I kinda agree. Then again it's easier to identify with real life ships and arguably cooler. Hell, most 4xs stil have the same nomenclatures for ships hulls size (corvette, frigates, battleships...). Why not think of new ships with different purposes?
Games could also consider acceleration, projectile speed and gravity pull but that might be too much to simulate (some do).
I feel SOTSII does some nice things in terms of battle strategies and tactics, like formations, rules of engagement and weapon firing and distance, despite its many shortcomings.
Oh, and
LordArchibald please don't go the Endless Space combat route. It adds a significant luck/gambling element to it.
Actually, it is not the worst. The problem is that the maneuver cards make little sense in the context:
I'll quote a post from
Riel from the Endless Legend thread :
Yes of course they(Reach for the Stars and Endless Space combat) are somewhat similar since both involve "little player intervention" but where ES battle system is a soulless uninteresting clusterfeast with actions as varied and unrelated as Nano Repair and Offence in RFTS actions are better organized, make more sense and are better intertwined with battle statistics.
In RFTS you pick:
Desired battle distance which gives tactical importance to engines (completely irrelevant in ES)
Battle formation which affects the effectivity of different weapons systems and defence systems (ES's unorganized battle card collection plays this role as you said but it does so uninspiringly)
Lets a huge fleet take on another fleet (In comparisson ES battles look like border skirmishes)
So yes, both battle systems are obviously related but in execution RFTS kicks ES in all aspects. Not saying it should be simply copy pasted, but certainly ES2 could learn a lot from RFTS in this regard, A LOT.
Of course if amplitude studios poll their players again in relation to a (potential) ES2 sequel I'm 100% sure people will ask first and foremost "TACTICAL COMBAT OH YEAH" so we'll probably get a system the AI can't cope with that turns into a click feast by game end as did for example Orion II.
The system that would work best really depends on what you want the space combat to be like :
If you want to have it play like modern naval combat, with screening anti missile ships, missile cruisers, and carriers, I think something like WiF could work well actually (it is just an exemple of course, it might be broken and is just there to illustrate how abstracted combat could still work with input that would not be as "pasted on" as Endless Space cards):
Give each fleet a role : first, even though the system is abstract, each fleet would have a formation, that would define its point defence, and sensor values for each side (front, flank, rear). For instance, a sphere formation would have point defence (or anti missile or whatever) screening ships in all direction, and split their point defense and sensor values equally in all direction, while a Core + wall formation or whatever you call it would have all of its point defence forward.
Then, Phase 1, each player would assign fleets to task forces, and chose orders : (frontal assault, flank, support other TF...).
And then, each grand admiral rolls for maneuver depending of the complexity of the order, and the mobility of the task forces. For instance, If one side is trying to flank with 4 Task Forces , but is outmaneuvered by its opponent, it could chose to engage one or 2 TF first, and then ignore the other, or attack the other separately, while if the side trying to flank was the one outmaneuvering the opponent, it could chose all the TF but one(it is assumed the defender can still quickly turn its fleet around) to get a flanking bonus.
If you want to have it play like pre WW2 naval combat, something simpler might work (put all ships together, determine if both sides come facing each other, or perpendicular, and then, determine who gets to cross the T for bonus damage and defense).
You can also decide to have it play like hard Sci fi, but I think it works better with a low number of ships, and lower tech :
each group of ships would be given an orbit. Changing orbit, actively dodging, or shooting require energy.
Ships have to chose when to engage (ie, engage at long range, or wait for a better orbital configuration), how "dodgy" to be (ie, how often do you randomly change vector), the intensity of anti missile laser fire, when to shoot kinetic missiles (they can only correct trajectory a few times before running out of fuel themselves).
You can also have most of the fighting happen in warp space, and have it play however you want (like submarine wars?), but then, you still need to decide how it is supposed to work, and how to implement it.