The game is inspired by the Honor Harrington series of novels by David Weber.(2) The ships in that universe can accelerate at 500g or more, so they can scoot across a solar system in a reasonable amount of time (hours), but need to accelerate/deaccelerate the entire time to do that. Consequently, course selection and manuvering are significant decisions that can decide the outcome before the fleets even engage in combat.

The individual units are intended to be as smart as possible, keeping proper spacing, following the rules of engagement, and such. You, the fleet commander, will be issuing orders much like a modern naval commander would. And I will be appropriating as much of the lingo as makes sense. "Set course 126 mark 31", "engage at maximum range", "target group baker-3".

The game itself won't try to accurately represent the actual size of a typical solar system, but instead have everything scaled to that scenarios can play out in half an hour or so. I may also scale up the size of planets considerably, to provide obstacles.

Initial plan is for a 2-D game with fairly simple tactical and strategic views. But 3-D with a Homeworld style interface would be cool.

(1) https://www.amethyst.rs

(2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse#Setting