this is pretty much the reason given in the lore

i think it essentially goes the closer you are to a star or planet the less effective hyper-warp is

That is due to the way hyperdrive works. The more mass in the area, the less space gets folded.

Also, I'd argue, that ships in GalCiv do not fly at FTL speed. Sure, they reach their target destination faster than would be possible with STL drives, but that's because the travel-distance has been reduced due to the hyperdrive. However, folding space is everything hyperdrive does. To actually move, you still need thrusters.

Suggested reading for different takes on space combat:

"The Lost Fleet" series by Jack Campbell pits huge fleets against each other with no fighters/bombers.  It describes the use of missiles, beam weapons, and kinetic rounds against fleets and planetary targets.  Also good reading.

The "Star Carrier" series by Ian Douglas uses combat at near c velocities as described early in the thread.  I personally don't like this form of combat as a guide for a game, but it is well described and the books are a fun "B novel" read.

Another reference is something I've mentioned before: the game Horizon, which is available on Steam and which I've been playing with each new Alpha release as a reference.  It is a 4x space strategy game with some similarities to GC.  (Warning: the AI is too easy to beat so start on at least the Hard difficulty level.)  Although ship design in the game is rudimentary compared to GC, what you put on ships matters a lot.  Different types of beam weapons do different types of damage.  Same with missiles and bombs.  Fighters are important and are effective against any class of ship (they also make fantastic missile defenses).  Defensive systems are also critical.  Use ship mass for Cloaking so a fleet can sneak up on an unsuspecting world, or for Stealth which makes targeting your ships harder, or use your available mass to pile on weapons.  Armor can be upgraded so that it can repair itself or you can use shields.  Etc.  It has tactical combat and a retreat option.  Even planets can have weapons.

For GC 3, I REALLY want my ship designs to matter in combat (REALLY, REALLY).  Missiles are long-range weapons (maybe even give them a range of 1 hex later in the game).  They are also good for anti-missile and anti-fighter/bomber defense.  Beam weapons are for "knife fight" range, really close combat.  Large beam weapons like those in Babylon 5 would be used for anti-ship and targeted stationary attack, batteries of smaller beam weapons for anti-missile and anti-fighter defense.  Kinetic weapons are fantastic for planetary bombardment or against fixed targets.  Much less so against mobile targets unless you're close or can "pepper" space like a shotgun.  So, large rail guns for massive damage, smaller clustered kinetic launchers for anti-missile and anti-fighter defense.  AND, all of this could be done without including weapon arcs, which the developers have said they don't want to do.  These weapons could also be placed on planets.

One last offensive combat comment: fighters/bombers should stay relevant throughout the game.  In GC 2 later game, I would have nothing but fleets of massive hull ships.  I had no need for smaller ships.  I would like to have a reason in GC 3 to have fleets of different classes of ships.  Look at a carrier battle group: a carrier, support cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and some submarines.  Also refuelers and replenishment ships.  Each ship has a role (air defense, anti-submarine, anti-ship), but each ship also has a compliment of weapons to deal with different threats.  Fighters/bombers can carry weapons that can sink smaller ships and damage larger ones.

I don't know about anyone else, but I always found it extremely cheesy that a lone fighter could take out the Death Star.  It looks great and feels entertaining, but does not convince me.  It's just another reason not to use movies instead of physics to talk science fiction.

I find star fighter vs capitol ship unconvincing at best.  So, since convincing narrative is more important than scientific accuracy, I ask that the combat system not allow ants to kill elephants nor even affect them significantly.  Certainly not one lone ant.

I am on the fence on the entire Fighters vrs Capital ships. The idea that swarms of fighters can take out large hulled ships is acceptable ONLY if said ships have not researched any 'anti-star fighter' weapons techs. If said techs are researched and mounted (rapid fire lasers/rail guns) then really the engagement should be fought between the entire fleets. 

I lone carrier carrying 20 fighters vrs a heavily armed battleship with long range engagement weapons and anti fighter gun and laser systems. I would imagine the carrier would lose in this case. 

That is the big issue with fighters. They either pose a disproportional threat to heavier ships, or pose a realistic threat which is really no threat at all. It's very difficult to design a system that falls anywhere in between.

Matching a properly designed huge hull battleship with a huge hull carrier with X fighters should result in the fighters lost and the battleship damaged. The carrier *needs* to lose in this situation, unless replacing the fighter wing costs AT LEAST as much as the battleship. If fighters are substantially cheaper, combat will be unbalanced in favor of carrier-based fleets. (See - WW2 Pacific theater.) Two to three carriers worth of fighters should be needed to kill one battleship to maintain any sort of balance.

There's no reason a wave of fighters all hitting a battleship shouldn't be able to kill it; if an arbitrarily large number of fighters *can't* kill the battleship, the battleship wouldn't even bother firing back at them because the fighters are effectively useless. The discussion needs to be centered around "how big does that wave need to be?"

The one big issue we have in the GC universe is the major limitation planes have currently - expendable ammunition. A WW2 torpedo-bomber squadron could sink ONE battleship, but they couldn't touch a second one without breaking off to go home and reload. That isn't an option in GC combat, and having infinite heavy weapons will severely unbalance combat in favor of the fighters. I can see only three things we can tweak to balance that - limit the per-hit weapon power, reduce the survivability of the fighters so few of them live to get a second shot off, or somehow replicate the out-of-ammo problem by reducing attack power after the first round of combat.

Maybe only let the fighters use heavy weapons every 4th round of combat to simulate returning to rearm, while allowing medium weapons to fire 2 rounds on, then two off, since they could carry two missiles/ beam charges before reloading. Light anti-fighter weapons could be unlimited to allow space superiority fighters to thin out the other side's fighters while they are reloading.

Fist of all, I did not read all the tread!

My point is to simply allow ship to be build on the planet as long as a they qualified as a surfaced limited ship!

(tiny and small for sure; medium?)

If that becomes a rule, small construction ships should not only be allowed, but be forced as a way to build a starport which will allow you to build medium+ ship normally.

I would allow medium or bigger ship to be constructed without a starport, but I would force the ship to include a unique new module called something like a launch module. It would lower a ship's power as it would take mass space, but allow you to build bigger ship even when your starport is dead)

Hence, only a ship with a construction module would be allowed to build the (shipyard) (generally through a small ship: unless allowed by future tech)

- through a shipyqard, any medium+ ship would be built (without launch module)

- (bonus to build small and tiny craft?)

as far a carrier are concerned, i still think they are pretty useful as

- any planets could built fighter and bomber without starport (as long as they are tiny or small craft)

- They would not only be engine free: they would be 'launch free' when compared to medium+ ships.

as of future expansion or mods: Some race could even be required to firstly build a meduim craft with a launch module and a construction module in order to build there first starport.

My two cents!

Mr Kurt!

About p2 of the OP.

I don't think that adding fighters and anti fighter weapons would make a big difference. It seems to me that it's just another set of weapon/armour. IMO to add something fresh to the space battles idea I guess the manoeuvres would be the nice thing. Something similar to what Endless Space tried to do with cards. But for me in ES it feels disconnected.

I remember long time ago I played a story driven 4x space game called Reunion. And the battle viewer there looked like watching numbers and numbers of dots in top down view. It wasn't graphically stunning but you had the quite good impression of scale. And you could give general orders during battle that sometimes could change an outcome a bit.