Can I propose a few new, simple rules. Nothing major, just balancing issues and such. Basically, each ship, depending on it's class, has various stats to choose from. (Actually, there are only two). These stats are firepower and armor. Armor decides how much damage a ship can take, while firepower is how much it deals out. Ideally, a fleet will use a mix of ships classes with different stats to make the best fleet. Let's see some examples:
Spaceship Combat and Construction
Spaceship combat needs to be overhauled to balance it out, so I decided to try and fix it up. There are 4 classes of ship, each marked with their own stat variations:
Small
A small vessel is mainly any frigate or gunboat in your military. The vessel can be anywhere from 4*4 pixels to around 20*20 pixels (And NO larger).
Small ships are given few stats but are easier to build and are larger in number, meaning a fleet of many small ships could overwhelm one large ship. Here is an example of a small ship showing how ship creation works:
(This is an example of how big your ship can be at MAXIMUM)
Small ship class total stats: 10 (This is the amount of points allotted to a small ship class for ALL small ship classes, meaning nobodies small ship can exceed this number in points, but can leave some points unused if your a suicidal maniac)
Ship Firepower: 5 (This is how much damage a turn this ships deals out. A ship with 5 firepower [hereby represented by the letter FP] can destroy a ship with 5 armor or less in one hit. This ship is balanced, but that's not recommended for all ships)
Ship Armor: 5 (This is basically the ships HP, hereby known as AP. Notice how both values combined equal out to 10, which is the total amount of points allowed.)
Build Time: 1 turn (Build times represent how many turns it takes to build the vessel. These are completed in one of your turns. That means when you say you are building it, then another person makes their turn, the ship is ready on your next turn. This factors in all the other players turns as well, balancing the ship building. Build times for ship classes cannot be changed; they are always the same)
Description: This will be were you add all the "fluff" for your ships, maybe listing reasons why it has the certain allocation of stats that you gave it.
Here is an example of a small ship from my newest line of ships:
Total Points Allowed: 10
Ship Firepower: 4 FP
Ship Armor: 6 AP
Build Time: 1 Turn
Description: The Praetorian Class Frigate is the standard frigate for the C.H.E, the Coalition of Human Empires. It is a multi-task frigate capable of carrying 2,000 C.M.C (Coalition Marine Corps) personnel on top of it's 200 crew necessary to manage the vessel. It has storage space for well over 15,000 tonnes of cargo and doubles as a light attack vessel, though it's primarily used in essentially distracting much larger spacecraft and to absorb damage heading for the intended target, often a much larger an more important vessel. This is why the ship is often known as "Flying Cannon Fodder"
So that's how you make a new ship. You can have as many ship types as you want, as long as they go by those rules. The amount of ships you have will either be a set limit OR we can use a system based on resources, which adds complexity but gives more incentive to invade other planets. That, however, will be discussed later.
Anyways, the remaining 2 classes are very similar, but with larger available stat points.
Medium

The MAXIMUM size for a medium class ship is 60*30. This makes the ship more lengthy, as is tradition in most sci-fi spacey stuff.
Total Points Allowed: 40
Build Time 5 Turns
Description: Medium sized vessels are mostly attack craft made for "ganging up" on larger vessels. They usually make up the bulk of you fleet, not in numbers but combined strength, as they are easier and less resource heavy to make than large vessels but are significantly stronger than small vessels.
Large

Large ships are the heavy hitters. They have a MAXIMUM of 100*50.
Total Points Allowed: 75
Build Time: 8 Turns
Description: Large ships are meant to be the devastating but horribly inefficient part of your military. They are great for destroying smaller ships and, depending on how your stats are set up, good at destroying other large ships. However, they are resource heavy and take a long time to build, meaning one of them being destroyed can be devastating to your entire naval fleet.
Now, the last class is tricky. These are the "superweapons" or anything that otherwise doesn't fit in the other category because of certain variations that make them special. Though they use the same base as the other ships (with stats and whatnot) they have special abilities, often offset by certain ailments.
They should be no bigger than 120*60 pixels.
Total Allowed Points: 100
Build Time: 14 Turns
So how do we decide what is overpowered or unfair? Simple, a community vote. If somebody thinks it's overpowered, then you have to scrap it and make a new one or adjust it.
So when you make a ship, use these guidelines.
I also want to add a few simple things to the rules list:
1. You CANNOT, under any circumstances, create new planets in your empire. You have to conquer others or colonize "free" planets (planets with no inhabitants. I'll place a few on my turn)
2. Conquering a planet takes time. Right now, it just takes two things:
A. A ship or ships must be in orbit over the planet you are conquering
B. It takes 15 turns to fully conquer a planet. Until then, you cannot gain resources from said planet. (Resources will be covered in the advanced rules. The advanced rules are entirely optional and we may make a new thread for them.)
3. You can only have a certain amount of ships. You can have a fleet of 300 points total.
4. Colonizing Planets takes 10 turns. Until then, no planetary addons can be built and no resources gained from the planet.
5. You
MUST number your turns so we can keep track of how many turns it has been.
6. For certain modifiers to be applied, you need fleets. Fleets are nothing more than grouping of ships that move in tandem and can be upgraded with addons (see below). Just group ships together for them to be a fleet, nothing else is required.
7. Planets start with no ships. You have to research advanced space flight first. There are also addons that can be constructed to modify time limits and things. Check below for your tech tree.
That's it for now. I'll start writing the advanced rules later. These are just basic rules to balance ship building/combat to make things more fair in the game and avoid clusterfucks. And before you object, at least try using these rules.
And before I forget, if we are going to use research, I have a proposed tech tree:
Code:
Basic Space Flight Basic Ballistic Weaponry
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------------ Basic Ships construction -----------
1 Turn
Allows Construction of 1 Small Ship with 3 or less
Firepower and 3 or less Armor
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Advanced Ship Construction
1 Turn
Allows Construction or Upgrade of 3 Small Ships
with full stat points
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Fleet Construction
2 Turns
Allows Construction of Unlimited
Small Ships (Until Point Limit Is reached)
/ \
/ \
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Ship to Ship Warfare Planetary Defense System
3 Turns 2 Turns
Allows Construction of 5 Medium Ships Allows Construction of Planetary Addon: Defense Platforms
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Advanced Officer Training Advanced Invasion Training
3 Turns 3 Turns
Allows building of unlimited Medium Ships Allows Invading of Planets
Until Point Limit is Reached I
Allows Construction of Fleet Addon: Admiral I
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Ship to Planet Warfare Infantry Weapons and Command Doctrines
5 Turns 4 Turns
Allows Construction of 2 Large Ships Allows Construction of Fleet Addon: Troop Carriers
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Advanced Command Structure Atmospherics
5 Turns 4 Turns
Allows Construction of Unlimited Large Ships Allows Construction of Planetary Addon: Terraformer
Until Point Limit is Reached I
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Advanced Metallics Construction City Fortifications
4 Turns 5 Turns
Allows Construction of Fleet Addon: Multi-Layered Alloys Allows Construction of Planetary Addon: Planetary Defense Garrison
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Alternative Weapons Advanced Fleet Construction
5 Turns 7 Turns
Allows Construction of Fleet Addon: Special Weapons Allows Construction of Planetary Addon: Improved Shipyards
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\ /
\ /
-------- Dark Energy Crystal Research --------------
15 Turns
Allows Construction of 1 Superweapon
Addons listed above are basically modifiers that you build. When you research a technology, it gives you that modifier. There are two types of modifiers: planets and fleet. Fleet addons are installed on a fleet (see rules) and planet addons are installed on your planets. When your fleet or planet has an addon, you have to put said modifiers icon below the modified fleet or planet. The icons are available below.
Here's the Addon Modifiers
Planetary Addon: Defense Platforms
Requires 2 Turns to build
Modifiers: Instead of the standard 14 turns to conquer your planet, invaders now have to take 18 turns instead of 14, giving added time to build a small fleet and launch a counter offensive.
Fleet Addon: Admiral
Requires 2 Turns to Build
Modifiers: With an admiral leading the fleet, it increases it's combat effectiveness. All medium ships get a +1 bonus to their FP.
Fleet Addon: Troop Carrier
Requires 3 Turns to Build
Modifiers: Doubles the size of your invasion force, causing planets to take 4 turns less to conquer, offsetting defense platforms.
Planetary Addon: Terraformer
Requires 1 Turn to Build; Can Only be Built on Colonies
Modifiers: Speeds up the construction of colonies, reducing them from 10 turns to 5 turns.
Planetary Addon: Planetary Defense Force
Requires 4 Turns
Modifiers: Adds a stronger garrison with orbital defense cannons, meaning not only does the time for an invading force to capture your planet jump up to 20 turns, but it also causes -1 AP to small fleet ships, -2 for medium ships, and -4 for large ships, per turn.
Fleet Addon: Multi-Layer Alloys
Requires 4 Turns
Modifiers: Gives +1 AP to small ships, +4 AP to medium ships, +6 AP to large ships, and +10 AP to superweapons.
Planetary Addon: Improved Shipyards
Requires 8 Turns
Modifiers: Gives an extra 50 points to the total amount of ships that can be built, making it 350 points
Fleet Addon: Alternative Weapons
Requires 6 Turns
Modifiers: Plasma weapons, laser, kinetic weaponry, OH MY! Gives an additional +1 FP to small ships, +2 FP to medium ships, +4 FP to large ships, but no benefits to superweapons.
So there. Please, for the love of god, read the fucking thing. It took me 2 hours to type it, so please, give it a chance.