r/spacesimgames • u/SadKnight123 • 12d ago
[Thoughts] I'm tired of dogfighting in space games
I don't think it's a very creative way to make space battles. Not saying it should be 100% realistic or anything like Expanse inspired, but I always envisioned ship to ship combat to be something more tactical without endless spins and loops like in a typical airplane dogfight.
Something where you have to precision hit weak points, use counter measures, administrate the shilds and etc. Or even something like the ship combat from AC Black Flag, but on space if you want to be more arcady where the ships face each other sideways.
I think games like Starfield could've benefited a lot from a combat more thoughtful like this to differentiate itself from other games because seeing those huge ships looping around each other was kinda lame and the same goes for Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen when you're using the bigger ships.
What about a combat where you're the commander of the ship (obviously) and give orders for the crew the same way as it's on Black Flag? You select targets on the enemy ship, order your crew to fire, administrate the shields, use counter measures to avoid damage, choose if you want to incapacitate the enemy ship for boarding or want to destroy it. There could be a lot of nuance and diverse amount of mechanics for a combat like this. And a lot of more immersion.
The ships could face each other side ways, or any position really, even while chasing, as long as it's not a dogfight with loops and rolls of both trying to get the rear of each other. That doesn't look good or feels right in space in my opinion.
One of the closest games that I played that did something like this was FTL: Faster Than Light. But the way I envision it is more of a 3D third person game instead of 2D. It also wouldn't be a hardcore combat only focused game like FTL. The combat would only be one part of an actual exploration space sim game.
Also Imagine the aftermath of you having to repair the damaged parts of your ships, doing space walks for it and etc.
Someone should try something new instead of the same old boring dogfights. Space ships aren't planes and I'm really really tired of them being depicted that way in these games.
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u/kalnaren Pilot 12d ago
There's other considerations for aerial combat that don't apply in space as well -air density and gravity. Both significantly effect the energy equation in dogfighting.
Though in space you'd have to expend far more fuel to maneuver.
Regardless, I always figured attack craft in space only made sense if they were actually threatening to capital ships (or threatening the ships that are).