GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
One thing I really liked in MoO3 over its predecessors was the scope of the fleet actions - something larger and grander than before. In both MoO1 and MoO2 it was fairly simple to come up with a all-around great ship after which you merely pumped up that single model out and then proceeded to curb-stomp all opposition. This is, of course, totally boring. Thus I hope that the fleet actions in your game would draw inspiration from late-WW2/early-Cold War-period instead of the more common Napoleonic-period or falling back for the trusty rock-paper-scissors-school. Hence, few ideas/points to consider:
1) No boring "every weapon is equal if you research it enough"-syndrome, Space Empires being the epitome. Each weapon system should have a purpose for its existence.
At some point all energy-production issues are solved and you get laser-weapons that can pump out Petajoules of energy which will probably make every other weapon obsolete but that's an acceptable outcome of technological progress.
2) Different ships for different purposes! As the danger of air power grew, some cruisers were modified, removing the large-calibre main guns and installing a ton of AA-guns instead, to quickly provide cover for battleships. This one aspect is somewhat decently covered in sci-fi games, notably in Homeworld but it is only one aspect. Electronic warfare should be an integral and important element of space fleet action - EM-spectrum is already a heavily contested battlefield and will probably not change in the future. Hence:
Okay, I'm going to stop there before I get an erection. My point is that these sort of ships aren't anything new in sci-fi literature or even games but almost every game lacks enough simulationist elements in its combat model to actually warrant their usage. I'm not sure how detailed/tactical you want your combat to be so this might not be that relevant... but if you do go for a 3-D tactical space combat, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use real physics! None of this "ships accelerate with visible engine exhausts towards each other, stop, turn on a dime, chase each other"-bullshit.
3) Fleet maintenance - the reason why Britain managed to wage war over Falklands in 1982 and why US Navy can maintain several carrier battle groups around the globe is their extensive network of both supply bases but most importantly the unsung heroes of every naval conflict, the merchant marine which provides supply transports, fleet oilers and such. They ferry food, ammunition, spare parts, replacement crews, fuel and everything else that a fighting fleet needs. It's a great exercise in logistics to maintain few thousand sailors, aviators and marines on patrol at the Indian Ocean, now try to do it at Alpha Centauri. Yeah, some 4X games have abstract "supply points" that a ship has but then it has to return home and yeah, at least in SEIV you can create replenishment ships to keep your task forces going - but I'd like to see this aspect get at least equal, if not more, love than it got in SEIV. Again, depending on the level of detail you are going to aim but what I would love to see is the detail that was in Gary Grigsby's Pacific War/War on the Pacific, in which the AI created automatic supply convoys to your bases if they were not blockaded by naval/air units but you had to create manual replenishment convoys or otherwise your carriers wouldn't stay at sea for long. Escorting these and deciding where to do the critical resupply when everything is highly vulnerable, would be fantastic. Of course even the AI-run normal convoys should actually be present on the map/screen, ie vulnerable to sneaky interception by raiders, just like the normal day-to-day freight traffic between colonies. With a working supply system like this, your game does not need hard/soft-limits on fleet sizes because the more fleets you have and the larger they are, the more extensive your supply network - for each Yankee GI in Europe in 1944, there were almost ten others behind him, making sure he was fed, healthy, got dry boots and enough ammunition and received his pay - so the supply network balloons and gets expensive enough, forcing the player to either gamble on a shoe-string supply network or devote most of their resources to upholding the bloated monstrosity.
Hmm, that was only 3 points, I thought I had more. Oh well, I guess the wall-o-text is rage-inducing enough at it is.
1) No boring "every weapon is equal if you research it enough"-syndrome, Space Empires being the epitome. Each weapon system should have a purpose for its existence.
- Light-speed beam weaponry - most accurate but short range because of power issues, perfect for cooking warheads of missiles/frying small craft
- Relative-speed kinetic weaponry - rail/coil guns, inaccurate but range practically unlimited, great for both surprise attacks from long distance (enemy is not evading) and for spamming important volumes of space
- Missile weaponry - self-propelled and self-guided, can keep up with enemy evasive manoeuvres but is the slowest of the three and has limited range (propellant running out) but different warheads offer variety and good destructive capability, plus possibility of a stand-off strike
At some point all energy-production issues are solved and you get laser-weapons that can pump out Petajoules of energy which will probably make every other weapon obsolete but that's an acceptable outcome of technological progress.
2) Different ships for different purposes! As the danger of air power grew, some cruisers were modified, removing the large-calibre main guns and installing a ton of AA-guns instead, to quickly provide cover for battleships. This one aspect is somewhat decently covered in sci-fi games, notably in Homeworld but it is only one aspect. Electronic warfare should be an integral and important element of space fleet action - EM-spectrum is already a heavily contested battlefield and will probably not change in the future. Hence:
- Reconnaissance - ships carrying large-array telescopes, IR-sensing domes, good old radar, et cetera. They don't need to get close to the enemy but the distances involved create lag, hence encouraging some Recon-boats to be sent closer.
- Electronic warfare - ships with powerful transmitters, capable of sending out white noise signals to jam radar and radio, IR-transmitters that mask the real IR-signature of engines, highly luminous and reflective "wings" to fool telescopes, maybe coupled with detachable drones that can do the same in smaller scale. The enemy will know that something's going down but has no clue about the actual composition of your task force and cannot pre-target weapon systems. And how about a ECCM-boat that has nothing but bunch of tiny calibre railguns, used to pepper the enemy task force from a far, in the hopes of knocking out enough transmitters/electronics?
- C4I - command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, basically battlefield command posts. There's going to be shitload of information flying everywhere in the middle of space combat. Already both air and naval battles employ dozens and dozens of people whose only mission is to observe the situation and maintain both situational awareness and keeping higher ups in the decision making loop while filtering unnecessary feedback. And yes, already most of them are just double-checking what the computers are doing. I wouldn't expect this to change, only to get worse. But in space, living space is much more costly so presumably combat ships would only house minimal command information centres - making lightly-armed C4I-ships reality. Using light-speed information networking systems, these ships and their crews gather all the information that Recon and ECM/ECCM-boats gather, analyse it and then issue suitable commands to other ships. Utilize a surgical strike before the opening of hostilities to remove the enemy's admiral and C4I-ship from play -> enjoy greater speed of action while your enemy is still muddling around. Would also be a priority target for any espionage operation.
- Missile carriers - gigantic warehouse floating in space, with one side honeycombed with railguns and rest of the gargantuan tonnage devoted for missile storage - the railguns give the missiles initial direction and velocity, hence the ship itself can hang back and spit out ordnance, the missiles only activating after a certain time-period or receiving a laser-signal from the ship. This would mean that a conveniently placed ECM-boat could sneak between the coasting missiles and the command ship and then prevent the aforementioned signals from going across.
Okay, I'm going to stop there before I get an erection. My point is that these sort of ships aren't anything new in sci-fi literature or even games but almost every game lacks enough simulationist elements in its combat model to actually warrant their usage. I'm not sure how detailed/tactical you want your combat to be so this might not be that relevant... but if you do go for a 3-D tactical space combat, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use real physics! None of this "ships accelerate with visible engine exhausts towards each other, stop, turn on a dime, chase each other"-bullshit.
3) Fleet maintenance - the reason why Britain managed to wage war over Falklands in 1982 and why US Navy can maintain several carrier battle groups around the globe is their extensive network of both supply bases but most importantly the unsung heroes of every naval conflict, the merchant marine which provides supply transports, fleet oilers and such. They ferry food, ammunition, spare parts, replacement crews, fuel and everything else that a fighting fleet needs. It's a great exercise in logistics to maintain few thousand sailors, aviators and marines on patrol at the Indian Ocean, now try to do it at Alpha Centauri. Yeah, some 4X games have abstract "supply points" that a ship has but then it has to return home and yeah, at least in SEIV you can create replenishment ships to keep your task forces going - but I'd like to see this aspect get at least equal, if not more, love than it got in SEIV. Again, depending on the level of detail you are going to aim but what I would love to see is the detail that was in Gary Grigsby's Pacific War/War on the Pacific, in which the AI created automatic supply convoys to your bases if they were not blockaded by naval/air units but you had to create manual replenishment convoys or otherwise your carriers wouldn't stay at sea for long. Escorting these and deciding where to do the critical resupply when everything is highly vulnerable, would be fantastic. Of course even the AI-run normal convoys should actually be present on the map/screen, ie vulnerable to sneaky interception by raiders, just like the normal day-to-day freight traffic between colonies. With a working supply system like this, your game does not need hard/soft-limits on fleet sizes because the more fleets you have and the larger they are, the more extensive your supply network - for each Yankee GI in Europe in 1944, there were almost ten others behind him, making sure he was fed, healthy, got dry boots and enough ammunition and received his pay - so the supply network balloons and gets expensive enough, forcing the player to either gamble on a shoe-string supply network or devote most of their resources to upholding the bloated monstrosity.
Hmm, that was only 3 points, I thought I had more. Oh well, I guess the wall-o-text is rage-inducing enough at it is.