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With the following fictional assumptions, how can I make my tactical space game realistic?

I'm currently in the middle of a personal project of building a tactical space combat game. In order to create the type of world and gameplay I'd like I need to make a number of assumptions/ground rules. With the following ground rules, how can I make my combat realistic?

**Assumptions**

1. Faster than Light (FTL) travel is possible and functions like a gateway. By this, I mean the ship  'jumps' instantly from one point in space to another. There is no "rushing past stars in a warp field".

1. FTL engines are hugely expensive and large, thereby limiting their use to larger vessels (smallest being ships the size of current Aircraft carriers).

1. Due to the constantly changing nature of objects in space, it is considered extremely dangerous to jump into a solar system without active information from the other side.

1. Faster than light communication is possible. I'll call it some form of quantum entanglement in 'on' and 'off' states.

1. Due to FTL travel and communication, surveillance drones are positioned in key locations in a solar system. Thereby providing early warning of an enemy attack.

1. Space warfare requires fairly close proximity to be combat effective. Fleets do not take pop-shots at each other from different sides of a solar system.

1. Both combatants wish to save the environment and population of the worlds, but want to destroy the enemy fleet.

1. Humans have access to massive rail guns, tracking missles and torpedos, and lasers. The lasers function more as a magnifying glass frying an ant, rather than a bullet. Humans have had inter-species space warfare for about 200 hundred years before the game.

1. The aliens have access to more advanced technology that I haven't decided on yet.

With all of the above assumptions, how can I ground the rest of the setting in reality? Below are some specific questions.

**Questions**

1. How would a military space ship be designed and used? I imagine a heavily armored, low profile bow with an elongated body. Along the elongated body are a number of broadside like guns. Right before firing, the ship will pivot (while still moving towards it's target due to momentum) and fire it's broadsides. It then pivots back to a more defensive posture. Once the ships intercept it's more chaotic than that, but that's the general idea.

1. Followup to the last question. Due to the huge mass of a ship would it require huge thrusters to pivot at combat effective speeds (say, pivoting 90 degrees in less than a minute)? Would delicate, accurately timed smaller thrusters be able to do the job?

1. How would a ship counteract the force applied to it by enemy projectiles? Would it?

1. Is it realistic to have armor than can actually withstand near-speed-of-light projectiles? I'd imagine the force would astronomical. Should I find an excuse to reduce the speed of projectiles?

1. In the midst of a space battle would fighter planes be ineffective due to debris?

Anything else you'd like to add? In the end gameplay will come before some of the science but I would like to make combat better than the space combat in Star Wars, etc.
gpt
1. Given your constraints, heavy armor sounds about right, medium ships and smaller would likely also involve ablative armor.  Are there any type of shields?  Larger ships would also likely be armed with CIWS of some sort to take out incoming ordinance.
2. The pivot idea seems a bit silly.  When you're facing a target, you're not hitting with all your broadside weapons.  You're basically talking about a naval warfare paradigm so you'd be more likely to see constantly-moving ships circling each other.  Switching to a smaller profile still works, but unless you make some excuse with slow-firing guns, then the turning idea doesn't work.  And if you're firing anything at a significant fraction of c, even a smaller profile won't mean much.
3. A ship would want to bleed off the impact force slowly.  If it did it all at once, it would take more damage.  In fact, a ship may want to move with the projectile if possible.
4. F = ma.  You can make the excuse that near-c projectiles have to be very low-mass, probably no larger than a rifle bullet, due to power constraints.  Heavy near-c projectiles could be limited to slow-firing launchers on dedicated platforms, and thus likely long-range.  They would need to adjust after every shot due to the reaction of the shot too.  Basic ordinance could be significantly sub-c (max it at, say, .25c) and be able to handle a sabot shell or something.  This, along with a CIWS system (and senor buoys) could justify armor to resist the sort of weapons you're talking about.
5. Debris wouldn't likely be an issue for a small fighter.  Remember, in space, you can move on an axis without changing your vector.