A strategy game (real-time or turn based, or a combination) based on FS would definitely rock. Sadly, I don't think there are any current game engines out there that could properly support it.
In my opinion, an FS strategy game should, at the very least, have the following:
- Big picture economy, sort of similar to what's found in SW:Rebellion but maybe a bit more detailed. Mainly more planetary construction options with buildings for R&D, different types of construction plants for ground units, space units, and buildings, different academies for training ground troops and spaceship crews, etc. But no more detailed than that, MOO3 for instance was way overkill.
- Simple resource gathering. Planets/moons should have certain resources, most should have common ones but rarer resources should be found only on a few. Planetary resources should be considered exploited if under a faction's control. Other resources should be minable from asteroids or gas clouds/gas giants, where you have to set up a mining station in the area you want to gather from. Again, these should come in varying degrees of rarity. Opens up for strategic strikes to cripple enemy production by hitting their only XXX-mining colony. Once set up, gathering from off-planet sources should just happen though, no micromanagement.
- A not too complicated tech tree starting at some point before FS1 and leading all the way up to the post-capella era, for each of the playable species. I don't think Shivans should be playable, by the way.
- The ability to start a campaign at several stages, for instance first contact between terrans and vasudans, FS1, FS2, post-capella, and play all the way through to the end from either of those starting points.
- Exploration. Only nodes appropriate to the start of a campaign should be known, any others would have to be discovered and explored to expand known space.
- Detailed systems with the ability to move inside them freely through standard or subspace drives. Essentially each system should be homeworld like map on a far larger scale. Fixtures on the map would be planets, moons, suns, asteroid belts, nebulae, basically any natural occurances.
- Anything man made in space, even orbital shipyards, space stations, minefields etc. should be seperate from any planets and able to be constructed and/or moved anywhere on the above in-system map. Any of these should also be able to engage or be engaged (in the case of, say, mines) in space combat.
- For space combat, it should be possible to go into a more detailed view of any part of the system map. This should perfectly mirror any units or fixtures within a certain area of the full system map, just up close similar to the normal perspective from HW. In theory, it should be possible for several battles to be raging at once.
- Environmental effects on units in space. Asteroid fields and nebulae should have the same effects as we see in the game. Trouble for big ships in asteroids, sensor trouble for everyone in nebulae, with EMP messing up systems in some.
- Ground combat should be automated, though with the player being able to make some decisions affecting the outcome. MOO3 actually wasn't too bad in that respect, so something similar would be nice.
- Travel between systems should only be possible through the use of nodes. Nodes should have varying degrees of stability, with some technologies enabling travel through less stable nodes, but never inter-system travel completely without them.
And there's more, but this is enough for me to see that there's no game engine out there that'll support even half of what I'd like to see in an FS strategy game
Poll
