SoulMan

How about taking the best of both worlds. Keep with the single base and current single drop-ship mechanics, but allow that base to be customized in a top down fashion. The "side view" would give a summary of every level (and wouldn't have to have specific side view art, though there could be some dynamic aspect to it based on what the level contains if desired, i.e. if a level is mostly hangers, then there would be a hanger summary background art that is loaded for that level), and each level could be customized in the top-down approach. The base would start with a depth of 1 and one 6x6 building grid to customize. The second floor (depth = 2) would have a cost to dig it out, which would then open the player up to another 6x6 building grid to customize. Each additional floor would have a higher cost associated to it, to help balance the added floor space. That would make an interesting mechanic with base defenses too (if possible) to have a multi-level fight. i.e. as your base depth grows, the player could keep the important structures in the deeper floors and replace upper floors with defensive structures and the like. Side View: ------------------------------------------------------ Ground ----------- Level 1: Floor Summary ------------ Click on the level to view the floor plan (Floor plan would the current top-down view) ----------- Level 2: Floor Summary ------------ " - Button to start construction of next level -