I know this is way way way off in the distance like we may have intergalactic travel by the time we get to this point (kidding love you guys great job plz don’t ban) but I was wondering how spaceship customization would work. Would it work like in spore where shapes just clip together for aesthetics but make no difference, KSP where its hyper realistic and you cry because you cant get past god dam MINMUS!, or like Space Engineers, Avorion, and From The Depths where you place individual parts and make the guns and have armor plates and stuff.
I personally prefer a mix of all of them (except spore that is an example of how not to do a space stage)where you make a frame and you have to fill in the guts like engines,ammo, and gas . Next you make the guns but it simplifyed to barrels, ammo type, ammo storage and so on but you have to research the parts so if you want a three barrel turret that shoots like a mini gun then you have to research each part same for other parts like engines and rockets. Then you armor it up using plates that can be molded for more customization.
In the end you should be able to make anything you want like a giant mother ship, small fighters, or even (my Favorite) a mobile suit.
My preferred way to do spaceship building (this isn’t an official design) is to start off KSP style when your species initially tries to build spaceship and has a lot of difficulty exploring all the parts of their solar system. So at that point we would simulate aerodynamics and parts would be small. Then later you would move onto using bigger parts and as you would build huge ships in orbit aerodynamics wouldn’t matter so the game would advance from KSP style ship building to more like Space Engineers.
may be a bit to in depth of examples to actually pull off though. Dont get me wrong I would love to see that happen but RN it seems like to much of a dream.
You should also need different shapes and types if you have different Drives. For Example, something with a Kugelblitz Drive has a damn big Secure Container for the Black Hole in the back everytime.
I guess the start of the stage would be an ISS in orbit, and a first Sputnik flying on orbit of the planet, since the first Satellite was launched post WW2 irl, and in present days ISS is finished and active. In SpaceShip customization you only have fuel tanks and a Rocket Fuel based engine, and solar panels with an antenna, and a machine gun from Industrial Stage. This is only useful for putting objects on orbit and killing or destroying stuff. To unlock more devices you need to design them in Tech Customization (Aurora 4x, i am looking at you XD), and you are able to use them once you designed the module, so if the player is creative enough, they may make an 0 gravity ion engine from the start, AND if you make a single mistake designing a warp drive… cataclysm.