It's high-stake war and the topology is of (relatively) high importance, so it's certainly an interesting tactical challenge.
But it's also quite constrained combat, and one where big piles of ships are usually of more importance that maneuver.
So, what about finding ways to enhance the importance of extra-territorial warfare, in order to enrich the tactical and strategic possibilities of the game ?
That is, to have more ships fighting far away from all players' territories and Supply range, in outer space ?
There's certainly a real fluff appeal to it, but also it would imho really better the game.
To make outer space combat relevant, we need two things :
1 - Ability to do so
2 - Reasons to do so
For abilities to do faraway wars, we could obviously remove the fuel limitations on ships; that would be stupid of course as fuel is a constraint that has real and interesting consequences in territorial warfare.
So, how to alleviate the fuel constraints somehow as to allow for deep space warfare while not destroying the way fuel works right now ?
I don't have a definitive answer, but I have some ideas :
- I proposed a modification to the Derelict Tanker that would allow strategic use of it rather than pure luck; the problem is that it's not showable on the Galaxy as long as it's tied to a system rather than a planet, so we probably should tie it to a planet (or keep the Derelict Tanker that we have now, and create a "crashlanded tanker" tied to a planet and that can be seen from one jump away).
- I have also proposed specials like "Asteroid Fungus" and "Methane Pockets" to refuel ships outside of Supply, but I was never able to make the FOCS code for them actually work.
- Specials that give refueling ability to ships only if the Empire has a specific Technology could be nice too (like, if one has Temporal Mechanics, one can partially refuel at Temporal Anomalies).
- The Laenfa ability to refuel in systems with bright stars is unbalanced, but with a lower value for it it's a good idea, same as the Sly's in Gas Giants.
- Ramscoop refuels too slowly to be useful, but if we make it double the natural refuel rate then it will raise Organic Ships refuel rate to 0,4 per turn (0,6 if they're Sly in a Gas Giant), which is less useless.
- It would be a bad idea to have each Species get a special refueling ability like the Sly's and Laenfa's, but getting more examples is not necessarily bad (like refuel 0,3 at High Cloud Cover, at Silmaline Crystals, at Probiotic Soups, whatever).
- We can also have Ship parts that refuel at specific locations (systems with both a tiny planet and a Gas Giant, using the gravity well, for example).
- Military Policies that emphasize autonomy of fleets (as such providing some refueling abilities) could be interesting also.
- Social Policies or Influence Projects that allow refueling from natives ? Maybe with a limit, or an Influence cost for each ship refueled ?
- Maybe have ship parts that help fuel range and refueling (even of other ships) while lowering speed ?
- Wild Stargates-like wormholes that cannot be settled (or are destroyed at settlement) projecting ships to far places in the Galaxy (and maybe destroying any ship with Outpost or Colony part in it, for "void stuff" reasons).
- We want that for warships, I don't believe that having ever-going scouts would be that interesting. And for warships, we want them able to go far in space, not to do that easily. Also we DO want to have to manage getting stranded for a few turns sometime, as it will be a very important strategic element in outer space warfare.
- We want ships doing extraterritorial warfare to have very different speeds, if there is to be a fight rather than ships avoiding the more powerful fleet. So maybe keep the "Reserve tanks" idea where ships with low fuel cannot go as quickly as others ? Or a fleet setting (invalid too close to civilized planets for "quantum interference" fluff reasons) that allow to go 1,5 speed for double fuel cost ? That way one can put a fleet refueling itself to full capacity somewhere and use it to ambush anyone that comes near...
Now, obviously, to have real extraterritorial warfare there also need to be strategic reasons for it...
Right now I can find only one, though it can have many faces : resources.
If by exploring deep space one can get resources competitively with Colonizing planets, then yes there's a good reason for going straight into the big dark...
I believe that it's more interesting if the resources one can gets by sending ships to the outer space are different than the ones produced by Colonization, so I'll exclude both Production and supply-related Specials (I mean Ki Spice and the like).
There are basically two resources that are currently in the game and are neither Production nor Supply-related Specials, that is Research Points and Influence Points. Also, there are two not exactly resources but still useful in-game rewards that could be a result of exploration ; unlocking Policies, and raising Stability (or reducing it in enemy planets).
What could be interesting but is not currently in game are two things : "native tokens" and cargo.
Native tokens would be either "good will tokens" or "threat tokens" that one can find on exploration and then use in one's relations with Natives, when these relations will have been implemented. It's imho more interesting if they're specific, so let's consider one is trying to convince a Mu Ursh colony to peacefully come over to his Empire, one will have to keep pursuing exploration until one finds enough "Mu Ursh good will tokens", all the "Ourbools good will tokens" he can find along the way being useless for that task.
Cargo would probably be components for ship parts that are in finite number, and that allow these ship parts to be produced only by consuming them (so when one is out of let's say "unobtainium" to build stealth armor, then one cannot build stealth armor anymore). Cargo would have to be brought back into supply before being added to the pile of available components, and ships carrying cargo (in special internal slots probably) could be destroyed, leaving the cargo floating in space for other players to take it.
Going back to what currently exists in the game and as such is easy to implement :
Just getting "research treasures" and "influence treasures" would become a bit quite tedious on the long term, so I'd prefer to have different mechanisms there.
Three I can think about :
- The simplest one is some "Spacefaring" Policy that gives a small Influence and/or Research bonus the more you have explored outer space. Maybe even more interesting if it's not measured in absolute numbers but comparatively with other players... So you'll want to take this bonus if you can, but also to deny it to more advanced players.
- "Anomaly" : gives one (or any number) of Research Point to the first to get to it; probably should then become visible to all other players in order to bring strategic interaction rather than pure luck. Then the next Species to visit it (since different ways of thinking are able to see different things), be it of the same Empire or not, gets 2 RP, the third 3 RPs and so on. It's also possible to have geometric progression rather than arithmetic, if it's well balanced (since the number of spacefaring species is limited, it shouldn't get out of hand anyway).
- "Puzzles" : either natural puzzles, or Xenoarchaeology puzzles : when one finds one piece of the puzzle (technically, a Special attached to the planet) it learns its sequence number and the technology one needs to have to find the next puzzle piece. Maybe when one has found half of the puzzle pieces he also gets the total number of pieces that constitutes the full puzzle. Once one has completed a puzzle, one gets his reward : big Research boost, big Influence boost, or maybe even unlocking a Policy, a Building, a Ship Hull or part, or getting a nice Monster or Ship (or a new refueling capacity ?), or unstealthing a Native species or a strategic resources (I mean, unstealthing it everywhere in the Galaxy).
Which puzzle pieces has been found probably should be public knowledge to other players that have the corresponding technology, in order to spice things up.
If we can find good fluff writers for these puzzles, they can get really immersive. Of course they'll also need to be tailored to not become obnoxious for experienced players who'll already know them all.
There also should be some modifications to universe generation to insure that at least some puzzles will be complete.
It's also possible to have puzzles compose bigger puzzles with bigger rewards, and having ways of telling (through completion of one sub-puzzle and/or mastery of some specific advanced research) whether the big puzzle is completable or not. In that case some Galaxies may have the full big puzzle and some may not, which would add to the replayability without being too frustrating for the player.