Ah I'm so hyped for this game.
I just wanna go into cryo for 18 months until the game is out. Fuck the world.
What would I like to see out of this game?
Massive scale.
I want to be able to pilot fighter craft, and go up against fleets of player crewed capital ships, who can launch their own fighter craft.
I want to be able to be the navigator on a ship, control a turret, or the flight crew.
I know this stuff is probably outside the scope of what they can realistically achieve; but they're aiming for total immersion, then they'll have to think about design in a way that encompasses these sort of interactions and mechanics.
They can launch it in a simplified manner; but then expand on it once its more established. They're definetly going to have small-medium sized capital ships...
so start with a FTL system of crew, weapons, etc management, then up the detail a bit.
So like FTL, you get a bunch of rooms that have their own functions. Each room can have its own set of hit points - each room/ship section starts taking damage, functionality starts falling; oxygen starts getting wicked away. There can be an overall hull/chassis integrity. Target each weapon/weapon group.
Then later down the track, each of those activities (weapons management, shield management, navigation, etc) can become a game in their own right.
Ship construction should be...
chassis, hard points, tonnage limitations.
Maybe not dissimilar to how Elite Frontier does it. Buy your shields, missles, beam weapons, etc.
Except instead of a simply fungible cargo space - maybe set aside specific spaces for fuel space, and cargo space (i.e. your 10 ton cargo hold can max upto 10 tons, you 10 ton fuel store can max upto 10 tons - but they occupy part of the max weight load on the ship design screen). Then when those areas of your ship get blasted, you start losing those elements; get hit in your cargo hold, you cargo starts getting trashed, etc.
