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I've had action space sims on the mind recently (TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, etc.), and I'm even playing Freespace 2 now. These games were great, and I want more of them. And I want them better. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person whose childhood wasn't at least partly consumed by spaceships shooting at each other with lasers.
So I'm going to ramble for a really long time about the awesome game that I think somebody should make. Because I started and couldn't stop. And maybe other people can share their thoughts on the subject.
BTW, this is pretty much the definition of TLDR.
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Here's the big way they fix this: Substantially up the scale of everything. Capital ships can be afford to be *much* larger; rendering technology has improved to the point where large objects can look *good*, as opposed to just being giant blocks floating around in space whenever you get close to them (which in previous titles had the effect of just making you feel slower when you flew by them, rather than making the ships themselves appear larger). I don't think there's any practical negative consequence to the ships being larger and more intricate; you've just got more stuff to fly around in. Which is why I'd extend this even further beyond capital ships; there's plenty of opportunity to just include giant superstructures that don't serve real function in the game world other than providing an obstacle course. After all, there's no reason to assume that people far into the future are constrained with building materials or construction time. The best example I can think of would be a level in Homeworld where the background includes enormous bulk that presumably are ship-building debris (the details are left to your imagination):
http://cfs5.tistory.com/image/1/tistory/2008/05/06/15/31/481ffb5cc11e8
Not only would absolutely giant space hulks add something to the physical environment, but it gives some great opportunities for eye candy. And mission objectives. And so on. Beyond that, they can spice up the "space terrain" with things like enormous moving parts, space hazards, pathways, and possibly even some kind of item pickup scheme; I think they'd probably want to stop far short of turning it into Descent. But outer space can be more than empty vacuum with a couple of destroyers and a carrier thrown in.
Now, there's always the possibility of letting the player pilot a bigger ship of their own, but I can't figure out how that would work exactly. It's necessarily slower and clumsier, and presumably it has some more complex weapon systems including multiple turrets, and maybe some kind of scheme where you manage the shields. I just can't imagine how this could be competitively enjoyable compared to piloting a smaller craft, without seeming really disjoint with the rest of the game. Thematically, I don't think it makes much sense except in a game like Privateer.
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