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[Paul]

Firstly, a disclaimer: this game may never see the light of day - don't get your hopes up that I'm making a dream game. I intend to finish it, but this is only my third project - and the first two were mini exercises in learning a few things. This one is also a big learning exercise being my first attempt at anything procedural, and I'm doing it in my spare time. It's probably multiple years out before I have anything resembling a complete game, if ever.

So I have been playing around a bit with making a top down space game for android. You have your ship, you can buy other ships from habitable worlds, you can fly around, and it generates up to 4 million sectors containing roughly 80 million star systems containing roughly 246 million planets (the way I set up the random seed will fail beyond 1000 sectors in any direction, which is why there is a limit of 2000x2000 sectors, but it's practically infinite). Each planet has a unique seed, so technically I could use it for some kind of world generation on the world itself if I made the code for it.

But that's about it so far. The graphics are place holder. The GUI is basic (map mode, menu, couple side bars). Buying ships simply changes your ship sprite. The systems aren't super interesting - a random arrangement of planets based on star type and distance from that star, and that's about it so far. I haven't figured out how I want to do combat yet - trying to play a twitch style top down space shooter on a phone is proving difficult. Both to figure out intuitive controls, and to actually accurately shoot anything. You can't actually do anything on planets other than land and take off. I don't have any AI ships yet other than a little drone that flys in pre-arranged motions just for me to goof around with when I was testing combat on a phone (it sucked).

I guess I'm just here wondering: What kind of systems would you find fun on a phone?

What kind of combat would be entertaining on a mobile phone? I'm leaning toward a more relaxed approach to combat. Maybe something turn based with buttons to control firing different weapons, transferring power between systems, and maneuvering. This would make the rest of the game more of an overworld travel mode, though - and I would just scrap the weapon control GUI and make it a touch to fly here kind of thing.

Is it worth it to make roaming patrols, pirates, etc. that you can dodge or chase? Or would it be more interesting to just have a random chance of encounters when flying through space, based on where you are? (pirate controlled sectors = pirates and smugglers; empire controlled system with military base = mostly patrols, some traders; empire controlled system with trade station = mostly traders, some police and pirates; etc.)

Should I bother implementing some kind of base building mechanic for long-term development of systems, or would it be more interesting to focus on making exploration more rewarding and promote a more nomadic gameplay?

[strawberry-wine]

For combat, and probably everything else, the relaxed approach may be the way to go -- I bet for mobile games most players prefer it if accuracy isn't a factor. Weapons could auto-aim and auto-fire. There could be a strategy to how many weapons you decide to place on your ship and the location in which you place them, how often you set them to fire, and so on. There's lots of possibilities.

I personally like resource management and base development in games, but could see a pure exploration game being satisfying if you made it interesting enough. With procedural generation, this can be harder than it seems.

[IWishIWereSarah]

Having seen how hard android (or games in general) can easily become, I think you should decide what you want to focus on :
Do you want your game to have really fun combat ?
Do you want your game to be more relaxed in pace ?

I think that, for a first "real" game (one you may want to share and maybe continue to work on for a bit), quick real-time combat can be hard to make "properly".

I think you may want to see a bit what you can find elsewhere.
for example, I really like the combat in this game :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qqhouse.dungeon18
The characters are summed up in 4 stats, with sometime a special ability. It's quick and simple to understand.
In a space-themed game, it's "easy" to imagine different weapon types with different abilities, that could be bought. Maybe even multiple weapons on a same ship.