How to start with a different genre than fps

Hi!

I want to make a complete different game than a fps, an arcarde space shooter.
The camera looks down onto the players ship and the enemies, the background is not a terrain like the one in the examples but the surface of a huge star ship.
The player only moves over the ship in one direction and can move his ship up and down.
My first problem is that it's hard to find the code where the player object sticks onto the surface.

Can anybody give me a direction where to start ?
Is it good to start complete blank or should i use the basics that the common examples give me ?

Thanks
Andreas