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,