WhiteWeasel wrote:
That sounds like status effects for active ship v ship battles. I was talking more passive options for system defense for outside of battles on the galaxy map.

WhiteWeasel wrote:
I have a fairly pertinent question regarding blockades. A frequent problem that I encountered/exploited in ES1 is that a ship with any kind of whatsoever could blockade a system. E.G a single scout with a piddly gun could shut down a systems trade routes and cut off resources. This is annoying for the player to deal with, as the only way to stop a blockade is to physically send in a ship. It is also super exploitable by sending in 10 scouts behind the enemies lines while their battle fleets are busy with yours and you can trash their ship production since mid to late game fittings require strategic resources.



A possible solution to this is to make blockading proportionally effective based on the attacking ships , So the better armed the ship/fleet blockading, the less effective trade routes become until they grind to a halt. (which should not be too hard to stop completely, a single well equipped destroyer or two should be able to lock down a system. Just enough so that you don't get the scout-cade exploit from above) Another thing I like to see addressed is having system defense affect blockades. From a lore perspective, some of the system defenses are surface to orbit weapons, or orbital batteries, and they should be able to deter/provide safe zones for trade ships to rally and make their jumps. This also has the gameplay benefit of not requiring the player to send in/dedicate a ship to protect a system from being blockaded.

Romeo wrote:
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I thought they said ships in orbit (IE: Blockading) receive damage per turn, dependent on the system's defense. Presumably, a scout wouldn't be capable of blockading a planet for very long due to how fragile they are.

WhiteWeasel wrote:
Can you point that out, I don't think I caught that bit in the design document, if so, that's good. Hopefully it will be tied to a systems defense.

Romeo wrote:
I'm having a nightmare of a time finding it too, and like I said, it might have been something somebody suggested and I got my wires cross. They did say the following though, which leads me to believe it's around here somewhere:



Battle Arenas

The Battle Arenas are generated from galaxy parameters. This means if you have a system with an anomaly, say "Aurora Wave" – that anomaly will likely be featured in the battle arena with an effect on battles in that system. The goal of this system is to generate different predictable battle arenas. Players can choose to place their fleets and battle in systems they feel they have an advantage. Players may even be able to modify the arena using system improvements or special ship modules.



The Battle Arena is generated from:



Galaxy Nodes:

Anomalies.

Planets.

Sun Type.

Player Interventions:

Special modules.

System improvements.

Frogsquadron wrote:


Blockading

Blockade power

Who can say trade without also saying piracy? Any fleet will have a blockading power computed from number of command points, specific modules and possible faction affinities. This defines a max blockading power for the fleet, in % of leeched income from the trade route.



A faction fleet can blockade any hostile node that takes part in a trade network. The amount of trade leeched from the blockade will increment progressively per turn, until it reaches the max blockading power we computed earlier for the fleet. Players will also be able to hire privateers (mercenaries) from the market that won't show a specific ownership; using these units, they will be able to also blockade their allies or neutral trade networks without needing to declare war.

I have a fairly pertinent question regarding blockades. A frequent problem that I encountered/exploited in ES1 is that a ship with any kind of whatsoever could blockade a system. E.G a single scout with a piddly gun could shut down a systems trade routes and cut off resources. This is annoying for the player to deal with, as the only way to stop a blockade is to physically send in a ship. It is also super exploitable by the player sending in 10 scouts behind the enemies lines while their battle fleets are busy with yours and you can trash their ship production since mid to late game fittings require strategic resources. EDIT: This seems to be mostly fixed via the leech system, I'm guessing the worse the ship, the less you can leech, but that brings up the question on non-percentile exports like strategic resources. If you blockade a system with say a leech value of 25%, how would that affect it if that system was exporting one or two units of titanium-70?



Another thing I like to see addressed is having system defense affect blockades. Some of the system defenses are surface to orbit weapons, orbital batteries, stations, etc... From a lore perspective they should be able to deter enemies/provide safe zones for trade ships to rally and make their jumps. This also has the gameplay benefit of giving the system passive defense against blockades that do not require the player to send in a ship to protect a system. Obviously having to send in a fleet to clear out the enemies should the best solution, but having a few forms of passive defense to at the least buy you time so you don't have to send in a fleet immediately before your resources are cut off would be a nice addition.

I was very excited when I read the word smuggling. I like the idea of conflict within a single empire where the ruler(the player) and the citizens want different things for the empire, I understand that there are already systems implemented/planned that will create this sort of conflict but this seems like and exciting way to create this sort of conflict but in a sly way.

For smuggling to be fun there would need to be something about certain resources that has a negative affect, such as negatively affecting fids or a population that becomes dependent on a particular resource. Causing the ruler and its citizens to want different things. If the ruler bans a resource that the citizens want, it could cause the citizens to migrate to a planet with the resource or use dust to buy the resource from a neighboring system. Or if the player wants a particular resource but the citizens do not, the citizens to implement laws to prevent the resource from being shipped around forcing the player to smuggle into its own empire.

Economics gameplay isn't much funny in other games. But this will be really good. Finally I can destroy empires with somethig different than fight. I like that!

Love it ! This by itself would make for a interesting game .

I'd suggest some ability to control / set tariffs + maybe the ability to set general trade policy - shortest route vs most profitable ect

To be honest, I kinda feel how the whole trade ought to be more organic and out of control, I mean by the very definition smuggling is something that happends and can be at the most fought or tolerated, but putting lanes by hand gives us rulers something to do.

My only pet peeve is with the distance element. I rewards going far and with different factions which is good but this creates the weird element of sending ones trading fleets to the furthest reasonnable point, ingnoring neighbours. And well, technically establishing a lane shouldn't be a one timed event (you could even upgrade lanes if you think about it) In Games like TW you would keep tradships to forme continuous lanes if recall...

Of course feature creep should be avoided and the documents is possibly a nice tradeoff. One question is what the magnitude of trade could be expected compared to other fidsi outputs ? Will war be  a very costly affair ? 

Also has the trade subsidiary ship been implemented yet? I haven't set up trade companies yet but I remember reading you could only complete a trade lane by building a start in one of your systems and then building the End in another system but it was later going to be done by building the start in one of your systems then getting a ship you can then send to another system even if you don't own it and then deploy the End part if that makes any sense to anyone? lol 

BoldElf wrote:
Has the blockading been implemented yet? :)

Also has the trade subsidiary ship been implemented yet? I haven't set up trade companies yet but I remember reading you could only complete a trade lane by building a start in one of your systems and then building the End in another system but it was later going to be done by building the start in one of your systems then getting a ship you can then send to another system even if you don't own it and then deploy the End part if that makes any sense to anyone? lol 

Hi Boldelf!

Yes, you can blockade routes and leech off resources from them (or be leeched resources!)

Otherwise, you create trade routes by building Trading Company HQs, then Trading Company Subsidiaries. An HQ automatically traces routes to all subsidiaries you own (and other players' if you sign a Trade Agreement), which all count towards the Trading Company's revenue :)

Don't hesitate if you have any other questions!

Cheers,

Mythox wrote:
is there a possibility to use trading as away to blackmail / pressure in the diplomacy?

Romeo wrote:
I have an off-question: Are trade ships a separate class of ships unto themselves? Are they just a way to outfit ships? Or are they more of an "intangible" ship like in Civilization?

Sezneg wrote:
My one concern is that the diplomacy system actually allows for developing your neighbor into a long term ally. That's not easy to do in ES1, and with the extra work and resources required to create these routes, losing them to fickle AI spasms is a real disincentive to have foreign trade.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:


Is there a way to attract foreign traderoutes in your Empire (without that Empire's consent, which could share profits) ?

Can you use your tradeships as spies to watch foreign Empires ?

Is there border taxes, if yes, can you finetune them ?

Tridus wrote:
If you're friendly with another player, can you place branches on their systems? Can they also place branches on those systems (effectively giving the system two branches for two players)?

Tridus wrote:
Does a trade agreement enable that, or can you do it in any peaceful status and a trade agreement just enhances it?

• The first one is that a branch that you own, which is placed in a system owned by a player with whom you have a trade agreement, will see an increase in their revenue (will probably be safe).
• The second one is that signing a trade agreement with another player will trace a route from their best branch to your best HQ (and inversely), if a path can be found (might be more subject to problems ).
  
  

Ridiculi wrote:
This sounds great! One question though: Can you close existing branches and reopen them in a different system?

Eji1700 wrote:
Smuggler routes a possibility perhaps? Say race X has a strategic resource I really really want, but they won't give it to me. We do have a trade route, but I don't actually get the resource from it. Perhaps the ability to use that route to "smuggle" the resource I want, but it costs Dust per turn to have it up, and I run the risk of getting caught and having the other player take action against me for it.

Cronstintein wrote:
I found this a little confusing. If the point of the system is to create trade entanglement with your allies, there should be a definite incentive to creating foreign branches, no? Otherwise I see more benefit from having all my branches/HQs in my own system, negating it's purpose.

• A single ship can only place a single branch
• A branch can only be placed on a friendly or neutral system
• The number of branches is limited at an empire level
• The number of branches depends on the number of trade companies, research, and faction affinities
  

• A green node is a node that directly contribute to its hard point income (neighbor); which one is indicated by the colored outline
• Trade routes take the color of their corresponding branches
  

• The hard point's system itself
• The neighbors of the hard point
• The length of the trade route
  

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
My first, and most important question, is if the companies are generic or specific. That is, will we simply be founding "Trade Company A, Trade Company B" or will we instead found "Galactic Parcel Service (+50% bonus from trade route length)" and "Borer's Guild: (+100% Strategic Resource extraction on connected nodes)?

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
The "hardpoint" system still leaves some questions about details for me, though:

-Does the HQ itself count as a destination for trade routes from other HQs?

-It says a branch can be place don a friendly or neutral system, but is a "neutral" system one at peace, or one at cold war? May a neutral system even be an uncolonized system?

-What happens if two hardpoints share the same system as a neighbor, or even neighbor each other?

-Will planetary and system features have any impact on the value of hard points or trade routes passing through them?

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
And a few questions related to route length and the route computation:

- The way I understand the GDD, route length will change the gain of strategic/luxury resources and the bonus of FI on passed systems from trade routes. Does this increase or decrease with distance? An increase (or even a similar output) for a longer trade route would feel off to me

- How will foreign trade routes be indicated to us, so that we can judge where to blockade?

- Do trade routes avoid potentially hostile systems? For example, in the picture below, we have two Sophon empires who were merrily trading when the cravers took a bite out of their systems, and now occupy a lot of the area between them. Will the trade route simply be disabled, as the shortest route is across hostile territory, or will it be re-routed through their own systems? If it does not re-route, will the cravers gain FI bonuses during cold war (or any other empire during the truce after a war?

Tridus wrote:
The trouble with routes automatically rerouting is that it makes blockading a route without just blockading the hard point itself extremely difficult. This way, there's places on the route you can go after without just hitting the hard points themselves (or if you're on a map that only has one route between far flung places).

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
I second cat-o-nine-tails route recalculation thing. The route should choose the safest path, not be hard-coded for the shortest one.

Maybe it could be unlocked by a tech; starts with the shortest path, then unlocks the "commerce safe transportation protocol" to detour the unsafe nodes.

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
BLACK TRADE COMPANIES



SHORTEST PATH



OILING THE ENGINE

Eji1700 wrote:
Will colonies be affected by having a branch or a route through it?

jhell wrote:
Systems on route

The systems on a trade route won't directly contribute to the trade income, but will benefit from being situated on one. Each node traversed by a route will receive a and bonus based on the system's development and modulated by the route's length.

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
With route recalculation, an option would be to give the option of letting pirates set up a base in a system.