Given that this particular mechanic is listed in the bug reporting threat, it's clear that I'm not the only person who's terribly surprised by it. I take it that it's been discussed before; but I wanted to offer my voice, as a newcomer, against this mechanic.



It's extremely surprising as a newcomer to the game, when you have your most-powerful-so-far (or only.) fleet, with your most powerful hero, jump to a new system … but instead of finding a nice exploration surprise, your fleet ends up *stuck* there, until you either: advance your society enough, dozens or hundreds of turns later, to comfortably declare total war on that race; or give up on dominating them, regardless of other reasons, and work towards an alliance (also dozens of turns later.) just to get your units back.



Basically, blockading a system at the border of your territories relatively early in the game, is a great way to “eat up” (permanently capture.) your opponents exploration forces. This, in my opinion, is broken.



All that said, given that this has been discussed before, I have to assume that the developers have opted not to remove (fix?) it. Amplitude's ‘Endless’ games certainly seem to be story-driven instead of mechanic-driven, and I see how this mechanic makes storyline-sense … so I've come up with some constructive alternatives / nuances, instead of just saying “get rid of this mechanic.”

• Allow ships that enter a blockaded system to immediately leave, on the same turn, if they have any movement points left, back towards the system they arrived from. Maybe present it to the player as a notification with a choice. (I suppose you could say the fleet jumps into the system, sees the opposition, and gets themselves turned around and boosts away before they can get locked up in a combat formation, or something.)
• Extend ‘vision’ for fleets further (2x?) along strings. This would allow fleets to notice enemy fleets blockading systems ahead of their path, unless those systems were *really* far away along a string. This makes some level of sense; again, as described above and below, it makes sense for fleets to be sending scouting ships ahead / leaving them behind; something that's harder for a planet to do.
• If the above are too disruptive to the current play-style to you, then at least, perhaps, offer the first mechanic described as a part of the ‘Scout’ module? This makes the most storyline-sense, IMHO: If there's a ‘scout’-equipped ship in your fleet, then it makes sense for it to fly ahead, relaying news back to the rest of the fleet; so that a Scout-module-equipped fleet is able to avoid flying blind into systems, only to be locked up there for most of the game. (This is especially ideal, because your early ships are likely to have this module.) This also incentivizes people to include the Scout module on more powerful ship designs (which I find is often ignored), at least until late-game when most of the universe is explored.
• Alternative, any of the above mechanics, as a hero-skill. Prescient knowledge of ships in systems connected to the one he's currently in, perhaps?
  
  

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Addendum: It's rather ridiculous that you can re-assign a hero in a fleet that's become blockaded, under these (or any.) circumstances. Are heros supposed to have some super-powerful hero-specific mini-escape-pod that can nevertheless navigate the galaxy after they run the blockade? So, in addition to the above, I suggest:

• A hero should be unavailable for re-assignment, if he's assigned to a fleet or system, and that fleet/system is under blockade by another race. (Possibly, at most, allow him to re-assign to another fleet in the same system, or to governance of that system … but that adds complexity, so I suggest against it.)
• This could also be added back in as a hero-skill, or perhaps added to an existing one like Hyper-Driven. I mean, heros *are* supposed to be quasi-magical Dust-powered creatures; it's not too far-fetched for one to be able to develop the ability to hide themselves, in a small ship, for long enough to run the blockade.
  
  

I also find it annoying how you can get trapped by allied blockades. I was in a game where all teams were in an alliance against the cravers. All my attacking fleets were locked up due to blockades

I have played hundreds of hours of ES, and I have also had a main battle fleet get tied up at planet with a zillion fleets. So, even if I want to fight, it takes a long time to fight my way out. However,....



When I have done this, it's a mistake on my part. I should either have scanners (either from a scout or system) that detect possible fleets before jumping in, or I should send in a probe first. (I build ships called probes that have nothing more than a scout module. They are cheap and expendable.) In other words, never jump into a new system blind with a battle fleet.



Here is a workaround that can sometimes get you out of it: See if there isn't a race with only a scout present. If there is, attack the scout and retreat! That will let you escape.



In conclusion, I think the current mechanic is fine. However, you do need to be careful!

On a related note, it is very annoying when several of your fleets are trapped deep in enemy territory by a cease-fire agreement with that enemy.

Mmm... Sending anything you value into the unknown may get that something broken, destroyed or blocked. Get scanners or scouts instead, ahead of your main fleets.

However i'm with you that the blockading system is quite a game fun-destroyer at times.