This is a thoughtful discussion, and I definitely appreciate that.
I will say, I think that there are a lot of other reasons for removing long-as-heck range stuff aside from interface simplicity and legibility, and clarity for players new and old in terms of ship roles, etc. In the "needs a banana for scale thread," I discuss a variety of things relating to graphical clarity (need for certain levels of zoom in and out just to see things, versus the farthest zoom actually showing you things clearly) is a big deal. Personally I think that the overall benefits of these things far outweigh the negatives.
In terms of things like your concerns over reduced ship roles in certain areas, or the cool things that ion cannons DID provide, I agree with you on pretty well all those points. However, what I think may not have been clear yet (partly because I haven't figure all the bits out yet) is that my intent is not to just strip things away and leave it at that. Obviously a variety of new mechanics have been added to the game already, but even more are coming, and many more can be invented.
My overall thought process goes like this:
1. Let's start with something that is sane from an interface standpoint and the amount-of-zoom and ship-traversal-time standpoint, and build up from there, rather than starting overly complicated and then layering on more complex stuff on top of that.
2. Based on having a simpler (but still quite involved) base layer, we actually get a lot of new flexibility and "mental budget" (in terms of what players can keep track of during an RTS) for other things that might more elegantly solve the same sorts of problems.
3. For instance, now that we have solar systems, I've been really thinking that the concept of "sniper" units might be better represented in some fashion of "strikes other planets in the same solar system" in some fashion, but perhaps can't hit their own planet at all. I'm imagining the big ion cannons from Empire Strikes Back firing from the surface to hit the Star Destroyers to let the rebel troop transports by. In AIW Classic those were also the inspiration, but instead we had those things basically hitting Tie Fighters at point blank range, and firing extremely fast in general, etc.
4. Overall what is the purpose and fun of a long-range unit on the AI side? Just causing me to scramble around quickly while taking attrition is not fun. Just making it so there's an extra step of "better bring a forcefield, and if you do you're fine, and if you don't then you're in for some tedium" is not only not fun, it's just a "player trivia gate" where you need to know XYZ thing and do XYZ prep in order to make something happen the exact same way each time, or else things still happen but happen more slowly. To me this gives the illusion of strategic depth rather than actual strategic depth of any meaningful substance.
5. Given that, how can these be re-imagined with ideally new mechanics that don't fall prey to the above? First of all, what is an ion-cannon FOR? Presumably it's for hitting things that are super far away. Why do I or the AI need to do that? Best answer in my mind is that we're on a neighboring planet, versus just having arbitrary distances that then make the planets themselves inflated in size. Well okay, if that's the case, then aren't we just back to the same sort of situation as before in terms of "attack it or take constant attrition?" Maybe... but the mechanics of these could be a lot more interesting. Maybe the ion cannons don't do damage at all, but instead just disable ships -- and only large ships. Maybe they have a super slow firing rate, but they can actually disable FORCE FIELDS. That could be frigging awesome.
In other words, with a simpler base that is also broader, a lot of new things can be built-up that wouldn't have been possible or sensible in AIW Classic. It will be a different game for sure, and to some extent that's kind of the point, although obviously there's a fine line. Right now I've been so focused on that broader base layer that I think it's easy to overlook the fact that I want to build up things like what I've described above. It's not that I hate long-range stuff or ion cannons in a general sense, but I feel like their prior implementation was problematic and uninspired, and that something a lot less fiddly and a lot more creative and interesting can be done instead.
Can you imagine, for one thing, if the AI didn't just constantly fire the ion cannon? But when it's ready to attack, it starts firing that at your most important stuff on that planet, just as its ships are pouring into your system? Maybe you prepped enough that things are not going totally down the toilet, but maybe they are also surprising you in an epic way that requires the new kind of defense in depth that I hope you'll be building in this game in general. That sort of situation is just freaking amazing to me, and the idea that having AI neighbors in the same solar system could be a scary thing (adding in choices on whether or not to take their planet for safety or to not to save the AIP) would be freaking cool. Having ion cannons being something the AI can build on such planets in exchange for a lot of reinforcement points would up that intensity even more, since if they're planning a breach it would only make sense for them to invest in some things like that.
And you'd have several ways to deal with that threat, too, which is strategically interesting: place your fleet ships and smaller stuff that the ion cannon can't hit on that planet, and build your forcefields and your true choke point one planet back, which makes for a whole new kind of choke point situation that you'd never have a reason to build in classic (whipping boys aside). But having defensive frontlines that have to make use of small arms, so to speak, while your own big guns are a planet back, is pretty awesome. Or you take the whole solar system and the issue is moot... but it's not like you can do that everywhere in the galaxy without sky-high AIP, so you'd better make those choices carefully.
You know, this is good enough to actually go on the document (pending whatever revisions obviously).
TLDR of the above: I very much hear your underlying complaint/argument, and even agree with most of your points, but I think that the old solutions were inferior and that we can do better.
I will likely drift out of this thread for a while now, but please don't let that stop discussion and I will return.
