The Difference Between "Space" and Orbital Space
To Interplanetary Space!
Orbiting in space is not merely floating on inertia in empty space. Orbiting is more or less falling and missing the ground. You are constantly bound to one or more gravity wells. This simple mechanic changes the battle field completely in very counter-intuitive ways.
- The higher you are, the slower you move But the faster you go, the higher you get. If you want to catch-up with some one ahead of you, you must slow down first.
- Fuel is a scarce resource You can trade fuel for speed, or time for fuel. You can speed up to catch up with someone, but you may run out of fuel and drift into the ether. The less fuel you have, the faster you can accelerate.
- There is no fog of war You can see a shuttle fire its maneuver jets out from Pluto. There is no sneaking up behind someone. Not from nebular clouds, asteroid belts, or planetary rings. Engagements are determined not by sensor range, but weapon range.
- It's very boring Traveling to the moon takes a day or two, to Mars takes months, and years to farther planets. Any ship-to-ship engagements would be known weeks or months ahead of time, giving both sides plenty of time to calculate their next moves.
While these limitations could be pretty boring to a normal space sim, I think they can be very fertile to the imagination. Rules of engagement would be vastly different. How would nations and sovereignties hash out their disputes given these vast distances? How could space combat be fun given such large time-scales?