"Space Combat Rules" Topic

For spaceship games…..do you prefer to have a fixed number of actions that can increase as the ship's crew is more experienced or fixed commands?

Actions
1 Action is spent to
accelerate, decelerate or to provide additional turns
or
fire a weapon system
or
boost defenses/shields
or
land/launch fighters

Fixed Commands
Full Ahead
Concentrate Firepower
Weapons Free
All Stop
Come About
Ramming Speed

Personally I prefer actions because you have 2-3 actions for most ships and can perform them without having to memorize a command chart. Others prefer the cool names and the command chart. I think command charts will also require the game to use additional tokens on the table to mark what is doing what.

Thoughts?

Playing Full Thrust most often, the subject hardly comes up; I do prefer the idea of action points if I was gaming such thing though.

I tend to believe a lot of actions in space combat would be perforce reactive as technology increases. For most Hard SF games of course, all the factors of movement and firing are fixed by physics and it's less up to command decisions once combat begins.

I see it as tech goes up your crew needs less work to brace or close blast doors or movement and can focus more on the things like combat ops and firing weapons and damage control…..

If I used fixed commands then I would have to assume a fixed tech level across the board.

Rule writing for Sky Relics at the moment and have approached this by having Captains that offer skills or extra command options like points but cost, so players can alter play style and arm choices. It increases options for minimum rule fuss.