the fun comes first, realism only if it does not interfere with fun[/quote]
Many people refer to this mystical "fun" in games, but not one has ever defined what this "fun" is. Until someone does - this sentence has little to no meaning.

GalCiv had the most customizable system ever,[/quote]
Too bad all this designing was of no importance at all in the actual game, huh ? Design for the sake of design is worthless, it has to be tied tightly to the basic gameplay.

you are highly limited how you assign these if you need to track energy consumption. I would say energy is not compatible with slots at all.[/quote]
I would disagree. Actually, it depends on what you mean by energy consumption. From your post i gathered that you meant energy as a kind of alternative weight, where every single component has to receive energy all the time. In that case yes, it may be not compatible, simply because it is exactly the same as weight/space under a different name. Many different restrictions is, in fact, a good thing, as long as they are exactly that - DIFFERENT. If, instead of constant energy supply, you could equip everything you wanted to, but you only had enough energy to activate just several systems at a time, and had to choose which ones you need at the moment - NOW its different and quite interesting.

Why not explore it visually first? If you can nail down an appealing look for a variety of ship chassis with cool add-ons or you have an easier time drawing appealing pieces of ships that fit together you'll be able to decide which route to take. Or sketch a few different ship design GUI ideas, exploring different GUI interactions might help you decide. You may even find there is another, more fun way to engage your player in building a ship. The game will be experienced visually so starting visually only makes sense. Number crunch after. Its the flexible part that can be altered to suit the visuals (example: if a ship looks bulky you can spec it to be a heavier/mass'ier/weight'ier ship). Work from concept, you can always alter concept easiest.

@Karnot Fun is the balance of a control system and gameplay that is easy to learn but impossible to master. Fun is a narrative progression to learning this control system and gameplay with a win condition properly placed at the climax of that education. Fun is pacing moments that a player feels accomplished and thus inspired to learn more, achieve more and create more. Fun is funny, sad, frustrating, shocking, feeling aroused or any other emotion you can stir in a player without overwhelming them. If you can aim and achieve any of these or any others that can be found in game design documents within your own design, you can achieve this elusive "fun". Realism is often visual elements or a mathmatical elements implemented to best render reality (example: a queen in chess looking like the queen of England). These are often a novel addition to a game but if more time is spent making the game look or feel real instead of exploring unique ways to teach players how to win a game the game will not be as fun.

If you can aim and achieve any of these or any others that can be found in game design documents within your own design, you can achieve this elusive "fun".[/quote]
The problem with armchair game designers is that when they start talking about "fun" - what they mean is that the definition of it is something very specific and self-evident. And when you start to dig into it and ask questions - nobody knows what exactly they were talking about just a few seconds ago. So i'd rather stay socratic on the subject.

w/Karnot This isn't the thread for this debate, but by all means feel free to dig into it and ask questions. Name calling and disregarding the question doesn't make your opinion correct or worth mentioning (no one needs to hear that it’s not worth defining "what’s fun?" when designing games). If you're going to be Socratic then you should be eliminating contradicting views on the subject in the interest of encouraging critical thinking, not discouraging the topic all together because I disagreed with you.

If you disagree with my aim on building a fun game then by all means knockdown my points one by one. Show me how Chess isn't a game that's designed to be easy to learn and impossible to master, show me how learning League of Legends isn't a narrative process of learning control systems and game play elements that achieves a win condition at the climax of that process. Feel free to explain how Home World and Shadow of the Colossus visuals and music were not designed to move a player emotionally. And tell me these weren't fun for these reasons. If you're going to be Socratic on the subject then dig into this armchair game designer, show how I don’t know what I was talking about a few seconds ago/yesterday.

Everything in the post-mortem can be explored specificly and appear seemingly self-evident. It’s the challenge of the process and production, aiming and hitting the target of fun that’s ambiguous, but ambiguous isn't indefiniable, its just hard. Fun can't be had until the game is played. It can only be aimed at. If you don't believe in defining what a "fun game" is then what are you aiming to design? This probably seems like I'm trying to start a fight, but my interest is to have you risk your opinion Karnot instead of just having to ignore your "socratic" crits, is all. Being wrong isn't a flaw its a gift of being aloud to explore other perspectives.

Well stated, I would guess that challenge for the player is in the number crunching for this design. This isn't my strong suite but with this in mind the player's challenge shouldn't just be with each part of the ship adding and subtracting a variable in my opinion. Karnot made a good point that the control of these variables is good direction to follow (if I understood it correctly). Deciding on variables (mass, energy, heat, density, combustibility, and the control of those variables (modules, add-ons, ship parts) through simple or complex equations will definatly help in the choice of how the player will interact with building their ships. Make sure the balance here is in the worth of each variable. If all the variables have equal worth in terms of their importance to play then the players choices for customization all matter and mean something, its more creative when the only "wrong choice" is not understanding the gameplay systems and controls.