My feeling is that if you want to make a game set in space, make it 3d. If you are even considering making it a 2d playing field, then you should ask yourself how committed you are to a space setting. Space is an inherently 3 dimensional environment, and that is what makes space based combat unique and interesting. Without that factor, you may as well set it on the ground or ocean, where operating in just two dimensions is natural (i.e., not an arbitrary limitation imposed on the player because the developer couldn't figure out a better way).
Just a thought.

[edited by - Plasmadog on August 2, 2002 10:09:50 PM]

How you want to control the ships depends somewhat on what kind of battles you plan to have. Right now space games do it in two general ways:

1. World War 2-type dogfighting only with spaceships instead of planes. There isn''t much to say about this, since the style''s been done to death.

2. Large naval conflicts, of which there are two general types - pre-aircraft carrier and post-aircraft carrier. Before planes were powerful enough to destroy fleets on their own, battles were a matter of lining up your fleet against the opposing fleet and turning as many guns on your opponent as you could without getting hurt yourself, then circling around and repeating until one side was sunk, retreated, or surrendered. After planes had long enough range and sufficient armaments(bombs and later missiles), ship strength lost importance and battles became decided more on stealth and surprise. The rise of submarines also had an impact on this turn to stealth, I think, but in a different way that I''m having trouble explaining.

These various methods can all be incorporated into your vision of space combat, and how important position(and hence the 3d factor) is depends a lot on the speeds at which the ships move, turn and fire, and how quickly the combat plays out. If you can strike quickly and suddenly, it''ll be more about stealth and staying out of sensor range, hiding behind asteroids and such. If it takes a long time to fight, on the other hand, then manuevering becomes essential. I dunno if that helps in any way, but it''s something to think about.

Making the world furry one post at a time

Since everything is relative in space, make most commands work by targeting other things - "meet head on," "meet from above," etc. For space navigation, I would try doing it in two clicks, not one: The first one puts up a 2d grid which you select from, the second is to select the third dimension.