The tactical combat element is most similar to Master of Orion 2, in which individual ships are controllable and configurable. But rather than the ship hulls being empty boxes that you can fill up with whatever components that fit (as in MOO2), in our system each hull has preset slots for weapons and systems that you can fill appropriate components that you have researched. It's not quite as free-form, but it's slightly less fiddly and allows for more differentiation between the hulls of different races, and even between similar-sized hull options for the same race. It also allows us to do weapon-specific turret swivel and firing animations, rather than having to have beams originate from some generic point in the center of the ship graphic (as was the case in MOO2).