I need to try more of Space Engineers. I think I played Starshatter but got completely lost on the controls. I-Wars is one of those that didn't feel quite right to me. I kind of enjoyed just putting a Cruiser in homeworld in follow camera myself, picking locations RTS style (well ... given its an RTS ...).

Yeah my wording is abit odd. I like the idea of being in command of a single ship, its just that I favoured controlling a ship in Homeworld with mouse and such and pretending I was in a single ship game 🙂

And yeah my original intention was just to generate some discussion and find out what elements people would like from that aspect of a game (but I'm happy for suggestions to look at).

Afraid I'm a theoretical game designer (I.E. some one who fluffs about coming up with ideas, but not having much of the tech mojo or patients to follow through).

Have you played NexusJI?

Having played a lot of Homeworld lately it's interesting how much playing an RTS feels like playing a space-sim of a larger ship.

What I'd really like to see is more games in which the capital ship experience more closely resembles RPG's or card games, but maintaining some of the "realism" of space sims (i.e. preferably not turn based, although I enjoy that also).  The definitive experience like that so far is EVE Online, but there are other reasons I don't play it anymore.  

X3 Terran Conflict or x3 Albion Prelude are my cap ship games. Independence war 2 felt like a capital ship. 

My favourite capital-ship game is Starshatter. I liked Battlecruiser 3000ad or X series but those two just can't really be compared to Starshatter. This game is somehow different genre, it is more like Arma series than like other space-sims.

That's about my fav, existing cap-ship game.

If you ask me about my ideal one... Mix Arma series and Starshatter, add seamless transitions and non-sector solar systems and add full planet surfaces on. Of course on top of that think about commanding fleet while standing in first person on your fleet flagship bridge... And so on... Duh, duh.

Basically that kind of game would offer fun for everyone: normal planet infantry, engineers, tank operators, spec ops, marines, planet only aerial vehicles, planet-orbit vehicles, space fighters, all kind of starship captains and high command for all of them - fleet admirals and planetary operations generals.

But what kind of computer would run that? 

I will stay with Starshatter.

Remember about: IW2, Netrek  😎 , EVE and Nexus: TJI.

I may have to give Starshatter another whirl, its open source now no?

Yes, it is 🙂 I think that you can download it from here too.

The more I think of it though, the more I feel I'd like something where you don't control your capship much outside of combat ... at least flightwise. You set a course and your helmsman takes it from there while you can do other stuff like manage crew, supplies, plot away-missions and wander around your ship (Consortium style maybe, I just got it off a GOG deal so having a look). The meat of capship play to my mind is management, assigning crew to tasks, engineering and science projects, etc rather than worry about dodging asteroids and correct docking procedures. But yeah, that still leaves combat control, which is something I'd want to keep player focused.

Absolutely potato. A mix of X-Com, Jagged Alliance, FTL and Consortium ... as the Cap Ship management side, I may have somewhat ambitious ideas.

I've checked out Flagship, looks fun but not quite how I imagine things. Not sure if it has more of a management side to it.

Will have to chase up those others.

I prefere the Starshatter like huge capships (<4km long) and agree with ThirtyOne, it's more like the Arma series, where FPS, RTS and realistic aspects meet. I like the combat flight sim based approach and for simplicity I will just skip the whole aspect of economy / trading / RPG here.  If I could change a few things (actually I could, since it's opensource) this would be my list of thoughts:

- more role for the rockets/torpedoes/missiles and increased range (~x10, only the CPU time for the multiple projectiles should be a limit) with various type of warheads

- even more realism with limited fuel either used for max velocity or later course change

- real rocket physics can go as far that a highly efficient, but weak truster combined with an initila launch velocity, can provide a slow but large and curved trajectory

- I would merge the fighter class with the missiles (think about drones) as staged rockets with some optional returning body and multiple warheads

- I would make these drones player controlled, and when one goes down you can switch to the next one taking the controll from the AI, so you won't be bored inside your capship waiting for the results, or during a multiplayer session, that way fighters can be cheap and realistic but fun

- all capships should have carrier like capabilities, but the large ones should have linear accelerators to launch drones/missiles without propellant consumption leaving them with more fuel for course change

- laser based point deffense system where the range/focus and the actuall temeperature of the target are the key parameters

- laser beams are invisible, they are painted there only by the HUD and if you turn that off only the illuminated target is visible

- as for particle/energy/bolt cannons i would stick with small mass high velocity rail/gauss guns and maybe high rate of fire chemical ones and they can be mounted on missles too, to take out capship subsystems

- neutron bomb type and shaped charge nuclear warheads

- the battle will be decided by the destruction of point deffenses or by the overload of them with proper ETA and multiple direction concentrated fleet fire, or when one ship runs low on resources and retreats

Now let's step out from those flying towns and have some thoughts about seamless transitions and outside of capship experience:

- the sector based, fixed orbit, no garvity game engine for Starshatter was a wise choice at that time, with real orbits things get complicated (altought not that much and i wouldn't mind to try out an Orbiter based space fight)

- distances between planets are huge, you either have some over 300km/s teleport thingy and do a sector jump or you don't want to wait that out (stars, several years...)

- as for the seamless transitions to planets, i think a loading screen during the reentry (several mins anyway) at the right time (when everything is hot and you can't see a thing through the plasma) are accepatable, we can get a much better surface experience that way

- earth like planets are huge too, plenty of room there, some small sectros are just good enough for the ground operations or it will be dull and repetative

- I would prefer an Arma like experience on the ground and let's face it, we can't even properly merge a flight sim with gorund based FPS elements (however i have seen some state of the art attempts) so maybe we should just nuke the whole thing from orbit

- in the case of small moons/asteroids, let's say with <40km diameter, things could be more interesting, tunels can go through the inner core and we can have a Descent like experience merged with Death Star like scenes where you have to detonate inside to scrach the surface, lot's of multiplayer potential there but also a game engine killer