Sometimes, I like to think about theoretical games I'd like to design.  I've done a couple of nigh-complete game systems before, though let's be real.  This is me.  It's probably more theory than any shot of even being a real game.

That's said, I'd like to brainstorm a bit about what would be a cool space-based strategy type game, ideally that could be played in a web browser.

My thoughts - you have multiple players doing a turn based game.  Everyone starts with a home world, a scout vessel or two, and that's that.

In my mind, you send you the scouts, find worlds to colonize and/or conquer.  You build fleets (hmm... should probably have at least a small fleet to start the game) for this purpose.  Other people do the same.  Eventually, you meet others.  Force alliances, start wars, etc.

One big challenge right off the bat would be the map.  If you're going to have a real space map, shouldn't it be three dimensional?  Or is that making things too complicated?

I'm thinking fleets of various tyes of ships.  You'd need to collect resources to build these.  What sort of resources make sense?

Should everyone be the same?  Or should you pick a race/species to gain access to different technology/bonuses/penalites?

What about things like wormholes to familitate paid travel around the map?  I'd think these should be unique per map to encourage exploration... and wouldn't these be really imporant, then, to control?

What about trade among empires? 

Okay, that should get the ball rolling.  Brainstorm with me!

Fighter?  Yes or no?  If so, carriers are a thing (and are important, as are counters).  If not, then nope.

Can you just bombard a planet into submission, or do you need to land troops?  Masybe the latter is more costly/difficult, but the former damages production infrastucture and such?

Let me think about this and I'll get back to you

Cool.  I'd love to hear your input. 

In my experience making the map 3d will limit the people able to play it to actual aerospace experts. I likre the idea though

Good observation, Grugg. 

I want it to be approachable.  It seems that if I was able to provide the map in an accessible format, that would fit the issue.

Or would it?

So... years ago I was Khan of a Mechwarrior Online clan. We had a space map of the system, the various factions, and online first person shooter coordinated battles. Back then, I thought it would be awesome to have the following:

1. Factions that consisted of multiplayer positions: a ruler, military leaders (navy, air force, army, marines), individual division commanders... you could bore right down if you had enough players.
2. Exploration would have to be done. Alliances could be set up with ambassador roles. War could be declared. Trade embargoes and punitive cold war moves made, etc.
3. Resources would have to be controlled. Which would be the advantage of exploration. There would be renewable resources and limited resources.
4. To take a planet you would first have to bypass their space force (navy) and any orbital defenses. Then you'd need to deal with the planetside forces (maybe similar to a more complicated game of Axis and Allies). Surrender would be possible which would leave the players in control but subservient to the conquering players.
5. There would be random events that effect worlds, military forces (such as equipment malfunctions, earthquakes, space storms that have to be navigated around or the decision made to travel through with consequences), etc.
6. Since your idea would be more turn based, you could add various strategies to choose from for different major decisions. Intel reports, if successful, could reveal preferred strategies by your enemies and allow you to choose from counter strategies that give you advantages in the battles or resource production and tech development. You could even develop an espionage and spy division that can steal tech, plans, etc.
7. The game could be expansive and ongoing or run in cycles, resetting everything and declaring a winning faction.

I love wider perspectives.  Not sure of which items I'd want to use, yet.

I am thinking for players, just the "top lvel" empire owners.  Maybe 4-8 players in a given game?  More?

If I remember correctly, Traveler had some good space frontier maps.

I found a really cool javascript library for doing charts and whatnot.  Let me create a dummy starmap off of this, and you folks tell me a 3D map is a great or terrible idea.

I have the beginnings of a working proof of concept for a map framework. 

Here is what I am looking at.

Sort of a "box" model - i.e. a slide of space.  I'm playing with the idea of an area roughly 100 units x 50 units x 30 units.  That's completely up for change, it's just an early rough concept.  I think that a cube is a little unweildy when you start to visualize it.

The framework I am using is pretty great - you can zoom in and out, rotate at will. 

So I'm thinking... Your own star systems are represented with one color dot (say, blue).  Enemies in red, unclaimed in gray.  Perhaps allies in green?

From what I can tell, I can also add lines to the chart.  So any known wormholes could have their openings visually represented on the map, too. 

I figure that everyone starts with one sytem and some very limited intel on the immediate surrounding sectors.  Other systems and wormholes only show up after exploration - scouts, perhaps probes will be very important. 

I may have a very small mockup up a map by tomorrow.

Check it out - a small test map.

Friendly systems in blue, hostile in red, unexplored in gray. 

Hold left click on your mouse to rotate.  Hold right click to pan.  Use the wheel to zoom in and out.

It's still very simple.  I need to add the ability to hover over them and provide more than just the X/Y/Z coordinates - but I'd call this a super useful proof of concept. 

Back to the idea that you have to be a rocket scientist to handle strategy in 3D.  If we had something like this, would it not make the game approachable, even without math skills?

I'd love feedback before I do more.  If it's still a bad idea, I'll go to a 2d (flat) map. 

I love the map. Very cool.

Withour a concept of how the game will run, it is hard to say if this will be useful though. If you want to use coordinations to send a scout ship, then you may be better off for "playability" to use 2D and call them sectors.

I can see that in terms of playability.  Will likely need to be able to make these plets and such clickable, pull up a context menu, etc for it to be workable.

I'm digging the map and the basic concept of the game! Very Cool!

Making the planets "clickable", bringing up context menus and such would make it even better. Very interested to see how this develops.