I'm not developing a game on this idea, and likely won't for the foreseeable future, but it's something I've mused about and researched for a long while. I wanted to share it and see if anyone else thinks there's room for an interesting game within the speculative fiction.
Star-wars/Star-trek-esque space battles are cool and interesting, but essentially the paradigm of "fleet battles" has been trapped in WW2 naval-battle iconology for nearly a century. Even modern full scale naval battles wouldn't be anything like this, so any depiction of space battles using ww2 style fleets is just as likely as them lining up in massed infantry battles in space.
From what I've researched, if in the future there were space battles, they would occur at mind-boggling ranges. 10,000 or 100,000 miles or more. Fighting would probably be very slow and i would take hours or days for the shots to reach their target. Spaceships would likely be coated in light or radar absorbing materials to prevent detection and the majority of the "battle" would be focused on spotting an enemy target, calculating trajectories and alternate trajectories, firing, and waiting for results. Staying stealthy would also be a big focus. The more shots you fire, the more likely you will be spotted and fired upon. There would likely be some sort of counter-measures if you can detect incoming missiles (which would presumably have a heat signature), but projectiles would not be detectable. Too small and no heat signature.
It seems that mass-drivers and missiles would be the only realistic weapons to use, although lasers would be a possibility, but they wouldn't be nearly as damaging.
Defenses would likely consist of surprisingly primitive things. Chaff would likely defect or soften mass-driver rounds. If a 4-inch mass driver hits a pebble-sized chaff while moving at 5,000 mph, the impact speed would likely shatter the mass-driver round or knock it off course. Reflective or particle chaff would be an effective counter to lasers, and lasers would probably be the defense of choice against missiles.
Armor would more than likely be useless, as almost any hit would have the impact power of a nuclear weapon.
It seems that ships would likely be fairly small. Likely modern-spaceship sized with weapons attached. Probably quite ugly, and utilitarian. I would imagine a fairly small crew as well Maybe 3-5 people. If they were meant to operate in space for an extended period, the bulk of the craft would be the living quarters.
The only way I imagine this being any fun would be as a simulator-like real-time strategy style game (that can fast forward) Either controlling a handful of ships or controlling one from FPS mode from inside the cockpit - but interfacing the controls to access the "strategy" game. I imagine something with the tenseness of the "Hunt for Red October", or "Crimson Tide", or other similar submarine battle movies.
I've a few ideas for such a game for a while, but never started prototyping it because my fear is that while i would intend for it to reflect tense submarine battles in slo-mo, it might end up playing like a really boring and slow version of Battleship (the board game).
