Combat

Hi once again.

I know you are viewing these posts and I don't want it to be a vaccum, so please participate and give feedback on my ideas. Let's make this game a great masterpiece!

For all the time I've been imagining this game I always imagined the combat to be a mix between Star Trek Armada II and the Star Wars Empire at War. The ships dropping into the area from hyperspace, then proceeding to the nearest foe guns blazing. Capital ships moving slowly at distance providing barrage of fire while smaller fighters zig-zag a target. And I absolutely LOVE the ability to target and destroy systems on ships in SWEaW that give you lots of play space: destroy an enemy ship or only disable their engines? Capture it and tow back to base for repairs? Its also in Armada when all officers die and the ship is a derelict but you can go there, transport some officers and you have a new ship.

I want to have this in my game but lately I've been thinking in having these mechanics but not so RTS-sey, so to speak. I don't want to have to command 30 different ships/groups, clicking on a spot and they go there fast and then just sit there, or absolutely not sending them to attack and later see them half destroyed limping around. Don't want it to be click fest. Maybe something more grounded like sending the ships to an area with a mission and they pick and fight enemies if they are there. Specify only ships, or only structures, and let the ships pound. Don't know well how to describe it for you. Don't want a ship to "be just one more unit" but have them have some charisma or realism to it that when you send it to battle you know the ships capabilities, it's part of your armada. Like in Star Trek when they see ships going down and address them by name: THE Melbourne, THE Syracuse. They're real ships. You knew the captain. Understand? Losing them is bad very bad.

The ships, besides a combat role where you pick them more individually and lead them to fight this enemy ship or base, also have a peace-time role in patrolling areas, maybe provide escorts to freighters or ferry ambassadors, and ability to dock on stations for repairs. Those roles are a bit more autonomous (you don't need to be keeping tabs on a ship while following freighters), so the UI should be able to assign those orders in 3 clicks max (ex. Ship > Escort > Freight Line 23A) or (Ship > Repair > On Repair Station #7). Just select the ship, open the menu and go.  For combat: Ship > Attack > Foe #5. For travel: Ship > Warp To > System A > Planet 5.
Perhaps the best way to describe it is like Eve Online, you have a list of stations and you assign Warp > Station X. Something like that yeah, in contrast to the games mentioned before where for everything you click click click.

So what do you think? Is this a good way to implement ship gameplay?