Space Chess

Ships move in real time. All ships move at the same speed. The board is represented as a square, but the edges wrap (so it's technically a torus). The player can re-position their perspective.

Shields take 0.8 seconds to recover after taking a hit, so two ships firing non-shield-piercing rounds can damage a shielded ship.

Ships with weapons will automatically target anything that comes in range, unless they already have a target; except the artillery.

Beacon 8x

Shielded at rest

Hull: 3

1 DPS

Cannot fire while moving, shields and weapons up 1 second after it stops moving. Warping does not count as moving

Command 1x

Shielded at rest

Hull: 4

1 DPS

Kill it and win, otherwise, acts like a Beacon, but with more hull points

Gunner 1x

No shields

Hull: 3

1 DPS, shield piercing

Can pierce shields, the timing should works so that if it attacks a beacon, they will destroy each other. Can fire while moving.

Engineer 1x

No Shields

Hull: 3

No weapons

Will auto repair hull damage to ships in range. Ship must stay in range for 3 seconds. Range is about 4 beacons across. Repairs can happen while either or both ships are moving.

Can upgrade a beacon to anything except command. Both must stay touching, at rest for 15 seconds.

Artillery 1x

No Shields

Small anti-artillery, enough to protect itself, another ship close-by would be protected against a direct hit but not splash damage

Hull: 3

Fires an explosive round, takes 10 seconds, does friendly fire damage. Targets a location, not an enemy. A small area (direct hit) does 2 damage and a larger area (~3 ships across) does an additional 1 hull damage. The result is the artillery can kill most ships with direct hit.

Escort 1x

Hull: 4

Larger Anti-artillery, can prevent a direct hit on anything with an area 4 ships across

Provides a shield bubble, even while moving. The algorithm on the bubble, is any shot within range is removed, so it even provides line-of-sight protection.

Warp 2x

Hull: 2

No Shields

No Weapons

Can warp to within range of any friendly beacon. If both warp ships are near beacons, can warp ships between them. Warping takes 1 second.

If the game goes 3 minutes without dealing hull damage or 6 minutes without an upgrade or a kill, a stalemate is declared. I'll probably find some combinations where defeat or stalemate is inevitable and have those auto-resolve; for instance, a player with only their command ship left against command+2 beacons will be defeated, but it could take an obnoxiously long time, but a command against command+beacon can last forever.

Strategy and Balance

Beacons can be spread out to provide a network for warp ships. Upgrading a beacon to give a 3rd warp ship could make this very powerful (but also reduces the number of beacons by one). Beacons also restrict enemy movement. A group of beacons (2-4) attacking a unit can be devastating. If the warp ships and engineer are in tact, the engineer can warp in after the skirmish to repair any damage.

Beacon scan be destroyed by artillery, so you need to keep them moving. But if your movements become predictable, your enemy can fire at where they think you will be.

A gunner and an escort can destroy beacons without taking damage. A gunner and an engineer can also kill a beacon; move the gunner into fight and keep the engineer out of range, but repairing the gunner. Two beacons can kill one beacon.

So long as there are two warp ships on the board, ships can be moved very quickly. And one beacon can move into range of an enemy beacon and setup it's shield before it's destroyed.

Like chess, gaining an upper-hand, even a small one can be powerful. Killing a warp ship, escort, gunner or artillery significantly reduces your opponents range of attacks.

Artillery is very powerful, but if timed well, you can harass the artillery every 9 seconds and prevent it from ever firing. Artillery are given anti-artillery defenses, otherwise the artillery could target each other and that wouldn't be very interesting.

End Game

Command can be directly attacked by a gunner escort combo. If it stays still, a direct hits from artillery will reduce it to 1 hull point. Or, if several beacons attack at once, it can be destroyed.

Once a player gains a material advantage, they should be able to quickly exploit it for a win. Killing a warp ship cripples your opponents mobility. Killing their artillery means you can be entrenched. Killing the gunner cripples their offensive capacity, and killing their escort makes the artillery even more powerful. But this also leaves a path for gambits. A player that over-commits for material advantage may leave their command open to attack by a few stray beacons.