Aye, my wording isnt always very good.
The bit without the difficulty is ONLY the prediction. That bit is effortless. What I essentially mean though, is adding stuff like inertia and whatever can make you crash into the damaging stuff ANYWAY, in the exact sort of manner that should only exist in a twitch-style game. Your movements are no longer exact, so even though you know where you SHOULD go, you may not end up there. For a game like this, that's exactly the wrong way to do it, and that's where the "fake difficulty" comes into play. It's adding difficulty in a very artificial way.... not by altering the attack patterns, not by increasing the intelligence of the AI, not by adding new and dangerous mission types or elements like more turrets or something, but instead just by going "Well, now your ship doesnt move directly anymore, so, yeah, good luck with that". The fake difficulty concept goes deeper than just that, but that's a good enouch explanation.
This game working like it does, the movement should be very direct; you click a spot, and without any funky movements or wonky curving, or speed-up/speed-down your ship moves to that spot, and that spot is where it ends up. Anything beyond that adds nothing but frustration and cheap deaths.
I don't get how movement not always exactly following your intentions contributes to "fake difficulty". There's nothing random about this unless it is somehow intentionally implemented to be random. If movement follows the same set of rules consistently then it's just changing the pacing of combat how you handle your input, I don't see anything "fake" about that.
Outside of certain platformers, shmups, and similar genres (and often even then) most games don't have control that offers exact 1:1 with player input all the time. Vehicles have mass, fighting moves have start-ups and cool-downs, physics objects have inertia. There's not much random or unpredictable there, it's just movement working under a different rule set. If the movement follows its rule set consistently then the player can account for it consistently, and as such there's nothing "fake" about the difficulty it presents.
Maybe I'm driving a car, and cars have mass. I can only make the car turn so fast before it skids or flips over, and the rate at which I can accelerate is limited. Is that "fake difficulty"? No of course not. Again, the behavior is consistent, I know that the car can only turn so hard, I know it can only accelerate so rapidly, and I take that into account when I decide how to drive the car. There aren't any unexpected random factors coming in and messing me up, at least not from the driving system itself.
Maybe I'm ordering some soldiers around and they take maybe few seconds to respond to my commands rather than instantaneously. Does that introduce "fake difficulty"? No it doesn't. I know the soldiers take a few seconds to respond to my commands, that's consistent. I can expect that behavior and take that into account when I give my orders.
If my spaceship has mass and can only turn so hard and accelerate so rapidly, does that introduce "fake difficulty"? I don't see how it does, as it isn't introducing any random unexpected behavior at this level.
I can know how hard my ship can turn, I can know how rapidly it can accelerate, and in general I can know what behavior to expect when I give it a command and take that into consideration when I decide how I give it commands. Yes it is not following my intentions 1:1, but the ways in which it deviates from my intentions are the sort that I can anticipate and compensate for accordingly.
There's no unexpected behavior spontaneously popping out of the system that then proceeds to ruin my day in a way that I can't predict, at least not from the movement system itself. I suppose maybe if some hit-scan death-ray of doom comes out of nowhere and ends me in one hit I could make an argument for it being "unfair", but that's a problem of balance and not really a problem with the movement.
I can see how maybe it could slow down pace of combat a bit too much, I can see how it could be annoying to people who do prefer more perfect 1:1 movement as a personal preference, and I can see it maybe causing balance issues in the short term.
I don't see how it can fall under what might be called "fake difficulty" by itself.
