I would like to post some ideas I had for GC2.
1. Combat
a. Area weapons - weapons which hit more than 1 ship.
example
combat begins - combat screen pops up and program lines up enemy ships on one side and friendly ships on other side. normally a weapon can hit the ship at the opposite end of the enemy row. An area weapon can hit this ship AND the adjacent enemy ships.
b. Alternative Ground combat model
A military ground base building has to be built on a planet tile. It produces every x turns 1 brigade for free. Each brigade employs 1 population unit too and of course you have to maintain the military building with money like all buildings. You can integrate troop transport pods into your starships for transporting brigades from one planet to other. Reasons to transport brigades could be planetary invasion or suppression of rebels.
If you want to sucessfully invade an enemy planet you have to eliminate the enemy brigades there. The combat should be like the space combat. This means a invasion screen pops up and lines up the enemy brigades on one side and the friendly brigades on the other side. Maybe there could be just 1 "shot" per turn instead of duking everything out like in space combat to represent a long ground war on planets with much population. Additionally at the invasion screen there could be participating space ships with ground fighters or space-to-ground missiles which can support the invasion.
The model is similar (but not the same) as in MOO2 which was easy to understand and without much micromanagement. On the other hand it gives some interesting decision for the player and the "feeling" of a ground combat strategy. (how many military ground bases should I buy, should I design specialized space-to-ground ships etc.)
One of the really ridiculous elements of GC1 was the idea transporting billions of troops and their military equipment around in space. This is so silly that you can only laugh about it. How big would be a transport ship which could this? 10000 miles long? Absolute nonsense.
2. Ship design
a. Carrier vessels
Design option for carriers. A carrier is just a ship design with space fighter or ground fighter integrated. These fighters have the same weapons as other ships (beam, missile etc.) but they can be used once per turn in normal combat or in 1square distance of their carrier ship (or more if technology allows) as a strike force.
b. no ship classes
there should be no ship classes like fregate or battleship class. Only size should matter. 1 slot is 1 size point. 1 Size point costs 1 Industrial Output (IU). Things like beam weapons, drives etc. needs 1 (sometimes maybe more) slot.
The idea behind this is that the role of a ship is defined by its use and not by the name. This means that I use battleships as main battleships in my navy. And escorts as protection for invasion ships. But I can choose how many slots the shipclass needs for its role.
3. Other ideas
a. automated tradevessels I can raid with my ships.
b. smaller worlds
Why only worlds with 6x6? Why not some smaller worlds with 2x2 (moons), 3x3 (small planet), 4x4 etc. ? And artificial ringworlds (as technology later in game) with 8x8 or bigger?
c. Deep sea habitats, orbital cities
a terraforming option to settle the deep sea of a planet and to construct orbital cities which opens new tiles.
thats some of my ideas.
klaus
