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Hi Everyone, I am working on a Space Fleet Combat game, and wanted to get some feedback from the community on some of the Rules concepts we want to include.
The game has influences from Battlefleet Gothic, Dark Future, Firestorm Armada, and Man O'War.
We are hoping to create a modern card driven game, that allows configurable ships with a visual representation. The game will be based in the Cimmerian Space universe.

1.When measuring ranges for weapons would you prefer a Range Ruler with colour coded ranges built in, or "Just let me use my tape measure i'm no fool!"

2. We are thinking about having configurable ships like Battlefleet Gothic, with magnets that allow you to change your broadsides between battles, would this be a selling point to you?

3. The Game has order cards for each Squadron. Would you prefer to place your Orders at the beginning of the turn, then activate units alternately and see what happens. OR Play your Order cards alternately to activate each unit. The second option is more flexible, but perhaps the first is more realistic!

1) I think the ruler is good enough, unless your ranges aren't consistent. It also depends on your max range. A max range of 36 would require a pretty long piece of cardboard for your range ruler.

2) This depends on the scale of the ships. If the size of the ships are too small, the differences in gun design aren't notable enough to justify the hassle. Personally, to me its not the biggest selling point, its just a nice add on.

3)Depends what are the orders and what the order deck consists of. I would need more information before making a suggestion on this.

1. tape measure is fine, unless you want to work up some really cool looking navigational type plastic ruler that you include with the kit.

2. Not much opinion. I'd probably magnetize them myself anyway, so I guess it would be nice from my perspective, as long as it doesn't drive costs up too much and as the guy above me says the models are large enough for it to matter (Battlefleet Gothic size would be nice. any smaller and there wouldn't be much point).

3. I like the ideas of declaring everything up front and watching the chaos unfold!

Thanks for your input guys.

The miniatures would be BFG size / Firestorm Aramada. So big enough to see the difference. I just ordered some 2mm and 3mm magnets to see how they behave and if we could make Turrets with Magnetic bases.

The Orders would usually allow some minimum movement and turning (1/2 of maximum) and firing 1 location for a squadron. Then by passing a Tactics roll you would gain additional benefits such as a Full Move, or Turn, Firing all weapons, Re-rolling hit dice etc.
After playing Memoire 44 it was frustrating when sometimes you didnt get the correct order to move on one side of the table so we are avoiding Orders that limit your options too much.

I have just been cutting out all the play test cards, you can see the three custom dice types we be using. As well as various cards, for orders, weapons , shields, engine, and bays.

Eh normal tape is fine for #1, unless the ranges are quite short.

I've seen #3 done well and done poorly. The main problem I've seen is that sometimes you end up with boring turns. Maybe you misread your opponent and think they'll juke left when you juke right, but they don't, and you spend a turn just awkwardly circling each other.
X-Wing does #3 well. Action is fast and you can normally get a shot off even with a bad move. Wings of War does #3 poorly, I think because you do 3 orders at a time, so if you are wrong you are REALLY wrong.

From the component picture above the game looks...complex. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on how it's done.
I'm so not a fan of custom dice though.