next step is to pick a real direction -- MMBN-like (+STS-like) or
Survivors-like -- and adapt to match. I am likely to completely remove
the energy system and use permanent autofire, freeing both fire buttons
for more interesting tasks. It loses the opportunity to create a dynamic
around baiting an enemy to keep shooting so its shields don't recover,
but I don't think it loses a lot else.
Either energy management needs to become really important and the game
becomes strategic and tactical, or it needs to be a non-issue and it is
an arcade game. Tyrian itself did not make the energy system interesting
and it was just a tax, so making it interesting would be doing something
new. But I think it's a kind of "interesting" that almost nobody would
adopt unless I go _very hard_ into creating a tactical/strategic shmup.
A shmup that is actually a strange kind of RTS sounds... really cool,
actually, but I'm not at all confident I could design it.
Removing energy entirely gives us a button _and_ a meter back, which
can be used for XP (Survivors-like) or rearm time (MMBN-like).
