Ægeon_War Design

This is but one game of many where I've used my Ægeon universe to give a universe foundation for a game.
The basic concepts of Ægeon is that societies live on floating platforms.
To sustain these living spaces, various Æther is needed.
The people of Ægeon utilize floating ships to transport and gather Æther.

I've worked on story based puzzle game within this universe before in a game called Observateur.
That game focused more on the interpersonal relationships, and how the societies interact.

In contrast this war game was designed to be a somewhat standard Real-Time-Strategy game,
with some unique designs.

I personally think RTS could be tweaked and explored in so many direction. I personally actually have about
a dozen RTS concepts I could potentially explore. They all branch off in exploring various mechanics in different ways.
I would like to talk more about all the different variations I would like to explore in RTS, but here I'll tell you about this particular design.

One of Ægeon_War's main concepts was to change how weapons worked between units.
Instead of having HP and every attack reduce that, until the unit dies completely, I tried exploring the idea of eliminating
various component in ships.

This particular concept is very well executed in the game Faster Than Light (FTL).
In FTL each ship has various components that can be damaged such as: Shields, Weapons, Oxygen, and Thrusters as well as others.
Strategically choosing various targets can turn the tide in various battles.

So in Ægeon_War each weapon only can affect a specific type of component.
Here is a working list of the various components a ship could have:
Thrusters - Efficient movement, slower but with a higher torque(better for heavier craft) consumes mostly orange Æther
Foils - High output movement, uses more resource and a lower torque(better on smaller craft) consumes mostly yellow Æther
Short-Range Sensor - ability to clearly see nearby craft, as clear as vision
Long-Range Sensor - ability to detect crafts from further away. Less detail is provided, more like a radar blip
Projectors - These are the weaponry to disable various systems on other ships. Each projector is tuned to a specific component

So instead of completely destroying your opponents units, you disable various parts of them depending on the situation.
To add onto that mechanic, I wanted to implement boarding and stealing opponents craft.
I think this can create many interesting dynamics, more than I can fully imagine.
But one aspect of it that I forsee is that losing a battle can have more of a swing than a typical RTS.
To balance that, boarding and stealing a craft involves sacrificing crew in the interpersonal firefight on the ship.
So if you have control of an area after a battle, and have extra personnel to spare, you can utilize that to get extra ships.
Albeit they are also damaged and need repair.

This also would affect smaller groups that scout or attack. If they are disabled and boarded it has a greater risk of giving the
opponent an advantage.

So overall, stronger swings from a result of a battle.
This can help reduce the total time of a game, which can be a very helpful thing.
You definitely want to have ways to avoid stalemates, and the game stalling out.
However, you also dont want only one type of strategy to win all the time.
Also all-ins should be less effective, should only be used as a last ditch effort in desperation.

There's more to explore. I'd like to post more of the design ideas for this game,
but for now this cat is signing off. . .