Cornflakes_91 wrote: and thats why i agreed on using a variaton of your system to open jump connections, you can have as many cynos and JD equipped ships as you like, but if the "jump cannon" takes an hour to connect, you cant move your troops as you like, at least not without good preparations

The only time where I would even have the opportunity for an hour to connect would be in a system I control, what if I'm trying to leave any other system?

Cornflakes_91 wrote: heh, then we are a bit more on the same page than i thought.

with very heavy infra structure building and a relatively short distance (like, not from one edge of the system to the other) i could live with one minute total travel time
but that would be an edge case to me, i'd still say for a normal system traversal something between 3 and 7 minutes if theres infrastructure.

but then i dont expect warring factions to be able to use the infrastructure of the other faction, so i'll assume no infrastructure at all for most cases.

even though you did talk about intra-system travel, with your "it takes one minute"

Yes, I would expect heavily used trade lines to have a very efficent in-system travel infrastrucutre, for people in their faction or friendly or w/e.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: im just against being forced to use time warp to make the whole thing even bearable to the player
with your two hours to make one jump in your example you could do nothing but use time acceleration, especially when you have to travel longer distances.

You are saying the player is being 'forced' to wait hours if they don't use the tools available to them that keep the game from being broken. What if I said I don't like being forced to take LT Lanes across the system and I want to be able to cross is on thrusters but it would take me 2 hours, what if i said that whole idea is unbearable to me? Remember the purpose of the whole system is to give vast distances meaning and because of the vast-distance system, players require tools to manage what they need which is what the time/management screen is used for, I still don't think your jump drive alternative offers the same amount of game-play. See my example below.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: your talk about blobs and their instant transfer through all the eve universe was built on the omnipresent jump bridge network.

for your "5 minutes to everywhere" multiple jump bridge connections would have to be on the same station (or at least in the same system).

to avoid this you have to limit how close to each other you can build jumpgates, the simplest way would be to have them being positioned around the central star in the general direction of the target system.
so one cant position gates close together except for edge cases.
this limits the rate at which one can travel through any arrangement of jumpgates to something less broken than in EVE

maybe bind the effect to suns or in general large masses so that empty systems have a bit of an extra strategic value due to them being empty and free of jumpgate blocking masses.

also, other rate limiting mechanisms will already be in the game, so jumpgates wont be able to support infinite amounts of ship transfer at once
Linky link (confirmation from josh on the second page )

That sounds like some heavily limiting of the size of battles.

The example below can be applied to limiting mass allowed through a star-gate per unit of time OR jump-cannon thing you said

What if I bring my 50 battleships through a gate, its instant travel so i pop in the Red-system and I start fighting the enemy fleet, my ally's fleet comes into the Red system through the other gate with 40 battleships and 3 capitals. Now, what if the enemy has ally's bringtheir fleets from both connected systems, the gates have already been used and they are just gonna told "Sorry, they beat you to it sucker! Now you gotta wait a hour! And since you traveled through 3 gates to even get to this point, you gotta wait a hour for all those to cool-down too! You're stuck here! hahaha"

joker wrote: The only time where I would even have the opportunity for an hour to connect would be in a system I control, what if I'm trying to leave any other system?

no, the waiting time is for establishing the jump connection, once its established its a jumpgate connection that transports you instantly between its ends.
its for building the infrastructure, not using it and would remain active for as long as the gate can keep the connection powered

so when you see an opportunity to strike somewhere with your JD equipped fleet you'd have to use already established connections or wait out the activation delay.

joker wrote: Remember the purpose of the whole system is to give vast distances meaning and because of the vast-distance system, players require tools to manage what they need which is what the time/management screen is used for, I still don't think your jump drive alternative offers the same amount of game-play. See my example below.

spending the time in some "out of game" state should give more gameplay than being in space with normal interaction possibilities?

joker wrote: That sounds like some heavily limiting of the size of battles.

which isnt exactly a bad thing in a game where we are pretty hard limited in the amounts of ships the engine can handle in a single system without the game grinding to a halt

joker wrote: What if I bring my 50 battleships through a gate, its instant travel so i pop in the Red-system and I start fighting the enemy fleet, my ally's fleet comes into the Red system through the other gate with 40 battleships and 3 capitals. Now, what if the enemy has ally's bringtheir fleets from both connected systems, the gates have already been used and they are just gonna told "Sorry, they beat you to it sucker! Now you gotta wait a hour! And since you traveled through 3 gates to even get to this point, you gotta wait a hour for all those to cool-down too! You're stuck here! hahaha"

if they have to go through the same gate as you did to reach that system, their defense infrastructure was botched to begin with.
that example doesnt sound like a bad thing to me, more like a smart use of the enemies position and infrastructure.


its also not a hard "you cant move any of your ships now" limiter, small ships would probably always be able to get through the connection.
so the reinforcements would not appear all at once, but could send their fighter support ahead for example with the big guns trailing behind, or wait until the big guns can get through along with the support craft.


the whole system also has the same effect as yours, longer distances will take longer for any non-trivial group of ships.
as wormhole charging speed and max capacity are dependent on the range they are spanning, you may have to wait for a while until the WH has charged enough for the ships to pass.
if the ships are bound to sit in or in front of a wormhole for a certain time doesnt matter.

with my system its also a variable time, a player who doesnt have many or large assets can just pass through wormholes, but once he has fleets to manage the delay gets longer.
scaling with the players operations

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: The only time where I would even have the opportunity for an hour to connect would be in a system I control, what if I'm trying to leave any other system?

no, the waiting time is for establishing the jump connection, once its established its a jumpgate connection that transports you instantly between its ends.
its for building the infrastructure, not using it and would remain active for as long as the gate can keep the connection powered

so when you see an opportunity to strike somewhere with your JD equipped fleet you'd have to use already established connections or wait out the activation delay.

Do you mean that the charging up of a star-gate is for the activation of the infrastructure instead of building the structure? The latter term you used in this case confuses me.

Okay so this is what I think you are saying...
There is only 1 main method for system to system travel which is that JD capable ships can use a jump-gate IF it is activated and there is also enough Mass Charged up. Activation takes 1 hour and remains activated util it is destroyed or turned off. The amount of mass that can be sent through the gate at a given time is based on a pool that recharges over time. The larger the star-gate the faster it can recharge it's mass pool but requires more power to keep operational?

Is this the system you are saying?

This sounds worse then my system. Isn't the user being forced to put a JD module on his ship if hes a lone-wolf with no bigger ship that is JD equipped?

Also in the case where you don't have to be a JD capable ship to pass through a gate there are still issues making it worse...

Cornflakes_91 wrote: which isnt exactly a bad thing in a game where we are pretty hard limited in the amounts of ships the engine can handle in a single system without the game grinding to a halt

- This statement is irrelevant in most cases because Mass limits of jump-gates is going to be way lower then the amount of ships the engine can handle at one time (If this isn't true then large amounts of ships will able to pass through the gate quickly which is just instant travel again ). So before the engine's limit even comes into play my other big ships are waiting extended amounts of time.

I'm afraid you are going to say that this limiting of mass that can pass through a gate, which logically will make larger ships wait longer for a jump-gate to recharge because they have to wait for the mass pool to reach their mass point which is obviously larger then smaller ships, would be useful as a balance between large and small ships. It would be bad because large ships that require balancing that limit their travel capabilities in the first place would mean that the game did not balance large vs small ships in the combat balance. A game that would require this kind of balance would be a game where larger ships are overpowered vs small ships which will not be the case in a game like LT. A mechanic to limit the amounts of big ships in a battle by using mechanics like this is bad bad bad. Again forcing the player to use small ships.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Remember the purpose of the whole system is to give vast distances meaning and because of the vast-distance system, players require tools to manage what they need which is what the time/management screen is used for, I still don't think your jump drive alternative offers the same amount of game-play. See my example below.

spending the time in some "out of game" state should give more gameplay than being in space with normal interaction possibilities?

You are twisting it. You will be in space with normal interaction a majority of the time. The small amount of time where you are managing your empire at your set jump-points along your system to system travel is required time spent needed regardless because the player has to manage their empire even if you have instant travel. Your idea ''forcing'' the player to accelerate time to simulate the game to the point where their long distance travel reaches destination i see as something that is pretty cool. The idea that this distance is real and everybody is traveling these distances creates a very meaningful feeling, but since this is a game, the player needs tools to play through the world at a fun pace which is the time acceleration.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: if they have to go through the same gate as you did to reach that system, their defense infrastructure was botched to begin with.
that example doesnt sound like a bad thing to me, more like a smart use of the enemies position and infrastructure.

Uh, what? The only thing that has an influence over the positions of systems in the game and the distances between each one (which ones can be connected with gates) is determined by the galaxy generator which is procedurally generated. You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited so forces are going to have to take similar routes to reach a destination. Sounds bad to me, because the position you are talking about is the position of the system relative to other systems, not the position of the fleet inside the system which is what the enemy can control. If there is only one way into a system, then there is only one way in forever. (lets keep random wormholes out of this because they are not consistent, sporadic, rare, etc..)

Cornflakes_91 wrote: its also not a hard "you cant move any of your ships now" limiter, small ships would probably always be able to get through the connection.
so the reinforcements would not appear all at once, but could send their fighter support ahead for example with the big guns trailing behind, or wait until the big guns can get through along with the support craft.

I explained why this system doesn't work above. But to add another point is if I know the small ships are always going to come in first. I'm just gonna put all my anti-smallship ships right at the gate or beacon where they will land (Didn't josh confirm that they can't just land anywhere?). I kill them all and kill the big ships when they come in.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: the whole system also has the same effect as yours, longer distances will take longer for any non-trivial group of ships.
as wormhole charging speed and max capacity are dependent on the range they are spanning, you may have to wait for a while until the WH has charged enough for the ships to pass.
if the ships are bound to sit in or in front of a wormhole for a certain time doesnt matter.

with my system its also a variable time, a player who doesnt have many or large assets can just pass through wormholes, but once he has fleets to manage the delay gets longer.
scaling with the players operations

My system does have the variable of time, mine just interprets is differently. I touched on everything else here with my points above.

Also one final point, what if the enemy has dedicated ships to go back and forth through the wormhole gate just to keep the total mass down so yours troops can't come in, or escape, or anything??

joker wrote: Do you mean that the charging up of a star-gate is for the activation of the infrastructure instead of building the structure? The latter term you used in this case confuses me.

Okay so this is what I think you are saying...
There is only 1 main method for system to system travel which is that JD capable ships can use a jump-gate IF it is activated and there is also enough Mass Charged up. Activation takes 1 hour and remains activated util it is destroyed or turned off. The amount of mass that can be sent through the gate at a given time is based on a pool that recharges over time. The larger the star-gate the faster it can recharge it's mass pool but requires more power to keep operational?

Is this the system you are saying?

no, thats not what im saying.

first step: you build the gate.
that doesnt create any wormhole connection instantly, but is just a station like any other.

second step: you activate the "warp cannon" as you put it, this initiates the connection between the source and the target.
this takes time, dependent on the distance to the target.

third step: the wormhole connection is established and takes some energy to remain active, indefinitely if the gate is able to supply it.
this wormhole is an instant connection between the source and the target and requires no further time to use (beyond the occasional recharge time)

you dont have to wait for anything if the gate was already active in the first place.

joker wrote: I'm afraid you are going to say that this limiting of mass that can pass through a gate, which logically will make larger ships wait longer for a jump-gate to recharge because they have to wait for the mass pool to reach their mass point which is obviously larger then smaller ships, would be useful as a balance between large and small ships. It would be bad because large ships that require balancing that limit their travel capabilities in the first place would mean that the game did not balance large vs small ships in the combat balance. A game that would require this kind of balance would be a game where larger ships are overpowered vs small ships which will not be the case in a game like LT. A mechanic to limit the amounts of big ships in a battle by using mechanics like this is bad bad bad. Again forcing the player to use small ships.

why build bigger ships in the first place if smaller ones are balanced so hard against them that one doesnt need to limit their numbers?
if i can archieve the same goal with an expensive capital or a bunch of fighters, why should i not use the fighters?

if they are generally less capable than a group of small ships, why use them at all?
if they are more capable than small ships and i can plonk them down in any numbers through any wormhole why use small ships?


the method also discourages amassing killer stacks, which tend to ruin any form of tactical game.
without rate limitations any kind of siege would be "plopp, now you have 40 capitals on your head".
which would then demote any kind of warfare to killerstack vs killerstack, as you have no other choice but to engage with all your forces to even have a chance against the other killerstack.

joker wrote: You are twisting it. You will be in space with normal interaction a majority of the time. The small amount of time where you are managing your empire at your set jump-points along your system to system travel is required time spent needed regardless because the player has to manage their empire even if you have instant travel. Your idea ''forcing'' the player to accelerate time to simulate the game to the point where their long distance travel reaches destination i see as something that is pretty cool. The idea that this distance is real and everybody is traveling these distances creates a very meaningful feeling, but since this is a game, the player needs tools to play through the world at a fun pace which is the time acceleration.

no, im just talking about more than just the player.
everytime a ship jumps from system to system its taken out of the game for a relatively long time.

how should that provide more interaction between objects than if they were to remain "in game"?

joker wrote: Uh, what? The only thing that has an influence over the positions of systems in the game and the distances between each one (which ones can be connected with gates) is determined by the galaxy generator which is procedurally generated. You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited so forces are going to have to take similar routes to reach a destination. Sounds bad to me, because the position you are talking about is the position of the system relative to other systems, not the position of the fleet inside the system which is what the enemy can control. If there is only one way into a system, then there is only one way in forever. (lets keep random wormholes out of this because they are not consistent, sporadic, rare, etc..)

stellar positions may be defined by the PCG, but the placement of troops is not.
if your enemy can reach your systems before you do, something went wrong on your side.
you got outmaneuvered.

regardless of the terrain.

joker wrote: You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited

where?

joker wrote: I explained why this system doesn't work above. But to add another point is if I know the small ships are always going to come in first. I'm just gonna put all my anti-smallship ships right at the gate or beacon where they will land (Didn't josh confirm that they can't just land anywhere?). I kill them all and kill the big ships when they come in.

what forces small ships to go in first?

nothing prevents you from waiting first for the connection to charge for your capship, jump it through and then follow up with your small ships.

through, if you are in a hurry and cant delay getting any forces in then and only then will your small ships be forced to go in first.

joker wrote: Also one final point, what if the enemy has dedicated ships to go back and forth through the wormhole gate just to keep the total mass down so yours troops can't come in, or escape, or anything??

then you cant use that connection at that time, but he cant use it neither, a burned bridge is a burned bridge.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: third step: the wormhole connection is established and takes some energy to remain active, indefinitely if the gate is able to supply it.
this wormhole is an instant connection between the source and the target and requires no further time to use (beyond the occasional recharge time)

you dont have to wait for anything if the gate was already active in the first place.

So what happened to the amount of mass being allowed through if the gate is only occasional recharging? The recharge stage is not going to occur "occasionally" if we have fleets moving through them, it is going to stop the big ones from moving at all. Just to be clear, I know that the gate can recharge and let units through at the same time, but big ships wont be able to move still because they have to wait in order to each go through one at a time.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: why build bigger ships in the first place if smaller ones are balanced so hard against them that one doesnt need to limit their numbers?
if i can archieve the same goal with an expensive capital or a bunch of fighters, why should i not use the fighters?

if they are generally less capable than a group of small ships, why use them at all?
if they are more capable than small ships and i can plonk them down in any numbers through any wormhole why use small ships?

the method also discourages amassing killer stacks, which tend to ruin any form of tactical game.
without rate limitations any kind of siege would be "plopp, now you have 40 capitals on your head".
which would then demote any kind of warfare to killerstack vs killerstack, as you have no other choice but to engage with all your forces to even have a chance against the other killerstack.

The above assumes the combat between large ships vs small ships will be unbalanced, numbers wins fights, and pure firepower wins fights which won't be the case because combat design ideas like the ones presented in "Balancing small vs large ship" http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php ... 4652#p4652 will be implemented that creates a dynamic balanced combat system.

Also, my system makes grand-strat similar to chess. If I position a key piece, say a rook, into an improper place, it could take me several moves to get it's position into the desired one.

If I place all my fleets into one blob my other turf is undefended. The enemy will spread their fleets and because vast distances take time my other places will be destroyed before my giant blob can even reach them. Blobs are illogical for empire surviving if they can't be everywhere at once.

Blobs of giant ships still wouldn't be logical even if they could be everywhere at once because it will be balanced like i said above.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: no, im just talking about more than just the player.
everytime a ship jumps from system to system its taken out of the game for a relatively long time.

how should that provide more interaction between objects than if they were to remain "in game"?

I said that NPCs can manage there assets and everything while they are traveling so whatever they control remains under their active control. Again, you are comparing my interaction of traveling from system Red to system Blue to your traveling inside system Red. Remember that everything that goes on in your system Red also goes on in my system Red. The amount of interaction possible is the same. However, because of the new points I made earlier in this post that say your system to system travel does not work, that is why the interaction is better because it works better for the game as a whole.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote: if they have to go through the same gate as you did to reach that system, their defense infrastructure was botched to begin with.
that example doesnt sound like a bad thing to me, more like a smart use of the enemies position and infrastructure.

Uh, what? The only thing that has an influence over the positions of systems in the game and the distances between each one (which ones can be connected with gates) is determined by the galaxy generator which is procedurally generated. You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited so forces are going to have to take similar routes to reach a destination. Sounds bad to me, because the position you are talking about is the position of the system relative to other systems, not the position of the fleet inside the system which is what the enemy can control. If there is only one way into a system, then there is only one way in forever. (lets keep random wormholes out of this because they are not consistent, sporadic, rare, etc..)

stellar positions may be defined by the PCG, but the placement of troops is not.
if your enemy can reach your systems before you do, something went wrong on your side.
you got outmaneuvered.

regardless of the terrain.

So first you say that that lack system connections is because of the player or faction owner because their infrastructure could be better.

I said that PCG creates what systems can be connected by gates, not what actually will, thats up to the gate creators. I then said that the player only has control over where they are in the system and not what gate they used to get there because there is a finite amount.

You then said that its the players fault if he isn't somewhere in time because he didn't plan well. That has nothing to do with the reason I said what I said in what you quoted me for. Which doesn't make sense.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited

where?

Cornflakes_91 wrote: your talk about blobs and their instant transfer through all the eve universe was built on the omnipresent jump bridge network.

for your "5 minutes to everywhere" multiple jump bridge connections would have to be on the same station (or at least in the same system).

to avoid this you have to limit how close to each other you can build jumpgates, the simplest way would be to have them being positioned around the central star in the general direction of the target system.
so one cant position gates close together except for edge cases.
this limits the rate at which one can travel through any arrangement of jumpgates to something less broken than in EVE

maybe bind the effect to suns or in general large masses so that empty systems have a bit of an extra strategic value due to them being empty and free of jumpgate blocking masses.

There ^

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: I explained why this system doesn't work above. But to add another point is if I know the small ships are always going to come in first. I'm just gonna put all my anti-smallship ships right at the gate or beacon where they will land (Didn't josh confirm that they can't just land anywhere?). I kill them all and kill the big ships when they come in.

what forces small ships to go in first?

nothing prevents you from waiting first for the connection to charge for your capship, jump it through and then follow up with your small ships.

through, if you are in a hurry and cant delay getting any forces in then and only then will your small ships be forced to go in first.

Because you said they would in your system? (Below)

Cornflakes_91 wrote: its also not a hard "you cant move any of your ships now" limiter, small ships would probably always be able to get through the connection.
so the reinforcements would not appear all at once, but could send their fighter support ahead for example with the big guns trailing behind, or wait until the big guns can get through along with the support craft.

And the big guns will never get through in a reasonable amount of time because of the limiting mass system.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Also one final point, what if the enemy has dedicated ships to go back and forth through the wormhole gate just to keep the total mass down so yours troops can't come in, or escape, or anything??

then you cant use that connection at that time, but he cant use it neither, a burned bridge is a burned bridge.

This sounds silly if I can just burn all the bridges to trap the enemy in a system until my other forces arrive.

joker wrote: So what happened to the amount of mass being allowed through if the gate is only occasional recharging? The recharge stage is not going to occur "occasionally" if we have fleets moving through them, it is going to stop the big ones from moving at all. Just to be clear, I know that the gate can recharge and let units through at the same time, but big ships wont be able to move still because they have to wait in order to each go through one at a time.

where does the gate recharge "only occasionally"?
it charges permanentely as long as the gate has the power to do so (which may or may not be pulsed)

joker wrote: The above assumes the combat between large ships vs small ships will be unbalanced, numbers wins fights, and pure firepower wins fights which won't be the case because combat design ideas like the ones presented in "Balancing small vs large ship" http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php ... 4652#p4652 will be implemented that creates a dynamic balanced combat system.

big ships will still pack way more punch and survivability, but be geared towards different things than fighters.
fighters to scout, harass, defend, bigger ships for more offensive roles as sieges and blockade breaking.

that gives bigships way more "ruin your day" potential than small ships have.
as a well placed big ship is probably able to ruin a lot of infrastructure, moreso than a group of fighters.

joker wrote: If I place all my fleets into one blob my other turf is undefended. The enemy will spread their fleets and because vast distances take time my other places will be destroyed before my giant blob can even reach them. Blobs are illogical for empire surviving if they can't be everywhere at once.

Blobs of giant ships still wouldn't be logical even if they could be everywhere at once because it will be balanced like i said above.

thing is, a blob has higher chance of success in sum, best case is you win under guarantee (if you know where the enemy central supply facilities are and beeline for them), worst case is mutually assured destruction.
in both cases your opponent loses.

with a distributed fleet its heavy losses on border fortresses and a long, drawn out fight, maybe not even be able to penetrate the borders. (with equally strong parties)
and on worst case it is just losses to you as the enemy border fortresses are still there and he is penetrating your borders with his blob.

joker wrote: I said that NPCs can manage there assets and everything while they are traveling so whatever they control remains under their active control. Again, you are comparing my interaction of traveling from system Red to system Blue to your traveling inside system Red. Remember that everything that goes on in your system Red also goes on in my system Red. The amount of interaction possible is the same. However, because of the new points I made earlier in this post that say your system to system travel does not work, that is why the interaction is better because it works better for the game as a whole.

a ship in hyperjump is perfectly safe for the duration of the jump, thats what im saying.
you cant do anything aginst it, it cant do anything.
for the time in jump, it provides zero gameplay.

whereas with insta jumps its always reachable by other ships and thus can provide interactions.

joker wrote: So first you say that that lack system connections is because of the player or faction owner because their infrastructure could be better.

I said that PCG creates what systems can be connected by gates, not what actually will, thats up to the gate creators. I then said that the player only has control over where they are in the system and not what gate they used to get there because there is a finite amount.

You then said that its the players fault if he isn't somewhere in time because he didn't plan well. That has nothing to do with the reason I said what I said in what you quoted me for. Which doesn't make sense.

no, you said "the enemy outmaneuvered my defense fleets and now i cant follow him properly"
and i say that its the defenders fault if he lets himself get outmaneuvered.

if he has a system to defend and the enemy forces can get to all gates that lead to it from the outside before the defenders do, the defender definitely got outmaneuvered.
if the attackers from the red bubble can fly through a couple of your defended systems and still arrive before your forces at their target, they deserve to have some reward

joker wrote: There ^

no, thats not putting a limit on how many gates you can place, but only where you can place them.

if you have to spread out the gates throughout the system, you cant build a jump node which has essentially zero travel time between jumps.
the virtually zero delay between jumps that made EVE's "5 minutes to everywhere" possible in the first place (as far as i understand, never got far into faction play)


a more practical limit would be the range to which one can build jump gate connections, but that is under all systems there.

joker wrote: And the big guns will never get through in a reasonable amount of time because of the limiting mass system.

thats only a question of balance, and depends on the definition for "reasonable".

also, in the one situation where it matters the most, attacking border fortresses, its likely to have pretty low traffic volume in the first place, so the wormhole will have a pretty high charge level to begin with.
so those would be pretty traversable for your big ship all the time.

the dm/dt limit would also generate more gameplay than just being able to throw all the things through the gate at once.
as the player has to choose which ships he sends through first if he is mass limited, and not just throws all his forces through at once.

joker wrote: This sounds silly if I can just burn all the bridges to trap the enemy in a system until my other forces arrive.

how's that different from shutting down the jumpgates from/to the system?

Keep in mind, the ideas originally put forth were only intended for single player. (if I understand Joker correctly)

Second, the whole 'time acceleration' is automatically accounted for so the player isn't sitting around for 12 minutes in a single player game doing nothing.

Both of those have impact on the ideas here. Yeah, LT and Eve do things differently, but Eve has to because it's an MMO and LT was designed around a different core mechanic.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:
third step: the wormhole connection is established and takes some energy to remain active, indefinitely if the gate is able to supply it.
this wormhole is an instant connection between the source and the target and requires no further time to use (beyond the occasional recharge time)

you dont have to wait for anything if the gate was already active in the first place.

So what happened to the amount of mass being allowed through if the gate is only occasional recharging? The recharge stage is not going to occur "occasionally" if we have fleets moving through them, it is going to stop the big ones from moving at all. Just to be clear, I know that the gate can recharge and let units through at the same time, but big ships wont be able to move still because they have to wait in order to each go through one at a time.

where does the gate recharge "only occasionally"?
it charges permanentely as long as the gate has the power to do so (which may or may not be pulsed)

Because you said so in the quote? Okay so it charges permanently if it has power. It still doesn't change the fact any moderate number of big ships won't be able to move to the next system without waiting an extended amount of time.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: The above assumes the combat between large ships vs small ships will be unbalanced, numbers wins fights, and pure firepower wins fights which won't be the case because combat design ideas like the ones presented in "Balancing small vs large ship" http://forums.ltheory.com/viewtopic.php ... 4652#p4652 will be implemented that creates a dynamic balanced combat system.

big ships will still pack way more punch and survivability, but be geared towards different things than fighters.
fighters to scout, harass, defend, bigger ships for more offensive roles as sieges and blockade breaking.

that gives bigships way more "ruin your day" potential than small ships have.
as a well placed big ship is probably able to ruin a lot of infrastructure, moreso than a group of fighters.

Big ships will pack more punch against what they are designed to pack more punch against yes, other capitals and structures. The big guns that do the massive damage can't hit fighters. It seems that you are saying that it is a bad thing that capital ships are good at they are supposed to do which is destroy big stuff. It only has the ''ruin your day'' potential if there is infrastructure to destroy and if there is infrastructure to destroy, then the creator of that infrastructure has consented that the benefits of that structure can be halted if the owner of capitals wants to see it destroyed.

If a capital isn't a glass cannon it will have a lot more survivable yes. But isn't that why you devoted resources to create 1 Capital instead of 100 Fighters?

Also wouldn't a blob of 10000 fighters be slightly more expensive on the engine then 100 fighters and 5 capitals?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: If I place all my fleets into one blob my other turf is undefended. The enemy will spread their fleets and because vast distances take time my other places will be destroyed before my giant blob can even reach them. Blobs are illogical for empire surviving if they can't be everywhere at once.

Blobs of giant ships still wouldn't be logical even if they could be everywhere at once because it will be balanced like i said above.

thing is, a blob has higher chance of success in sum, best case is you win under guarantee (if you know where the enemy central supply facilities are and beeline for them), worst case is mutually assured destruction.
in both cases your opponent loses.

with a distributed fleet its heavy losses on border fortresses and a long, drawn out fight, maybe not even be able to penetrate the borders. (with equally strong parties)
and on worst case it is just losses to you as the enemy border fortresses are still there and he is penetrating your borders with his blob.

What you said doesn't counter my response you quoted. I said blobs won't happen because they allow the enemy to attack me from elsewhere. You said if an empire responds to a blob with their own blob both will die and that is bad to you.

If two empires consent that they don't want to defend their turf and just go kill the other's main bases while the other does the same, that is their choice. However, surviving in the present time would be more important to the empire then destroying enemy's who threaten your future survival. If an opportunity arises where I can attack my enemy who threaten's my future survival and I've calculated my entire empire won't be destroyed if I take this opportunity , then it is logical to go for it. It will never be logical to use blobs then because that requires the party who makes the first move to decide that I want mutually assured destruction. Which won't be the case unless they know their defeat is inevitable Which is a different situation entirely.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: I said that NPCs can manage there assets and everything while they are traveling so whatever they control remains under their active control. Again, you are comparing my interaction of traveling from system Red to system Blue to your traveling inside system Red. Remember that everything that goes on in your system Red also goes on in my system Red. The amount of interaction possible is the same. However, because of the new points I made earlier in this post that say your system to system travel does not work, that is why the interaction is better because it works better for the game as a whole.

a ship in hyperjump is perfectly safe for the duration of the jump, thats what im saying.
you cant do anything aginst it, it cant do anything.
for the time in jump, it provides zero gameplay.

whereas with insta jumps its always reachable by other ships and thus can provide interactions.

It provides passive gameplay for orders that ship issues. But that is the point, why should I be allowed to be attacked if I am traveling hundreds of lights years? Yours allows ships that are always reachable but then again they won't actually be able to be reached because of the mass limititations. And if we are both I'm in a fighter so mass isn't an issue and there are 2 enemy fleets at the gates in both connected systems, what is gonna stop me from playing what Eve players call "gate games" which is jumping back and forth through the gates to avoid getting attacked until my new force arrives to defend me. My system doesn't allow silly games like that because while I am traveling to the next system time is going to on so decisions are made by the enemy fleet like whether it is worth sitting here waiting for him to come out with a chance of re-entering the gate again. During that time I could be calling for reinforcements, sending a counter attack elsewhere to draw the fleets away, which will also take time, but with my traveling and the management system, in-depth decisions can be made.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote: if they have to go through the same gate as you did to reach that system, their defense infrastructure was botched to begin with.
that example doesnt sound like a bad thing to me, more like a smart use of the enemies position and infrastructure.

Uh, what? The only thing that has an influence over the positions of systems in the game and the distances between each one (which ones can be connected with gates) is determined by the galaxy generator which is procedurally generated. You said yourself that the number of gates is going to be limited so forces are going to have to take similar routes to reach a destination. Sounds bad to me, because the position you are talking about is the position of the system relative to other systems, not the position of the fleet inside the system which is what the enemy can control. If there is only one way into a system, then there is only one way in forever. (lets keep random wormholes out of this because they are not consistent, sporadic, rare, etc..)

stellar positions may be defined by the PCG, but the placement of troops is not.
if your enemy can reach your systems before you do, something went wrong on your side.
you got outmaneuvered.

regardless of the terrain.

***INSERT QUOTES ABOVE INTO BRACKETS BELOW**

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: [***HERE***]
So first you say that that lack system connections is because of the player or faction owner because their infrastructure could be better.

I said that PCG creates what systems can be connected by gates, not what actually will, thats up to the gate creators. I then said that the player only has control over where they are in the system and not what gate they used to get there because there is a finite amount.

You then said that its the players fault if he isn't somewhere in time because he didn't plan well. That has nothing to do with the reason I said what I said in what you quoted me for. Which doesn't make sense.

no, you said "the enemy outmaneuvered my defense fleets and now i cant follow him properly"
and i say that its the defenders fault if he lets himself get outmaneuvered.

if he has a system to defend and the enemy forces can get to all gates that lead to it from the outside before the defenders do, the defender definitely got outmaneuvered.

Spoiler:      SHOW

if the attackers from the red bubble can fly through a couple of your defended systems and still arrive before your forces at their target, they deserve to have some reward

First, I do like the picture.

But no, I said if somebody happens to move a large force before me taking the mass away from the only gate then I'm stuck for a hour and to you that is my fault.
Looking at the picture I've added some more labels. So my force is in D. I move them all to E. I then split them up with 1/3 to F, 1/3 to G, and 1/3 to E. There are opposing forces in E,G, and F, and but I just keep going and ignore them! All my forces jump into H from each gate and the mass pools for those gates are gone. The defending force already in H is not enough and I kill everything in 30 minutes. Even if the mass pools regenerate enough during that time to allow the defenders to bring more units in through the gates, they actually won't because I'll have units that are only there that have moderate amounts of mass, but below the average mass of a capital so it can always jump through a gate before your typical capital. And that is exactly what I will do to every gate while i wipe out everything with the rest of my force in the system. After the fight I just wait for the mass pools are high enough and I just send my fleet ships back into system F, G, or E and they go straight back home.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: There ^

no, thats not putting a limit on how many gates you can place, but only where you can place them.

if you have to spread out the gates throughout the system, you cant build a jump node which has essentially zero travel time between jumps.
the virtually zero delay between jumps that made EVE's "5 minutes to everywhere" possible in the first place (as far as i understand, never got far into faction play)


a more practical limit would be the range to which one can build jump gate connections, but that is under all systems there.

Okay, first lemme clear up the Eve terms
Stargate https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Stargate
A stargate sends you to only one system and one system only, it spawns you within 5km of the gate in the target system that would send you back to the system you just left. Stargates are not built by players (not yet at least) and are invincible. Stargates in systems are spread out and take from 20 seconds for fast ships to 3 minutes for slow ships to reach the next one if you warp there directly.

Jump Bridge https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Jump_Bridge
Jump Bridge is the player built one that can send people 30 systems over or everywhere if you have a network of them.

This entire line of thought is based off you don't want blobs. Spreading jump-gates to build them some distance apart won't stop blobs. Blobs use usually have to use gates to go another system or so after there big 20 system jump in Eve. And I also claimed above that my system would be less blob then yours.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: And the big guns will never get through in a reasonable amount of time because of the limiting mass system.

thats only a question of balance, and depends on the definition for "reasonable".

also, in the one situation where it matters the most, attacking border fortresses, its likely to have pretty low traffic volume in the first place, so the wormhole will have a pretty high charge level to begin with.
so those would be pretty traversable for your big ship all the time.

the dm/dt limit would also generate more gameplay than just being able to throw all the things through the gate at once.
as the player has to choose which ships he sends through first if he is mass limited, and not just throws all his forces through at once.

It will never be balanced, no matter your definition. It will either be too much allowed or too limiting and it will benefit one side over the other greatly.

So in the one situation that matters most, nobody is going to be allowed to move in the gate after i move my first few capitals through then the mass pool is dry, waiting game again so bad gameplay.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: This sounds silly if I can just burn all the bridges to trap the enemy in a system until my other forces arrive.

how's that different from shutting down the jumpgates from/to the system?

So I can turn off all my gates and stop everybody's movement to stop any mega invasion while I build up my forces for 3 hours? And saying they can build their own gates and move into the new one because I can just back my units out of border systems and turn off my gates again and make them keep building more while I keep producing more units to turtle. Silly.

DWMagus wrote:Keep in mind, the ideas originally put forth were only intended for single player. (if I understand Joker correctly)

Second, the whole 'time acceleration' is automatically accounted for so the player isn't sitting around for 12 minutes in a single player game doing nothing.

Both of those have impact on the ideas here. Yeah, LT and Eve do things differently, but Eve has to because it's an MMO and LT was designed around a different core mechanic.

My system is for Single Player, correct.

And yeah I said it earlier

joker wrote: However, because [Eve] is an MMO, instant interstellar travel has to be instant of course, I agree instant travel for multiplayer is the only way to go.

Well maybe not always, maybe you and a couple friends wanna have a multiplayer universe and everybody has to confirm a time acceleration before the jump is actually made. Could work in that specific multiplayer scenario, but not an MMO lol. Still, multiplayer is definitely not the focus of the idea.

Just imagine having an MMO fight over the time accelerator and the owner can skip a million years if they wanted lol.

Yeah, I wouldn't include Time Accel.
Simply include reasonable travel times (wormholes might have a length, even if its shorter than realspace)
For all forms of travel.

So here are my three suggestions.

Jumpdrive?
** Takes time to spin up, during which all power is routed to the drive. With is exponentially proportional to distance, linearly proportional to ship mass, and drives can only hold so much power.
(More powerful generators can power the jump faster)
Also the system consumes a fuel while spinning up
** Takes time to spin down, (same as time it's been spinning up) during which the ship is immobilized by the excess energy being routed to exhaust. (If one cancels the jump early) (expended fuel not returned)
** Once it jumps, you shift to the other side immediately, and can go about your business.

Jumpgates?
** Once your ship enters the gate, the time spent in jump space is proportional to size of ship, exponentially proportional to distance, and is reduced by larger/better Jump gate pairs.
** Jumps between gates can only happen between paired gates.
**Gates can be paired with any gate at a star within 0.5 degrees of the orientation of the gate.
** Both gates must be orientated at the star they link to.
** If a gate is destroyed/disabled/rotated, any ships in the jump space slip towards the side they are closest too, regardless of direction they are traveling. being expelled into space within a range of the gate dependant upon the distance through the jump space they were. (closer to the gate when it broke, close to the gate when you fall out)

Wormholes?
** Once your ship enters the gate, the time spent in jump space is proportional to size of ship, exponentially proportional to distance, and is reduced by bigger wormhole pairs. (This should be faster than jumpgates as its less safe)
** each unit of mass to pass through the wormhole evaporates some of the wormhole's size. (both holes in the pair are the same mass always)
** If a ship enters a wormhole that is too small, it has a chance to get to the other side based on the ratio of the ship size to the wormhole size. (if the ship is mass 10 and wormhole size 7.5 then there is a 75% chance for the ship to pass all the way through
** wormholes slowly evaporate over time.
** new wormholes form between systems at random, they are more likely to form in systems that have more jumpgates or jumpdrive accesses, the place they link to is purely a random star within a distance based off the initial mass of the wormhole.



This would mean.

Jumpdrives are for exploring places, typically short distance hops (as time and cost are exponentially proportional to distance smaller hops are more efficient)
Carriers have purpose in this case, as Bigger ships can carry MUCH bigger drives and MUCH more fuel.
GREAT for combat jumps.

Jumpgates are massive undertakings that IMMENSELY increase the ease of travel between linked systems.
Are massive strategic points for combat and control
Are typically VERY well defended
GREAT for trade between highly populated systems.

Wormholes are small and sneaky, and mostly purely awesome.
They appear mostly in well frequented systems (although usually in asteroid belts and they like)
and are perfect for exploring.

joker wrote: Because you said so in the quote?

Occasional recharge time != occasionally recharging

If the connection is fully charged when you arrive it doesnt have to charge

joker wrote:Okay so it charges permanently if it has power. It still doesn't change the fact any moderate number of big ships won't be able to move to the next system without waiting an extended amount of time.

Which is the intention

Limiting strategic speed of strategically relevant forces.
It takes time to move your army.

joker wrote: Big ships will pack more punch against what they are designed to pack more punch against yes, other capitals and structures. The big guns that do the massive damage can't hit fighters.

And that statement assumes that you cant mount point defense weaponry on a big ship.

Why shouldnt it be possible that a capital mounts quite a punch against smaller tagets as well?

joker wrote: Also wouldn't a blob of 10000 fighters be slightly more expensive on the engine then 100 fighters and 5 capitals?

And would provide more gameplay than if 10 capitals would be the better choice all the times, not only in damage vs losses terms.

20 fighters are lost fast and stay lost, i can recoup 0.2 capitals in damage

joker wrote: What you said doesn't counter my response you quoted. I said blobs won't happen because they allow the enemy to attack me from elsewhere. You said if an empire responds to a blob with their own blob both will die and that is bad to you.

If two empires consent that they don't want to defend their turf and just go kill the other's main bases while the other does the same, that is their choice. However, surviving in the present time would be more important to the empire then destroying enemy's who threaten your future survival. If an opportunity arises where I can attack my enemy who threaten's my future survival and I've calculated my entire empire won't be destroyed if I take this opportunity , then it is logical to go for it. It will never be logical to use blobs then because that requires the party who makes the first move to decide that I want mutually assured destruction. Which won't be the case unless they know their defeat is inevitable Which is a different situation entirely.

that doesnt change that the defender has to use his own blob if he wants to make a stand against the attacking blob.
If he doesnt defend his home area using his blobbed forces he'll lose his area under guarantee.

The possibility of blobs forces everyone to use blobs as spread out forces will not provide any defense against concentrated oned.

So anyone attacked by a blob has 3 possible ways of reaction:

1. blob his own forces to counter the blob
   Even chance of succeeding, but well, its blobbing as we know it and should be prevented as it saps all strategy out of the game as its one big massacre fight and then the war is effectively over
2. he can attack or defend with his distributed forces.
   They'll either evaporate in face of the blob or will have to fight relatively slow sieges against the gate defense emplacements. Both leads to the attacking blob tearing through the defenders territory and gutting the defender
3. he can mount a counter attack with his blobbed forces, either ensuring mutual destruction or at best forcing the initial attacker to retreat to defend his territory using his own blob

As far as i see, it looks favourable for the blob.

joker wrote: It provides passive gameplay for orders that ship issues.

ignoring that most ships wont give orders, thats the only thing thats not taken out of the game for the duration of the jump.
For all other purposes its not there, providing either a small sliver or nothing of the gameplay a ship provides

joker wrote: But that is the point, why should I be allowed to be attacked if I am traveling hundreds of lights years?

What does it give to gameplay being not attackable during that time?

joker wrote: Yours allows ships that are always reachable but then again they won't actually be able to be reached because of the mass limititations.

Nothing prevents you from stabbing it in the back by using another route.

And even that "limited" scenario provides more gameplay than your version.

joker wrote:what is gonna stop me from playing what Eve players call "gate games" which is jumping back and forth through the gates to avoid getting attacked until my new force arrives to defend me.

the mass limitations prevent you from doing that with any combat force that could do anything against a fleet

joker wrote: My system doesn't allow silly games like that because while I am traveling to the next system time is going to on so decisions are made by the enemy fleet like whether it is worth sitting here waiting for him to come out with a chance of re-entering the gate again. During that time I could be calling for reinforcements, sending a counter attack elsewhere to draw the fleets away, which will also take time, but with my traveling and the management system, in-depth decisions can be made.

Your system enables it more than mine as far as i can see, as nothing prevents you from pulling out your forces again.
*plopp* "oh crap" *plopp*
With any kind of forces.

Your system also doesnt change anything at that, as reinforcements need similar times to travel to the attacked position as the gategamer needs to do one cycle.

The same as with instant jumps, only dragged out and forcing the player to use time acceleration.

Also, realistic maneuver needs would also limit that possibility strongly.
If you have to actually fly through the gate as opposed to be near it to engage a jump, it limits gategames to (at most) nimble fighter craft.

joker wrote: But no, I said if somebody happens to move a large force before me taking the mass away from the only gate then I'm stuck for a hour and to you that is my fault.

It is your fault if you let yourself get outmaneuvered

Looking at the picture I've added some more labels. So my force is in D. I move them all to E. I then split them up with 1/3 to F, 1/3 to G, and 1/3 to E. There are opposing forces in E,G, and F, and but I just keep going and ignore them! All my forces jump into H from each gate and the mass pools for those gates are gone. The defending force already in H is not enough and I kill everything in 30 minutes. Even if the mass pools regenerate enough during that time to allow the defenders to bring more units in through the gates, they actually won't because I'll have units that are only there that have moderate amounts of mass, but below the average mass of a capital so it can always jump through a gate before your typical capital. And that is exactly what I will do to every gate while i wipe out everything with the rest of my force in the system. After the fight I just wait for the mass pools are high enough and I just send my fleet ships back into system F, G, or E and they go straight back home.
[/quote]

You counter my "your defenses were crap to begin with" with "my forces are just walzed over"?
all you are doing there is to reinforce my point, your defensive arrangement was crap from the beginning and that enabled the attacker to outmaneuver you.

joker wrote: This entire line of thought is based off you don't want blobs. Spreading jump-gates to build them some distance apart won't stop blobs.

Thats because this part is not to stopb blobs but to remove the "5 minutes to everywhere".
If in eve imperial jumpgates were built in one cluster at the center of every system then you wouldnt need jumpbridges for the five min trip.
All im doing is spreading them out like they are in eve and not allowing jumpbridges with higher effective ranges than the gates.


]quote="joker"]
It will never be balanced, no matter your definition. It will either be too much allowed or too limiting and it will benefit one side over the other greatly.
[/quote]

And yours allows everything and shades over it by making the rest of the game effectively turn based.

joker wrote: So in the one situation that matters most, nobody is going to be allowed to move in the gate after i move my first few capitals through then the mass pool is dry, waiting game again so bad gameplay.

And what is yours if not waiting game?
In my system you can at least decide to do something else if you decide halfway through that the wait is not worth it.
Everything that boils down to "use the time acceleration" is a waiting game

joker wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote: how's that different from shutting down the jumpgates from/to the system?

So I can turn off all my gates and stop everybody's movement to stop any mega invasion while I build up my forces for 3 hours? And saying they can build their own gates and move into the new one because I can just back my units out of border systems and turn off my gates again and make them keep building more while I keep producing more units to turtle. Silly.

You didnt answer my question, where is that different from shutting off the gates?
(Or destroying them)

You just stated a scenario where you do it and declare it as silly.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Because you said so in the quote?

Occasional recharge time != occasionally recharging

If the connection is fully charged when you arrive it doesnt have to charge

I took your use of occasionally recharge time as a statement that gates in general will usually have enough mass to send fleets through. If a fleet can just pop through because it happens to be charged, where is the mass limitation?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:Okay so it charges permanently if it has power. It still doesn't change the fact any moderate number of big ships won't be able to move to the next system without waiting an extended amount of time.

Which is the intention

Limiting strategic speed of strategically relevant forces.
It takes time to move your army.

Oh yeah its gonna take time to move the fleet, actually it will take indefinite amount of time because all the gates around me are flipped off and/or mass limit is too low for my fleet to leave.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Big ships will pack more punch against what they are designed to pack more punch against yes, other capitals and structures. The big guns that do the massive damage can't hit fighters.

And that statement assumes that you cant mount point defense weaponry on a big ship.

Why shouldnt it be possible that a capital mounts quite a punch against smaller tagets as well?

They can but anti-fighter guns will have a lot shorter range. If you are invested in more anti-fighter guns that is less mass that could be spent on more big damage.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Also wouldn't a blob of 10000 fighters be slightly more expensive on the engine then 100 fighters and 5 capitals?

And would provide more gameplay than if 10 capitals would be the better choice all the times, not only in damage vs losses terms.

20 fighters are lost fast and stay lost, i can recoup 0.2 capitals in damage

You avoided my question. It doesn't matter if fighters are lost fast if the engine is stopped before anybody gets to fire a shot. Capitals allow a battle to take place in the first place. Capitals won't be the better choice all the time. If i go for really big guns i get bombered. If I go for decent big guns and anti-fighter aka all around capital then i have less damage then the enemy capital so I will die eventually and the enemy will not take fighter losses because they just let their capital do the daamge. Wait so 2 capitals beats one capitals, that means blobbing? Wrong. More capitals won't be better because anti-capital missiles are now used by the enmy because they know you are the capital blobber. Quoting Gazz, "Fighters could be important for detecting and intercepting capital ship missiles. Without early detection, point defense would have much less time to engage them." Fighters save the day.

I would hope be able to get their money's worth by investing in a capital by recouping that damage.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: What you said doesn't counter my response you quoted. I said blobs won't happen because they allow the enemy to attack me from elsewhere. You said if an empire responds to a blob with their own blob both will die and that is bad to you.

If two empires consent that they don't want to defend their turf and just go kill the other's main bases while the other does the same, that is their choice. However, surviving in the present time would be more important to the empire then destroying enemy's who threaten your future survival. If an opportunity arises where I can attack my enemy who threaten's my future survival and I've calculated my entire empire won't be destroyed if I take this opportunity , then it is logical to go for it. It will never be logical to use blobs then because that requires the party who makes the first move to decide that I want mutually assured destruction. Which won't be the case unless they know their defeat is inevitable Which is a different situation entirely.

that doesnt change that the defender has to use his own blob if he wants to make a stand against the attacking blob.
If he doesnt defend his home area using his blobbed forces he'll lose his area under guarantee.

The possibility of blobs forces everyone to use blobs as spread out forces will not provide any defense against concentrated oned.

So anyone attacked by a blob has 3 possible ways of reaction:

1. blob his own forces to counter the blob
   Even chance of succeeding, but well, its blobbing as we know it and should be prevented as it saps all strategy out of the game as its one big massacre fight and then the war is effectively over
2. he can attack or defend with his distributed forces.
   They'll either evaporate in face of the blob or will have to fight relatively slow sieges against the gate defense emplacements. Both leads to the attacking blob tearing through the defenders territory and gutting the defender
3. he can mount a counter attack with his blobbed forces, either ensuring mutual destruction or at best forcing the initial attacker to retreat to defend his territory using his own blob

As far as i see, it looks favourable for the blob.

Well considering that your system has a lot more ships in battles, yours is the bigger blob.

But since you will still categorize my system as pro-blob I'll continue... You avoided that I said blobs are illogical to even happen in the first place you just used said that blobs will happen no matter what even after I explained why they won't. This isn't a game of StarCraft where it is smart to suicide all yours units so you can kill the command center first so the game ends. A faction wants to live. To live they can't die. If someone threatens their safety they will kill them if they have an opportunity to that won't result in them being killed. Sending a blob focres the defender to either fight with a blob, or send their blob to kill the attacker base instead. The attackers will know this and won't blob because they don't want to die. If the player wants to lose their entire empire by blobbing, go for it mate.

But lets say a blob did happen for some crazy reason, Looking at your 3 points...

So we are just assuming that the blob is suited to fight enemy units of all kinds? So we are saying these blobs are so large they are gonna be able to wipe out heavy defenses and defending fleets without taking loses. If this isn't the case then the defender can just attack after with no opposing force and steam roll them.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: It provides passive gameplay for orders that ship issues.

ignoring that most ships wont give orders, thats the only thing thats not taken out of the game for the duration of the jump.
For all other purposes its not there, providing either a small sliver or nothing of the gameplay a ship provides

This is the nature of a simulated interstellar travel. Now don't say that games are for gameplay and realism is usually not the best idea for gameplay because my points elsewhere are still pushing the agenda that my system provides more gameplay overall.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: But that is the point, why should I be allowed to be attacked if I am traveling hundreds of lights years?

What does it give to gameplay being not attackable during that time?

Setting up an ambush on the other side when he comes out if hes worth it. Of course that is if you have anything to ambush on the other side or can get forces there in time. Enter in deal making for people in that system who you make a deal with to ambush the guy for you when he comes out. If he is going into enemy territory that is your loss. If he is going into a system that is also yours, then you should have units in your system for defense. Gameplay.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Yours allows ships that are always reachable but then again they won't actually be able to be reached because of the mass limititations.

Nothing prevents you from stabbing it in the back by using another route.

And even that "limited" scenario provides more gameplay than your version.

Nah, cause your fleet just waltzed into my special system where I just turn off all the gates and you are now stuck.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:what is gonna stop me from playing what Eve players call "gate games" which is jumping back and forth through the gates to avoid getting attacked until my new force arrives to defend me.

the mass limitations prevent you from doing that with any combat force that could do anything against a fleet

You said small ships won't have a problem getting through gates for the most part. So now I need an entire fleet to kill one lone fighter?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: My system doesn't allow silly games like that because while I am traveling to the next system time is going to on so decisions are made by the enemy fleet like whether it is worth sitting here waiting for him to come out with a chance of re-entering the gate again. During that time I could be calling for reinforcements, sending a counter attack elsewhere to draw the fleets away, which will also take time, but with my traveling and the management system, in-depth decisions can be made.

Your system enables it more than mine as far as i can see, as nothing prevents you from pulling out your forces again.
*plopp* "oh crap" *plopp*
With any kind of forces.

Your system also doesnt change anything at that, as reinforcements need similar times to travel to the attacked position as the gategamer needs to do one cycle.

The same as with instant jumps, only dragged out and forcing the player to use time acceleration.

Also, realistic maneuver needs would also limit that possibility strongly.
If you have to actually fly through the gate as opposed to be near it to engage a jump, it limits gategames to (at most) nimble fighter craft.

Add a cooldown after jumping, and I pointed out above that being able to catch someone with my system is gameplay. Yours is just back and forth nonsense if I'm in a smaller craft.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: But no, I said if somebody happens to move a large force before me taking the mass away from the only gate then I'm stuck for a hour and to you that is my fault.

It is your fault if you let yourself get outmaneuvered

Okay so he maneuvered first so now I can't maneuver at all?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:Looking at the picture I've added some more labels. So my force is in D. I move them all to E. I then split them up with 1/3 to F, 1/3 to G, and 1/3 to E. There are opposing forces in E,G, and F, and but I just keep going and ignore them! All my forces jump into H from each gate and the mass pools for those gates are gone. The defending force already in H is not enough and I kill everything in 30 minutes. Even if the mass pools regenerate enough during that time to allow the defenders to bring more units in through the gates, they actually won't because I'll have units that are only there that have moderate amounts of mass, but below the average mass of a capital so it can always jump through a gate before your typical capital. And that is exactly what I will do to every gate while i wipe out everything with the rest of my force in the system. After the fight I just wait for the mass pools are high enough and I just send my fleet ships back into system F, G, or E and they go straight back home.

You counter my "your defenses were crap to begin with" with "my forces are just walzed over"?
all you are doing there is to reinforce my point, your defensive arrangement was crap from the beginning and that enabled the attacker to outmaneuver you.

No, doesn't matter if the defenses are the ultra powerful, I'm just gonna fly through with my 10000 fighters, lose a few, and just go into the next system killing the mass pools of the gates so you can't chase me.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: This entire line of thought is based off you don't want blobs. Spreading jump-gates to build them some distance apart won't stop blobs.

Thats because this part is not to stopb blobs but to remove the "5 minutes to everywhere".
If in eve imperial jumpgates were built in one cluster at the center of every system then you wouldnt need jumpbridges for the five min trip.
All im doing is spreading them out like they are in eve and not allowing jumpbridges with higher effective ranges than the gates.

Gotcha

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: It will never be balanced, no matter your definition. It will either be too much allowed or too limiting and it will benefit one side over the other greatly.

And yours allows everything and shades over it by making the rest of the game effectively turn based.

How?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: So in the one situation that matters most, nobody is going to be allowed to move in the gate after i move my first few capitals through then the mass pool is dry, waiting game again so bad gameplay.

And what is yours if not waiting game?
In my system you can at least decide to do something else if you decide halfway through that the wait is not worth it.
Everything that boils down to "use the time acceleration" is a waiting game

No, because the gameplay the comes hand in hand with the time accelerataion and long distance travel offers move variety in possible situations then yours.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote: how's that different from shutting down the jumpgates from/to the system?

So I can turn off all my gates and stop everybody's movement to stop any mega invasion while I build up my forces for 3 hours? And saying they can build their own gates and move into the new one because I can just back my units out of border systems and turn off my gates again and make them keep building more while I keep producing more units to turtle. Silly.

You didnt answer my question, where is that different from shutting off the gates?
(Or destroying them)

You just stated a scenario where you do it and declare it as silly.

Because there is nothing I can do for both cases, I just watch as I'm stuck in a system for who knows how long. If the system is easily breakable like in my scenario then it is not good.

joker wrote: I took your use of occasionally recharge time as a statement that gates in general will usually have enough mass to send fleets through. If a fleet can just pop through because it happens to be charged, where is the mass limitation?

If its charged you dont have to wait for it to recharge, thats all im saying.
Not that connections are ever strong enough to send through a fleet at once.

joker wrote: They can but anti-fighter guns will have a lot shorter range. If you are invested in more anti-fighter guns that is less mass that could be spent on more big damage.

if you define capitals as 10000 fighters worth rolled into one ship, im pretty sure that the PD weaponry of a hundred fighters wouldnt make that much of a dent in a capitals power/mass/cost budget

joker wrote: You avoided my question. It doesn't matter if fighters are lost fast if the engine is stopped before anybody gets to fire a shot. Capitals allow a battle to take place in the first place. Capitals won't be the better choice all the time. If i go for really big guns i get bombered. If I go for decent big guns and anti-fighter aka all around capital then i have less damage then the enemy capital so I will die eventually and the enemy will not take fighter losses because they just let their capital do the daamge. Wait so 2 capitals beats one capitals, that means blobbing? Wrong. More capitals won't be better because anti-capital missiles are now used by the enmy because they know you are the capital blobber. Quoting Gazz, "Fighters could be important for detecting and intercepting capital ship missiles. Without early detection, point defense would have much less time to engage them." Fighters save the day.


I would hope be able to get their money's worth by investing in a capital by recouping that damage.

Yeah, small, fast, not being able to perform day ruining tasks, thats what fighters are.

They defend your main combat force from long range threats or short range, carrier bound, supply dependent bombers. but they themself shouldnt be able to be a threat on their own.

I agree with you that both should be necessary, fighters for defensive, short range or strike purposes.
capitals for offensive, long range, siege purpose.

Im just opposing your notion that you could do anything with a blob purely consisting out of fighters.

Also, you are the only one that claimed a pure-bred fighter blob would be the optimal choice..

joker wrote: Well considering that your system has a lot more ships in battles, yours is the bigger blob.

I call bullshit.
My system is built for preventing blobs (to be as mobile as small forces) by making spreading out the faster form of travel.

With your system it doesnt make a difference if a blob or small force moves through a connection.
And as blobs provide advantages for all attack purposes, attacks will be blobs.
And as attack runs will involve blobbing, the defender has to counter the attacker as good as possible with his own blob.
So it ends in blob vs blob.


But since you will still categorize my system as pro-blob I'll continue... You avoided that I said blobs are illogical to even happen in the first place you just used said that blobs will happen no matter what even after I explained why they won't. This isn't a game of StarCraft where it is smart to suicide all yours units so you can kill the command center first so the game ends. A faction wants to live. To live they can't die. If someone threatens their safety they will kill them if they have an opportunity to that won't result in them being killed. Sending a blob focres the defender to either fight with a blob, or send their blob to kill the attacker base instead. The attackers will know this and won't blob because they don't want to die. If the player wants to lose their entire empire by blobbing, go for it mate.
[/quote]

thing is, stationary defenses are still in place, and dont go with the blob, so the blobber isnt defenseless when he goes on a raid.

blobs are also the strategic equivalent of focusfire, and if you can learn one thing from eve, it is that focusfire is more effective in games than spread out fire.
You take less damage and due to minimised losses you do more damage.

the blobber takes less damage for the damage he does and isnt defenseless against spread out forces.

The only way to effectively counter a blob is to use a blob yourself.
And through that wars become all or nothing affairs with blob vs blob fights, as spread out forces put the other at a disadvantage to the blobber.

joker wrote: So we are just assuming that the blob is suited to fight enemy units of all kinds? So we are saying these blobs are so large they are gonna be able to wipe out heavy defenses and defending fleets without taking loses. If this isn't the case then the defender can just attack after with no opposing force and steam roll them.

Again, steamrolling is blobbing, blob for braking through the most heavily defended areas, spread out for mopping up defenseless stuff.

joker wrote: my system provides more gameplay overall.

And i disagree

joker wrote: Setting up an ambush on the other side when he comes out if hes worth it. Of course that is if you have anything to ambush on the other side or can get forces there in time. Enter in deal making for people in that system who you make a deal with to ambush the guy for you when he comes out. If he is going into enemy territory that is your loss. If he is going into a system that is also yours, then you should have units in your system for defense. Gameplay.

And where doesnt that work in my system?

In both systems you have to know in advance that he will pass through that gate.
In my system because the traversal time is 0, in your system because (if you dont already have the ambush forces in the target system when he starts) you have to move your ambush forces through another gate as or before the ambushed ship starts its jump for them to arrive early.
(Assuming identical jump times for simplicity) you have to have the exact same amount of time for advance information before you have to move your ships.

And the ambushed has the same amount of time available for counter intelligence in both systems.

If the info has to be available 1jump + 5 min or only 5 min before the ambushed jumps doesnt change the gameplay in any way.

If you dont have the ambush already sorted out by the time he jumps, its too late.

joker wrote: Nah, cause your fleet just waltzed into my special system where I just turn off all the gates and you are now stuck.

Something thats much harder or impossible in your system.
Warp to 0, mash the jump button in your system.

joker wrote: You said small ships won't have a problem getting through gates for the most part. So now I need an entire fleet to kill one lone fighter?

Wat?
im saying that a force that could jump back and forth continously wouldnt be able to survive any task force that could be blocked with such a tactic.

first, ships will only be able to block wormholes for ships ~1.5 times their tonnage or larger. Anything smaller can just fly through while the blocker ship waits for the charge to build up enough that they can jump right back without having to wait a longer time than they need for turning around.
and when you have 2 or more times your blocker ships tonnage waiting for you, its getting hard to stay alive for multiple cycles of discharge jumping.
Large ships will probably always have to wait for a double-jump as it takes exponentially longer for a wormhole to recharge to a suitable energy level to jump through.

In addition to that, ever smaller ships have an ever harder time to drain the wormhole at all, as the wormhole recharges exponentially faster the less charge it has.

Small ships have a hard time blocking a wormhole at all, big ships have problems to block wormholes for smaller ships, and all ships have problems blocking wormholes for ships of similar sizes.
All assuming instant turning around for re-jumping which takes a finite time.

joker wrote: Add a cooldown after jumping, and I pointed out above that being able to catch someone with my system is gameplay. Yours is just back and forth nonsense if I'm in a smaller craft.

No, catching someone behaves exactly the same in your system as in mine, if he can jump back and forth at will, he can do it. The time the jump actually needs doesnt matter, as all other jump movement is slowed down by the same amount.

joker wrote: Okay so he maneuvered first so now I can't maneuver at all?

He arrived at some point in your own territory before you did, if he can do that at all, you made some big time misstake before he moved at all.

joker wrote: No, doesn't matter if the defenses are the ultra powerful, I'm just gonna fly through with my 10000 fighters, lose a few, and just go into the next system killing the mass pools of the gates so you can't chase me.

And if you have to chase an attacking force into your own territory you placed your defensive forces badly.
If something bursts through your first line, it should run into the second line and be trapped between your forces, and not have free reign in your territory.

Also: you allow ridicolous offensive raid sizes but not ridicolous defensive blobs?
How does that make sense?

joker wrote: No, because the gameplay the comes hand in hand with the time accelerataion and long distance travel offers move variety in possible situations then yours.

while you are blatantly ignoring the fact that my system also matters for long distance travel, but only on the strategic level and not for a player who just wants to fly around in his dinky fighter and wants to play without strategic-level system limitations.

In my variation small groups are fast and agile while large strategic masses are slow.

Whereas in your system everything is just slow.
And it doesnt have any advantage in terms of total travel time to use a small and agile ship.
As 99% of travel time are gate traversals.

Everything is slow and lumbering on the grand sheme of things, and no infrastructure can change that
Ship speed only really matters for tactical engagements, as it doesnt modify strategic speed in a meaningful way

Joker wrote: Oh yeah its gonna take time to move the fleet, actually it will take indefinite amount of time because all the gates around me are flipped off and/or mass limit is too low for my fleet to leave.

[…]

Because there is nothing I can do for both cases, I just watch as I'm stuck in a system for who knows how long. If the system is easily breakable like in my scenario then it is not good.

Thing is: how do you prevent gate-off scenarios?
if gates can be built by the player (and they will) they have to be destructible as well and with destructible gates you can get that situation.

You can take away the gates from the player the second they are completed and declare them as universally neutral and indestructible.
but theres no non-gamey way to prevent turning off gates.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: I took your use of occasionally recharge time as a statement that gates in general will usually have enough mass to send fleets through. If a fleet can just pop through because it happens to be charged, where is the mass limitation?

If its charged you dont have to wait for it to recharge, thats all im saying.
Not that connections are ever strong enough to send through a fleet at once.

Alright

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: They can but anti-fighter guns will have a lot shorter range. If you are invested in more anti-fighter guns that is less mass that could be spent on more big damage.

if you define capitals as 10000 fighters worth rolled into one ship, im pretty sure that the PD weaponry of a hundred fighters wouldnt make that much of a dent in a capitals power/mass/cost budget

And the capital will make 0 dent in the fighters if they stay out of the capitals short anti fighter gun range

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: You avoided my question. It doesn't matter if fighters are lost fast if the engine is stopped before anybody gets to fire a shot. Capitals allow a battle to take place in the first place. Capitals won't be the better choice all the time. If i go for really big guns i get bombered. If I go for decent big guns and anti-fighter aka all around capital then i have less damage then the enemy capital so I will die eventually and the enemy will not take fighter losses because they just let their capital do the daamge. Wait so 2 capitals beats one capitals, that means blobbing? Wrong. More capitals won't be better because anti-capital missiles are now used by the enmy because they know you are the capital blobber. Quoting Gazz, "Fighters could be important for detecting and intercepting capital ship missiles. Without early detection, point defense would have much less time to engage them." Fighters save the day.


I would hope be able to get their money's worth by investing in a capital by recouping that damage.

Yeah, small, fast, not being able to perform day ruining tasks, thats what fighters are.

They defend your main combat force from long range threats or short range, carrier bound, supply dependent bombers. but they themself shouldnt be able to be a threat on their own.

I agree with you that both should be necessary, fighters for defensive, short range or strike purposes.
capitals for offensive, long range, siege purpose.

Im just opposing your notion that you could do anything with a blob purely consisting out of fighters.

Also, you are the only one that claimed a pure-bred fighter blob would be the optimal choice..

Well in your system its mostly fleets of fighters vs fighters so a blob of fighters in yours will be able to be a major threat.

Pure-bred fight blob is the only choice in yours cause of mass limits and when the blobs get so large hours in the engine will halt a lot sooner in yours then to mine.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Well considering that your system has a lot more ships in battles, yours is the bigger blob.

I call bullshit.
My system is built for preventing blobs (to be as mobile as small forces) by making spreading out the faster form of travel.

With your system it doesnt make a difference if a blob or small force moves through a connection.
And as blobs provide advantages for all attack purposes, attacks will be blobs.
And as attack runs will involve blobbing, the defender has to counter the attacker as good as possible with his own blob.
So it ends in blob vs blob.

I say your system only promotes blobs of fighters instead of blobs of capitals and since that is the case you will either have to make mass limitations so small that I can't always move my blobs of fighters around which not only makes the game heavily restrictive on how the player can play but also makes capitals useless cause then there will be a severe lack of mass to move them around.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: But since you will still categorize my system as pro-blob I'll continue... You avoided that I said blobs are illogical to even happen in the first place you just used said that blobs will happen no matter what even after I explained why they won't. This isn't a game of StarCraft where it is smart to suicide all yours units so you can kill the command center first so the game ends. A faction wants to live. To live they can't die. If someone threatens their safety they will kill them if they have an opportunity to that won't result in them being killed. Sending a blob focres the defender to either fight with a blob, or send their blob to kill the attacker base instead. The attackers will know this and won't blob because they don't want to die. If the player wants to lose their entire empire by blobbing, go for it mate.

thing is, stationary defenses are still in place, and dont go with the blob, so the blobber isnt defenseless when he goes on a raid.

blobs are also the strategic equivalent of focusfire, and if you can learn one thing from eve, it is that focusfire is more effective in games than spread out fire.
You take less damage and due to minimised losses you do more damage.

the blobber takes less damage for the damage he does and isnt defenseless against spread out forces.

The only way to effectively counter a blob is to use a blob yourself.
And through that wars become all or nothing affairs with blob vs blob fights, as spread out forces put the other at a disadvantage to the blobber.

if stationary defenses are massive enough to defeat a blob alone then that empire had to have spend a massive amount of resources for defense and their blob would be smaller anyway so they wouldnt attack.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: So we are just assuming that the blob is suited to fight enemy units of all kinds? So we are saying these blobs are so large they are gonna be able to wipe out heavy defenses and defending fleets without taking loses. If this isn't the case then the defender can just attack after with no opposing force and steam roll them.

Again, steamrolling is blobbing, blob for braking through the most heavily defended areas, spread out for mopping up defenseless stuff.

I don't have any new points to counter this becuse its just gonna be the same stuff. I can feel the circles of this discussion and I'm just going to say now that like you said in IRC we won't reach a common ground but its fine.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: my system provides more gameplay overall.

And i disagree

i can tell

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Setting up an ambush on the other side when he comes out if hes worth it. Of course that is if you have anything to ambush on the other side or can get forces there in time. Enter in deal making for people in that system who you make a deal with to ambush the guy for you when he comes out. If he is going into enemy territory that is your loss. If he is going into a system that is also yours, then you should have units in your system for defense. Gameplay.

And where doesnt that work in my system?

In both systems you have to know in advance that he will pass through that gate.
In my system because the traversal time is 0, in your system because (if you dont already have the ambush forces in the target system when he starts) you have to move your ambush forces through another gate as or before the ambushed ship starts its jump for them to arrive early.
(Assuming identical jump times for simplicity) you have to have the exact same amount of time for advance information before you have to move your ships.

And the ambushed has the same amount of time available for counter intelligence in both systems.

If the info has to be available 1jump + 5 min or only 5 min before the ambushed jumps doesnt change the gameplay in any way.

If you dont have the ambush already sorted out by the time he jumps, its too late.

You first said that there is no difference between our system. Mine doesn't require pre-knowledge to setup an ambush but yours does because yours is instant. If I have friends in the system he is going to then they can get him when he comes out but in yours he can run away.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Nah, cause your fleet just waltzed into my special system where I just turn off all the gates and you are now stuck.

Spoiler:      SHOW

Something thats much harder or impossible in your system.
Warp to 0, mash the jump button in your system.

I fail to see why game breaking traps is a good thing.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: You said small ships won't have a problem getting through gates for the most part. So now I need an entire fleet to kill one lone fighter?

Wat?
im saying that a force that could jump back and forth continously wouldnt be able to survive any task force that could be blocked with such a tactic.

first, ships will only be able to block wormholes for ships ~1.5 times their tonnage or larger. Anything smaller can just fly through while the blocker ship waits for the charge to build up enough that they can jump right back without having to wait a longer time than they need for turning around.
and when you have 2 or more times your blocker ships tonnage waiting for you, its getting hard to stay alive for multiple cycles of discharge jumping.
Large ships will probably always have to wait for a double-jump as it takes exponentially longer for a wormhole to recharge to a suitable energy level to jump through.

In addition to that, ever smaller ships have an ever harder time to drain the wormhole at all, as the wormhole recharges exponentially faster the less charge it has.

Small ships have a hard time blocking a wormhole at all, big ships have problems to block wormholes for smaller ships, and all ships have problems blocking wormholes for ships of similar sizes.
All assuming instant turning around for re-jumping which takes a finite time.

all the exponentially recharge rate that decays supports fighter blobbing

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Add a cooldown after jumping, and I pointed out above that being able to catch someone with my system is gameplay. Yours is just back and forth nonsense if I'm in a smaller craft.

No, catching someone behaves exactly the same in your system as in mine, if he can jump back and forth at will, he can do it. The time the jump actually needs doesnt matter, as all other jump movement is slowed down by the same amount.

Nothing is slowed, and everything can happen while somebody is jumping.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Okay so he maneuvered first so now I can't maneuver at all?

He arrived at some point in your own territory before you did, if he can do that at all, you made some big time misstake before he moved at all.

asdasd

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: No, doesn't matter if the defenses are the ultra powerful, I'm just gonna fly through with my 10000 fighters, lose a few, and just go into the next system killing the mass pools of the gates so you can't chase me.

And if you have to chase an attacking force into your own territory you placed your defensive forces badly.
If something bursts through your first line, it should run into the second line and be trapped between your forces, and not have free reign in your territory.

Also: you allow ridicolous offensive raid sizes but not ridicolous defensive blobs?
How does that make sense?

What exactly is forcing my 10000 fighters to stop? What is this defensive line? If the defensive blob is big enough to kill my fighter blob then ill go somewhere else cuz you can't move or just pass it quickly.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: No, because the gameplay the comes hand in hand with the time accelerataion and long distance travel offers move variety in possible situations then yours.

while you are blatantly ignoring the fact that my system also matters for long distance travel, but only on the strategic level and not for a player who just wants to fly around in his dinky fighter and wants to play without strategic-level system limitations.

In my variation small groups are fast and agile while large strategic masses are slow.

Whereas in your system everything is just slow.
And it doesnt have any advantage in terms of total travel time to use a small and agile ship.
As 99% of travel time are gate traversals.

Everything is slow and lumbering on the grand sheme of things, and no infrastructure can change that
Ship speed only really matters for tactical engagements, as it doesnt modify strategic speed in a meaningful way

Nothing is slow in mine, but nothing is instant.
So smaller ships somehow possess an ability in their 1000x smaller engines to go faster then a big ship? Aren't big ships faster then little ships be definition? Aren't little ships just the ones with a ton more acceleration?

And no everything is the same speed in yours except you limit how often big ships can go through a gate. Except it can't be balanced without being pro big ship blob or pro little ship blob.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

joker wrote: Oh yeah its gonna take time to move the fleet, actually it will take indefinite amount of time because all the gates around me are flipped off and/or mass limit is too low for my fleet to leave.

[…]

Because there is nothing I can do for both cases, I just watch as I'm stuck in a system for who knows how long. If the system is easily breakable like in my scenario then it is not good.

Thing is: how do you prevent gate-off scenarios?
if gates can be built by the player (and they will) they have to be destructible as well and with destructible gates you can get that situation.

You can take away the gates from the player the second they are completed and declare them as universally neutral and indestructible.
but theres no non-gamey way to prevent turning off gates.

Make it take time to turn it off and on. Only do it if it is really worth it.

joker wrote: And the capital will make 0 dent in the fighters if they stay out of the capitals short anti fighter gun range

and the other way around as well, as they have the same range

also, nothing prevents a capital from mounting guns that would be too large for a fighter but are still good in hitting small targets.
they have more power for the weapon itself, have less mass restrictions for larger optics (in case of laser) or longer, higher velocity barrels (in case of mass driver), have more energy and mass to spare for high torque turret actuators to cancel out the larger weight...

after some point it would have diminishing returns, but nothing prevents building point defense guns with longer effective range on capships.

joker wrote: Well in your system its mostly fleets of fighters vs fighters so a blob of fighters in yours will be able to be a major threat.

Pure-bred fight blob is the only choice in yours cause of mass limits and when the blobs get so large hours in the engine will halt a lot sooner in yours then to mine.

you know that moving the same mass in fighters as you would do in caps would still take quite a while through any wormhole?

they arent free to move.

also, fighters are favourable in your model as well, they cost less, seem to have the same firepower for their cost as a capship, are much less susceptible to long range weaponry and you can move them around in large blobs as well.

joker wrote: I say your system only promotes blobs of fighters instead of blobs of capitals and since that is the case you will either have to make mass limitations so small that I can't always move my blobs of fighters around which not only makes the game heavily restrictive on how the player can play but also makes capitals useless cause then there will be a severe lack of mass to move them around.

define "severe", balancing constant is defined at balancing, if it doesnt work, tweak it.

in your system there is nothing to tweak except the speed at which ships travel between systems, and as you defined that as constant, it changes mostly the speed of the game, and not any balance between individual ship types.

joker wrote: if stationary defenses are massive enough to defeat a blob alone then that empire had to have spend a massive amount of resources for defense and their blob would be smaller anyway so they wouldnt attack.

where were the defenses strong enough to defeat a blob?

if collected on the same place maybe, otherwise, lack of focus fire is lack of effective combat (in games)

joker wrote: You first said that there is no difference between our system. Mine doesn't require pre-knowledge to setup an ambush but yours does because yours is instant. If I have friends in the system he is going to then they can get him when he comes out but in yours he can run away.

eh, you need as much preknowledge as in your system as in mine if you dont have a force in the system already.

nothing prevents him to just turn around in your system, which is still the favourable solution if the other possibility is getting ganked.

joker wrote: I fail to see why game breaking traps is a good thing.

i fail to see the absence of traps as good thing.

it should be possible to lure your enemy into a system where he cant escape without challenging your forces.

joker wrote: all the exponentially recharge rate that decays supports fighter blobbing

whereas your system supports general blobbing, not only fighter blobbing.
if its the same effort to move a fleet as it is to move a single ship


also, if fighters arent that useful on their own in a war, then fiighter blobs arent desirable.

fighter blobs are then useful if the same mass in fighters as in capitals has the same effective damage potential to all targets against which capships usually excel at.

if you give all sizes of ships their own roles, none of them will be the "go to" thing for blobbing.
for example build a rock-paper-scissors like relationship
fighter beats bomber beats capital beats stationary defense beats fighter
((and lots of other interactions which are beyond my point right now))

joker wrote: What exactly is forcing my 10000 fighters to stop? What is this defensive line? If the defensive blob is big enough to kill my fighter blob then ill go somewhere else cuz you can't move or just pass it quickly.

defensive infrastructure for example?

the fact that fighter groups as you proclaim still cant move through wormholes instantly?

why should the defensive blob not be able to keep up with you?
when fighter blobbing is that effective, the enemy will have one as well.

joker wrote: Nothing is slow in mine, but nothing is instant.

everything is slow in your system, its only usable by skipping large portions of game time.
by your own definition.

joker wrote: So smaller ships somehow possess an ability in their 1000x smaller engines to go faster then a big ship? Aren't little ships just the ones with a ton more acceleration?

in space speed = acceleration.

especially with infinite dV drives as in games like LT ((and the drag-based speed limit of it))

joker wrote: Aren't big ships faster then little ships be definition?

eh, no? for the most part only in hard sci-fi, like the one where you have to bother about dV and ISP.
or the ones where they generally state bigger ships as better

joker wrote: And no everything is the same speed in yours except you limit how often big ships can go through a gate.

eh, no.

you have 1 minute travel time in system, and 2 hours twiddling thumbs if you want to do something out system.

with my system you have more time in system, which provides actual gameplay, and (if you are moving large forces) some twiddling your thumbs whichs duration is defined by the respective connection.
build a better gate, reduce your thumb twiddling.

with the thumb twiddling time modified by the jump distance in both systems

joker wrote: Make it take time to turn it off and on. Only do it if it is really worth it.

it takes time in my system.
did ages before your blurb even came up

because wormholes take time to decay.