Yes, you bring up one of the "game economic" issues that existed with SC2. You could reach a power level where nothing could stop you and the game economics would essentially be shut down. The economic cycle that existed towards the end-game turned very "un-fun" and felt more like a chore than fun. The only thing you were spending RUs on was fuel and perhaps crew, and those were minimized by the quasi-space portal and the rebirth of the Shofixti. 

This is something we are spending time to address. Be it early, mid, or late game the economics of the game shouldn't feel like a chore and there should always be a threat encounter that you fear or take losses to. 

Things that could consume large amounts of late-game economic output: 

• terraforming
• ego constructions (special unique structures, monuments, etc)
• ammo for superweapons (when each shot consumes 10% of your networth, you'll be picky about shooting)
• socio-diplomatic investments (you only need 1 shofixti boy and 1 shofixti girl to repopulate the galaxy - but providing sustainable food, housing and entertainment for overpopulating planets is a different issue)
• fleet maintenance

Hurray!!!  It always enraged me that my poor Arilou skiff, even though much faster than an Ur-Quan, couldn't get away from one. The screen wraparound kept the Ur-Quan "in range" and made it impossible to flee because a single blast would destroy the skiff.

This is ultracool! Attention, interlopers, heed this recorded transmission from statue 35!

I love the idea staying true to the Arcade/Action/Adventure style of combat where we are keeping it simple and not complex. 

When SC2 came out it was nearing the end of the D-Pad + 2 Button era of gaming (I bought a game pad connected to the MIDI port just for SC2, 2nd player had to use the KB).  However, the Action / Adventure genre over the last 15+ years has been 6+ buttons.  Rebel Galaxy is as Arcade in 2015 as it gets (my opinion) and that still uses every single button on an Xbox One controller with only having 3 "active" abilities on your ship.

Controller Support

My point is that I think definition of "complexity" has changed for gamers in the last 20-years for the better.  Because this will be an Action/Adventure game, I would love to see native support for controllers.  I find that Action/Adventure games designed for controllers from the start have streamlined the "simple" player experience I think we are all looking for.

^ This

It is important to keep in mind that in terms of games things like "simple", "deep", "complex" have had some semantic shift.

I'm a bit concerned about the lost of the screen wrap.  Many of the SC races relied on slingshoting and higher speeds that might not feel right without screen wrap.  However, the more complicated gravity situation sounds like a good idea.  I'll eagerly await the prototype for this.

IMO, additional terrain features and interactions could add depth to the combat.  Star Trek is filled of examples where the space terrain made the difference in an engagement.  

Examples:

• Nebulas disable a ship's shields and sensors. (Star Trek 2)
• The polar region of a planet acts as a sensor blind spot. (TNG)

Stardock has said that they planned on releasing the game for consoles. Controller support is a guaranteed feature.

I don't think needless resource gain is the only aspect wherein people get fatigued by combat.  If we think of SC2, combat events were somewhat random.  Or perhaps best to say that the encounter potential was random and, if you couldn't (or didn't) evade contact you would enter combat.  Early-game this is exciting as it can be a real challenge, or even a chance to encounter a new species or event.  Late-game, however, all the questing is over, the resources are meaningless, and it is simply an interference to progress through the remainder of the game.

There are several reasons I can think of where a player may wish to avoid what feels like tedious combat.  Perhaps it's best to think of in terms of "what game am I playing right now?", or perhaps "which game is it I want to be playing right now?".  So if combat is a game (within the whole game, of course), and questing, exploring, base/ship management, etc. are other games (also each within the overarching game), then there are times when the player is enjoying one game and being forced to start playing another.  Imagine, for example, if I am playing solitaire and every time a queen is revealed the game makes me play a quick round of checkers.  Now, maybe I like checkers, and maybe winning at checkers even gives me some sort of reward that helps me in my solitaire game (ok.. this is getting stretched, but please stay with me).  Even so, perhaps what I really want to play is solitaire, making me cringe every time a queen is revealed.  Basically, I'm being extracted from the game in which I am currently engrossed and plunked into a different one that I have to complete before I can go back to the one I want to play in the first place.

Perhaps, as some have said, I find this tedious because I simply don't need the resources.  In this case I'm being interrupted and the reward is more of a "forced farming" event, so-to-speak. But perhaps my reason is that I am almost done a quest and I am simply excited to see the end.  Maybe I don't have a lot of time to play, and my accomplishments are stymied by unwanted near-random encounters.  Remember that when a player is time-limited (i.e., often short sessions), enjoyment is marked by the ability to accomplish often bite-sized goals.  In situations such as these, the ability to skip combat somehow is a valid consideration.

Of course, the player should not expect to be able to skip combat whenever he or she chooses.  Some combat is probably necessary (i.e., un-skippable), but combat that can be skipped should not be skipped without some form of penalty.  As a penalty I suggest the following: When a player is sucked into combat by a random encounter, he or she is given the choice of which ship to use in the encounter (this is the same as SC2).  Once selected, the player is given the choice of moving on with the fleet while that particular ship (obviously not the flagship) keeps the encounter distracted.  The encounter ends for the player, and the fleet (minus the distracting ship) moves on.  The distracting ship resolves combat on its own (AI vs AI) off-screen, and - if victorious - it returns to the fleet after some period of time.  During that time, it is unavailable, and unless it loses its fight, it cannot be replaced.  In other words, the player can temporarily sacrifice fleet power in order to carry on with its mission.  The time it takes for the ship to return to the fleet should obviously be a balance between a meaningful penalty and a handicap so severe that nobody would use it.  Nevertheless, the decision to skip combat should be strategic.  Can I afford to lose fleet power?  Or maybe it is better to just take a few minutes and fight the encounter myself?

Dill-Rat, I have the impression that your issue here has already been addressed in one way.  They described the SuperMelee map as being round in shape and having a border.  If you cross the border and stay out of the map for too long your ship will disengage.  If maps work like this in the full game, you could just immediately disengage from any fight you didn't want to do by just flying off the map edge.

Yes, I read that too and it could be all we need.  Recall that SC2 allowed you to escape combat as well, with a certain amount of risk.  I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a player who doesn't want to be interrupted in the moment by a combat event that has become redundant to some degree.  Said player could simply escape combat and carry on, and you're absolutely right, so perhaps that's as far as the game needs to go.  Even so, I kind of like my idea

There's one flaw in SC2 that's always bugged me that I hope doesn't reappear in the SC reboot.  That is, if you've won a battle by the skin of your teeth and are barely alive, remove all the damage-causing elements from the arena immediately.  There were so many times where I inadvertently bumped into the planet because I couldn't see it coming because the post-combat view was centered on your ship... and I died anyway.  

Quoting GnarlyFurtardo, reply 37

There were so many times where I inadvertently bumped into the planet because I couldn't see it coming because the post-combat view was centered on your ship... and I died anyway. 

Haha, I remember that happening to me.

I wasn't a big fan of how that planet behaved. Sure, it opened up tactical opportunities sometimes. But, in combination with the wraparound screen funkiness, and the arbitrary game controlled close-ups of your ship in the heat of battle, it was an untrackable bowling ball rolling through space, popping up left and right.

I'm happy that we'll get larger maps instead of a wraparound this time, as that'll make planets and other obstacles more relevant and less frustrating at the same time.

Agree it's a problem, not sure the suggested solution is the best option. Removing all damage dealing elements when on low health has a couple of downsides; firstly where do you set the threshold for "low health" to do this, and secondly it just feels a little too far beyond believable (I don't really want to use the term 'realistic', but it also applies) for that to happen.

In my eyes, it's more of a UI/UX issue, if the post-combat camera didn't cut back and allowed you full combat view still, it wouldn't get in your way and make you crash into something you hadn't seen. That way, it would be your fault and yours alone if you crashed at this point, not the game engine's.

I think another part if that problem was the screen wrap and constantly changing zoom level.  With today's higher resolution the zoom level won't need to change as often, if at all, and so you won't hit things you didn't see until the screen zoomed out a step.

Please don't be tempted to do the MOBA thing and map abilities with separate cooldowns to the number row, it's so played out. And rebindable keys please, I don't like wasd.

I have a really hard time parsing what you're trying to say. Can you explain it again please?

He's talking about making ship abilities have cooldowns and having them bound to the number keys. (Or rather, he doesn't want this.)

I agree. We should have a button to fire our main gun, a button for our special, and a few extra buttons if they decide to give ships extra guns. That's all we need.

Many MOBAs and MMORPGs do combat by giving each character around 5 - 12 abilities. Each character usually has a main projectile attack, a secondary attack, a utility skill (like shields or boost), an "ultimate" game changing ability on a long cooldown, and slots for potions and other items. It's not a bad system in itself, it's just very rote by now. Blizzard's new multiplayer FPS is using the same system. I'd like something simpler and more old school. One attack and one special ability bound to the left and right mouse buttons, for example. 

Ah I see.

StarControl actually uses a shared cooldown system by having the abilities consume energy (which regens at some rate). Granted, a lot of the time it doesn't feel that way when both the main and secondary abilities consume relatively little energy - but in a couple of cases it matters. It is not inherently very different from a "MOBA-like" ability cooldown with the cooldowns between 1 and 5 seconds.

I can see either approach be made into a fun system. I really don't want to see a 5+ abilities thing; I've only run into that in the context of MMOs and Diablo-esque games. Most MOBAs I've played seem happy with around 4 abilities (usually including passives).

More important to me than those specifics is whether (if a MOBA-like was considered) the necessary depth between ships was developed. From a competitive point of view in a good MOBA the individual skills on a hero/ship aren't as important as the synergies that emerge from a team of different heroes/ships. In that regard, for example, League of Legends is what I'd consider "lite" more suited to beginners, whereas Dota 2 has more pronounced uniqueness/distinctness between its heroes.

I think MOBAs have more active abilities than you realize. League has a base 4, plus a trinket, plus 2 summoner spells, plus a recall ability, plus 6 slots for items. That's a potential for different 14 keys. In most cases you'll probably be using around 9-10. I'm not sure about DOTA but I think it's similar. Heroes of the Storm has slightly less, Smite has slightly more.

I just don't want them to go overboard with it. StarControl combat is a fun arcadey experience you can just jump right into, you don't need to study synergies or remember which abilities do what. A lot of developers these days confuse depth with tedium.

I think the stated vision on the new Star Control is to retain the arcade-style combat.  Even so, I agree with your point of view, though I suspect we have nothing to worry about in this game.

Ah, you're right - if you include item abilities and the like then there's indeed a good handful.

I don't think it is necessary for StarControl to go down that route (though I'm not averse to it) - but - I really think their engine and modtools need to be able to handle that kind of thing. The modding community should be able to create MOBA-like custom games.

Wrap-around should remain.

If not then all the slow ships will become severely handicapped. You fly in one direction and then you have to change course meaning that you have to decelerate and become an easy pick.

There was someone complaining about having wrap-around when using the Arilou but the Arilou ships are not affected by Gravity so they have the advantage to be able to hide right beside the planet without crashing. Although when the ship is stationary it is difficult to figure where the front is therefore causing you to sometimes crash into the planet.

Although in that respect the wrap-around was annoying when fighting the Druuge. Being controlled by the AI they had pinpoint accuracy across the whole screen and their shot propulsed them backwards that was VERY annoying. They get a shot at you literally at the other side of the screen and you can't catch up with them. Then again once I mastered aiming with the Druuge it was quite a good experience -until you crash into a planet-.

Although wrap-around is unrealistic when you see ships flying in straight lines you can think of it as the ships not flying in straight lines but rather flying around the planet in circles (vertically and horizontally) hence the wrap-around effect.

I think that the wrap-around should remain. Or at least have a device that creates a wrap-around area of space that can be used in fighting.

It's hard to comment if wrap-around is still better than what SD came up with, 'cause we don't know what it is yet. All we know is that battles will be happening within a star system, not around singular planet.

I'm too concerned with no wrap-around and fast vs slow ship, but again, we haven't seen anything regarding melee yet. I suspect ship's abilities will be compensating for its drawbacks and it'll all be "balanced" in the end.