Less Habitable Nodes, More Special Ones

Quite agree with more neutral nodes.

Expand asteroid field types, plasma, nebula etc.  These would be where some of the best battles of the game could take place.  Let players build orbital stations that seek to control chokepoints.  Large maps would have plenty of neutral nodes that stop clumping of empires and allow players to freely bypass controlled areas of space.  This is integral to game development, otherwise every player gats boxed in to early in the game.  Longer game modes would benefit from this implementation.  These areas would not be influence driven but rather military or commercial strongholds.  A living galaxy is composed of so much more than just planets.  Also we need more reasons to expand into areas where specific resources are. 

+1

Would love it

Not in favor of it.

It's already terrible to chokepoint enemy fleets as is with the current defense mechanic. If there were even more useless nodes as there are now (50% are basically useless till era 3 anyway) you could hardly defend your systems properly.

I agree, however, that there could be a lot more anomalies to explore. For example, there could also be anomalies on asteroid fields. Or even the star of the system might have anomalies. Or you might have more disconnected hidden nodes that contain special anomalies, for example.

mixerria wrote:

It's already terrible to chokepoint enemy fleets as is with the current defense mechanic. If there were even more useless nodes as there are now (50% are basically useless till era 3 anyway) you could hardly defend your systems properly.

My primary goal was to have more exploration - as you mention, this could also be done by increasing the amount of exploration per space, rather than by increasing the amount of space, or by making the majority of the new nodes 'unconnected' nodes, so they aren't going to mess up your chokepoints.

However, I don't particularly have an issue with the chokepoints - if anything, I feel that Endless Space has always been too much about chokepoints. In other games, in order to get rid of whackamole style hit and run attacks, there is often a speed bonus within your own territory. Would that fix your concerns about locking down enemy fleets? 

EcthelionHelm wrote:

mixerria wrote:

It's already terrible to chokepoint enemy fleets as is with the current defense mechanic. If there were even more useless nodes as there are now (50% are basically useless till era 3 anyway) you could hardly defend your systems properly.

My primary goal was to have more exploration - as you mention, this could also be done by increasing the amount of exploration per space, rather than by increasing the amount of space, or by making the majority of the new nodes 'unconnected' nodes, so they aren't going to mess up your chokepoints.

However, I don't particularly have an issue with the chokepoints - if anything, I feel that Endless Space has always been too much about chokepoints. In other games, in order to get rid of whackamole style hit and run attacks, there is often a speed bonus within your own territory. Would that fix your concerns about locking down enemy fleets? 

Well, how about this idea: There could be 'hard' anomalies to check out which take 3-5 rounds to explore (like an expedition) while the exploring ship has to stay in the system. These 'hard' anomalies could give better results for example. 

Hmm, speedier ships in own territory would help, but it still doesn't feel exactly right. Having to do that 'catch' game at all is terribly frustrating (Although it, is, admittedly, to some degree pretty realistic which is good).