1. Squad Based, Objective Based.
Much like current games like the Battlefield series and Team Fortress 2, combat in Ambulation should be based around military objectives. Taking a station, capturing a capital ship or titan could be much like the assault game mode in Unreal Tounrament. The objectives would of course be set by the players themselves. You could board a station with a bunch of guys and just blow stuff up randomly but don’t expect to be successful.
Teams could be tasked with specific objectives which would influence the tide of battle in a variety of ways: Taking and holding the station’s Cloning Facility and hacking into it to allow your troops to respawn in the station rather than having to run the gauntlet of the space battle once more, or capturing the Docks which would allow your boarding craft to land more frequently and without having to punch through the hull, you could even land a specialised cloning shuttle which would negate the need to capture to Cloning facility at all. There would obviously be other benefits gained through the capture of the various station facilities.
The level of organisation allowed by the fleet system could easily be scaled to an AvA situation, allowing for a well defined chain of command and tactical feel to the whole experience.A squad system similar to that used in Battlefield, where lowly squad membrs can only communicate with members of their own squad, squad leaders with other squad leaders, and so on up the chain of command is the obvious way to manage your troops. This cuts down on confusing cross-chatter and prevents squads and their leaders getting their orders confused with those of other squads.
2. External Events Influence Mission Conditions.
This one will be trickier to implement. The size of your boarding party should be affected by the number of boarding shuttles which make it to the objective through the fleet battle raging in the space around it.
Conditions on board the target station or ship will also be influenced by how much damage it has taken, a relatively undamaged target will be quite pristine and undamaged inside, like the blockade runner in Star Wars: A New Hope, all nice and shiny, ready to have scorch marks applied.
A more heavily damaged station will reflect that damage inside, some areas may be inaccessible due to being open to space (unless equipped with spacesuits of course), the lights or gravity may not be working, and a planned route may not be available due to collapsed ceilings etc.
Other considerations such as supply lines and available resources will also affect how a borading action will play out, but more on that later.
