For the most part, I think that the changes made to the second alpha build are very good. Pathfinding obviously still needs a good amount of work, especially in regards to wormhole navigation, and the increased infrastructure costs have made it harder for me to keep my income in the black and retrofit my ships (idea for a new Sophon racial ability - discount on starship upgrade costs). That being said, the changes to the tech tree are good and the ability to re-order construction queues is an absolute godsend.



The Guard command for fleets...now, I know that many people suggested some ability to prevent ships from just penetrating your heavily-defended front lines at will, and I agree that it's a good idea. However, having played a new game yesterday with the new changes, it works a bit differently in practice. I wound up with a goodly number of my systems infested with other races' scout ships, unable to proceed because they clearly had been given destinations by the AI that lay on the other side of my defense pickets. Granted, that was my intention in stationing ships at those choke points (to prevent them from colonizing those systems) but the scout ships just SAT there. You'd think they would get the hint and go exploring someplace else...but of course, the AI is controlled by the computer and computers are dumb.



The simplest fix would seem to me to be to update whatever programming governs the usage of non-player scout ships and have them divert course if they encounter a guard fleet. It kind of posed an issue for me because my diplomatic rating with the races whose ships were parking in my systems was steadily going down (so far as I could tell, my blockading that particular choke point was pissing them off a little more each turn). As a result, I wound up in two simultaneous wars that I would rather not have been in at that time (I have no aversion to kicking AI players' asses, but I like to be ready for it when it happens. I wouldn't quite say that I'm a pacifist, but I'm really not aggressive and prefer to work towards peaceful coexistence whenever possible. If they invade my turf, then I'll kick their ass.)



The other annoying side effect of the scout ships' constant presence was the blockading. Even after I turned the guard command off to let the damned things through, I was still getting an average of 2-3 messages every turn saying that I once again had a monopoly on titanium-73, or hexaferrum, or whatever, because I was under a momentary half-turn blockade as the 1 ship passed through my system. Now, color me nitpicky, but I don't personally think that a single scoutship (armed or otherwise) should be able to blockade an entire star system - and it certainly should not be able to do it when the system's owner actually has an entire fleet in the system! It might be plausible for a fleet that's preventing transit through the system (i.e. guarding the jump points) to be too dispersed to prevent hostile ships from entering orbit of the planets, but 1 ship should not be able to slip through OR blockade even 1 planet so long as the defender has numerical superiority.



The fix for that, I think, is to work out a formula to determine the viability of blockading based on the assets at hand. This formula could take into account the number of inhabited planets in the system and their size, as well as the number of ships in system (owner vs. blockader/blockade runner). A single inhabited planet, tiny-sized, could conceivably be interdicted by 1 corvette if there were no opposition - but as soon as even 1 other ship of equal size moved in to oppose it, the blockader would either have to leave or slug it out. Whereas a fully colonized system - let's say, three huge planets, two larges and a medium - would probably need about 20 ships to completely blockade it, and probably nothing short of an equal-sized fleet could drive it away. Perhaps the 'Guard' command could be reworked and used in conjunction with a second command called 'Interdict', with Guarding placing the fleet in a defensive position around the system's planets (preventing blockading) and Interdict serving the same function that 'Guard' currently does (preventing enemy movement through the system). I think that the ability to bypass guard fleets - perhaps with small, fast ships - might be a way to add viability to corvettes and destroyers in the late game as rear-area raiders and/or defenders. Those are all things that could be worked out via the right formulas.



Anyway, these are just my suggestions for a viable workaround for the issue. I think being able to defend your own turf is a capital idea - it just needs to have the unintended side effects ironed out before launch.

Interesting feedback on the new guard system. Several points.



1. I am pretty sure that your approval with the races was not going down because you wouldn't let their scouts through. The AI's are not that smart yet! I think your approval just goes down every turn, unless you are actively at peace.



2. How did the enemy scouts get into your space in the first place? Were they already actively scouting, and already in your space, before you turned on the block? So basically they could not get home no matter where they went? Or is there evidence that some ships evaded your blockade due to a bug?



3. There have been a few discussions about maintaining a blockade. Your suggestion about fleet power is a good one, but may be complicated for a user to figure out. I would go with a simpler one: if the owning player has any ships in the system, the enemy cannot blockade.



4. There have been a few discussions about evading a blockade. I view the strings as having known, fixed entry and exit points. So a defending fleet would know this, and would sit right outside. With this view, I think it would be impossible to evade a blockade, no matter how fast your ship is. Maybe in the future there could be a stealth technology to make ships invisible; but no amount of speed will let you get past a fleet which is sitting right there waiting for you.