideas but I'm seeing what kinds of ideas you all out there have. So throw 'em down!
