Objects in Space is a pretty neat little very indie spaceship simulator in which your spaceships are kinda clunky garbage and running too hot in a bad neighbourhood will get you torpedoed
(also your ship has a (bad) CLI haha)
I've since learned that point-defense lasers don't just work on torpedoes and if you're quiet enough and creep up on a pirate until you're all but directly staring down their main engines, you can just melt their entire hull off with big scary lasers
anyway I don't think I communicated it well before (because I was literally like just leaving the starting station) but this is a game where ships are basically submarines in space.
weirdly this has made me think about other unusual or niche ways this sort of stealth/emissions oriented idea could be used
im kind of fixated on this idea of a sort of old style PBEM (that's Play By EMail for people who aren't old as dirt) game in the style of old turn based 4X space games (or maybe BBS door games with an actions/time economy?) where the focus is on individual ship or small fleet tactics in a premise like this - where information is imperfect and as much of the game is about denying your opponents knowledge and actionable information as it is ferreting them out or advancing your own primary goal
thematically I kind of feel like simply "dodging space pirates" lacks variety and is kinda a bit genre tropey
what if "submarine" spaceships game, but the premise is you're with a group of independent traders and motivated citizens who run an off the books aid operation against the system powers, moving people and supplies through blockades. Exfiltrating asylum seekers, moving medical supplies and food to where it's needed through embargoes, and so on. Maybe conducting questionably legal salvage operations to stay supplied?
More interesting way to set up the "evading authorities" scenario without making you a space pirate by default if you're in opposition to the system governments (and a much more believable scenario for setting you up in opposition to authority vessels on a small scale that doesn't get into like, space navy warfare)
Sorry, just kinda rolling with wherever the ideas that enter my head take me here.
(there is a 0% chance I will ever go anywhere with this, I'm just kinda dumping thoughts)
