Make blockade work for one turn only
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:02 am
From this thread:
Maybe this could be too restrictive for interesting gameplay, and then I'd suggest making the blockade last for two turns like this: the first turn the invading fleets arrives in, it must stop by and combat ensues; in the second turn, if both parts have active armed ships, if invading fleet tries to go its way back it can do it, but if it tries to exit through a blockaded starlane another (last) turn of combat will ensue before the invading fleet can actually scape. It would be like requiring one extra turn to cross the system under enemy fire before jumping to the new destination.
That made me think: if (part of) a fleet arriving to a blockaded system survives the initial battle (during which it has been moving around the system), why can't it jump towards a system different from the one it came from? It's been under enemy fire, right, but how could that prevent from jumping north and allow jumping south? If I can jump south, I should be able to jump any other direction.Telos wrote: ↑Wed Jan 02, 2019 2:49 amSo... yet another way in which stealth-carriers are over-powered is that you can park one at a choke-point in deep space and this counts as a "blockade" preventing visible enemy ships from coming through. It's not just that the enemies have to stop and fight off an ambush once as they're passing, which would be understandable. Then they get the little blockaded ring around them with the info that the only way they can leave is to go back the way they came. So my little 150PP carrier, now empty of its 4 bombers, is single-handedly stopping a fleet of 25 much more expensive ships from advancing into my territory, with absolutely no risk to itself!
With the above suggestion, blockade will last as long as the blockading fleet is strong enough to kill the whole invading fleet in one single turn.
Maybe this could be too restrictive for interesting gameplay, and then I'd suggest making the blockade last for two turns like this: the first turn the invading fleets arrives in, it must stop by and combat ensues; in the second turn, if both parts have active armed ships, if invading fleet tries to go its way back it can do it, but if it tries to exit through a blockaded starlane another (last) turn of combat will ensue before the invading fleet can actually scape. It would be like requiring one extra turn to cross the system under enemy fire before jumping to the new destination.