I need input from other people! I am in the middle of developing a game right now and I am losing my mind currently about where to go from here. I start to have troubles defining "what is fun?". I have literally no feeling for that, anymore. I have some ideas where to go from here but I would love to hear your thoughts about designing a fun battle movement system. Thank you very much.

Let me introduce to you what I already have implemented, first. Which is, to be precise, a crude battle system:
- The player can build his own spaceship, hire crew and battle another spaceship that is spawned on any side of the ship. The crew and ship works and organizes itself completly on its own without any player interaction.

Here is the problem: The spaceship is actually static! As is the enemy ship!
They don't actually move and you can't just scroll from one spaceship to another. Bullets are despawning outside of one ships "world" and respawn in the enemy ships "world". This is due to technical limitations. Similar to the game Faster Then Light.

So I need to come up with a clever, fun and strategic movement system during the battle phases. I got some crude ideas, all of which happen on a "map":

1.  All spaceships move on a grid. Every ~30 seconds, all spaceships either move forward one space or turn left or right but stay on the same tile.
   - Thoughts: Tidy, strategic and simple to understand and overview
2.  Idea #1 but every ship can move multiple tiles in one turn, depending on the "speed" of every individual ship.
   - Thoughts: Might compromise strategic thinking.
3.  Idea #1 but every ship can move in different individual time intervals, depending on the speed of every ship.
   - Thoughts: Might compromise overview of the situation.
4.  All spaceships move freely on the map, in realtime.
   - Thoughts: Boring?

Maybe you have another idea? Would love to hear your input.

I like idea 3 the most. However you have to think about how to reward movement. Maybe you should implement stuff like nebulas where you can move in and be harder to hit. Or asteroids which can hit ships and damage them if you don't dodge them. Also weapon ranges and the ability for "space entering another ship" if you are close enough come into my mind.

On your current layout i would implement a grid-based map on the lower right corner of the screen. You can use cubes or hexagons as your tiles. You would move by rightclicking a grid on the map as your new target of movement.

9 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

Is there a mode or a view that shows the players the ships' locations relative to one another? Like a map view?

There is supposed to be a map view with all ship's location relative to one another, where the player can plan the ships movement.

9 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

A player can fire in how many directions?

In all 4 axis aligned directions. I don't see a problem giving them a small angle of freedom, though.

9 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

What's the overall concept - is it Weapons Engineer, or is it Battle?

I guess Weapons Engineer. It is crucial where and how many weapons you place on each side, as well as the positioning of your critical systems: Ammunition storages can explode, a defunct cooling system makes your other subsystems not work anymore, generators keep your ship powered. A ship is lost, when its core gets destroyed.

Every single tile and subsystem of the ship can be damaged, destroyed and repaired during battle.

9 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

Is there any sort of Fog Of War involved?

No, not planned at all.

7 hours ago, dunky11 said:

I like idea 3 the most.

Thanks for your input. I am not disagreeing with what you are saying, but my biggest fear with idea #3 is that the player might lose overview and control of the situation fast, when not looking constantly on the map if there are multiple ships involved.

Contrary to what I could imagine with Idea #1: If you know that all ships move every 30 seconds, you can manage your ship for 30 seconds, then return to map view and see how everything unfolds. Might be boring and repetitive, who knows.

What do you think about that?

7 hours ago, dunky11 said:

Maybe you should implement stuff like nebulas where you can move in and be harder to hit. Or asteroids which can hit ships and damage them if you don't dodge them.

I really like the idea. Gets more tactical options on the map. Maybe some kind of moving "storm" that damages and/or drags your ship with it.

7 hours ago, dunky11 said:

Also weapon ranges and the ability for "space entering another ship" if you are close enough come into my mind.

I don't understand.

I'm not a fan of turn based mechanics with automatic timers, which is how I would classify your ideas 1-3.

Turn-based games have several major weaknesses compared to realtime games:

• They feel less immediate, less visceral, more abstracted.
• They make it harder to judge elements of speed and timing.  In a realtime game, you can immediately see if one ship is faster than another just by looking at it as it moves.  In a turn-based game, you need to look at actual numbers or indirect graphical representations.
• They introduce movement artifacts.  For example, a ship that moves multiple tiles per turn might be able to move through a danger zone in a single turn without ever actually being in danger.

Turn-based games make up for these weaknesses with their two great strengths:

• They give you the time to really think about your actions without feeling rushed.
• They don't force you for time to pass.

What you are suggesting has all of the weaknesses of a turn-based game, with none of the strengths.

That is amazing input, thank you.

I would tone it down a bit, since the ships are moving anyway if the "timer runs out". It is just a matter of if you want to turn, or if you do nothing and keep flying straight. I also had the idea, that the player is able to plan a movement path ahead of time. However, I can very well see where you are going with, with your argumentation.

7 hours ago, a light breeze said:

They make it harder to judge elements of speed and timing.  In a realtime game, you can immediately see if one ship is faster than another just by looking at it as it moves.  In a turn-based game, you need to look at actual numbers or indirect graphical representations.

very true.

7 hours ago, a light breeze said:

They introduce movement artifacts.  For example, a ship that moves multiple tiles per turn might be able to move through a danger zone in a single turn without ever actually being in danger.

Never thought about that. Yeah. However I also had never planed to add anything to the map in that regard

I guess I can remove Idea #2 from the list.

With Idea#3 I could allow ships to fall into fixed "speed" steps. So the ships move every 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60... seconds. That could give a nice feeling of "speed", without looking at the numbers, straight.