Inspiration from Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators

Recently I didn't do a lot of programming...guess I was taking break, but now I am ready to get back into it I think.

But time was not wholly wasted, because I went back and play a little Space Rangers 2, and got some new game inspirations. |0| To describe the idea in full, I have dissect my view on the pros and cons of the SR2 gameplay:

Pros:

• Freedom and Open World, but still Entertaining - a lot of open type of games are extremely boring, such as Oblivion (a lot of people will disagree, but I just find it boring for some reason) and quite a lot of those free MMORPG. This game gives player a lot of freedom but is surprisingly entertaining and addictive. Perhaps it's because it presents an achievable Meta objective: solving the Dominators problem and save the galaxy.
• Sci-fi Space Opera Adventure/Comedy - It's a rare genre in game...perhaps a lot more games should be made in this area.
• Some interesting Combat Idea - during combat players can call other ships around the area for joint attack. Also player can go with fleets to attack Dominators, to defend and liberate systems etc. It's like participating in the grand opera and have small dungeon crawls in the same game. Other games also attempted similar things before but in my opinion this game seems to have a major break through in this area, although there are still possible improvements.

Cons:

• Combat Could be Boring - not much to do for players during combat. The player of course still has to decide which targets to attack and whether to run away. But it seems the combat could be more exciting.
• A lot of Traveling - a lot of flying around between planets, which take times, during which players don't do much. For more casual game market this can be detrimental because a lot of times players want to have the most enjoyment in a short period of time. While traveling player can relax and take it easy, too much of it make the more enjoyable parts of the game far in between. It will make the player feel they have to invest a lot of time and "labor" in one session to enjoy the game.
• Some of the Mini-Game - some of the text mini-game is just a bit too tedious. The worst one is the one in which the player has to read a lot, and it does not help when the font is tiny.

So taking this into account, I think it's possible to make a new game but retaining some of the pros of SR2:

1. Open space and freedom of action like SR2
2. Better convoy / strike group supports: The player can forms convoy with cargo ship, warship and fighter crafts to do trade or transportation mission. Or they can follow fleets to engage enemies. The elements is present in SR2 but it seems more user friendliness on this feature might be very possible.
3. Space Sim combat: Use Freespace 2 type of combat instead, but with a greater variety of ships which the player can command, ie larger vassals.
4. Faster travel for travelling between planet and star systems: Have a time speed adjustable button, like in x-com, to speed up the time in long travel. Use a more abstract maps with 2D icons overlay 3D star system scape etc. This can look potentially very cool if done right, making the player feeling like they are really planing operations etc. When the player meet hostile forces and need to engage in combat etc, the game will lock onto normal time and zoom in to player's "cockpit" and let the player fight, or escape the field.
5. Scrape Some of the Mini-game: scrape the 3D ground RTS portion of the game IMO is probably a good idea. Put the efforts instead on the space combat. Keep some of the more interesting mini-games. Present the text game in a more interesting way with shorter text etc, perhaps.

The game might sound ambitious and might seems difficult to make (due to expense might go up geometrically because of combined randomness in SR2 gameplay system and the required 3D engine). However, I think with the power of computer still increasing...it might not be out of question in a few years.