I would like to suggest the addition of the ability to engage a fleet while it is traveling between systems. I suggest this because I feel like movement in ES is sort of like a series of hops through space when your race gets the warp drive and so a stop on the way is inevitable in some cases right? Well if it is your turn and you see an enemy fleet halfway between systems you should be able to move a fleet to intercept them if you have a fleet within range of jumping to their position.



This could result in a new type of ship combat, instead of the broadside type warfare seen in orbit battles you could see head on fleet battles with both fleets moving at each other instead of alongside each other. I think it would add tactical flexibility and add to the gameplay of ES.

Yes I agree it's annoying see an enemy fleet bounce between systems and not be able to engage because they never stopped at the planet.

Eh, I'm okay with the current setup. I think that we're meant to believe that ships in ES use naturally occurring (until you research the right tech) portals into Very Fast Space, which only link between some of the stars in the galaxy (wormholes being another option that's limited due to them being...uh...space...tornadoes...). I think the idea is that while the ships in transit appear to be able to rendezvous with eachother, the way this crazy system works makes it improbably difficult at best.



Though thinking about it, it might be kind of cool if once you researched warp bubble tech that you got the option to take pot shots at a passing fleet while you own fleet passed. Sort of like how hyperspace combat worked in Crest/Banner of the Stars.

Ohma wrote:
Eh, I'm okay with the current setup. I think that we're meant to believe that ships in ES use naturally occurring (until you research the right tech) portals into Very Fast Space, which only link between some of the stars in the galaxy (wormholes being another option that's limited due to them being...uh...space...tornadoes...). I think the idea is that while the ships in transit appear to be able to rendezvous with eachother, the way this crazy system works makes it improbably difficult at best.



Though thinking about it, it might be kind of cool if once you researched warp bubble tech that you got the option to take pot shots at a passing fleet while you own fleet passed. Sort of like how hyperspace combat worked in Crest/Banner of the Stars.

Yea but that only comes into account when using the longer links (or the wavy lines between systems) and that process is instantaneous. I am talking about when it is going between systems with short links (or the non-wavy shorter lines). When going between systems in the longer lines then the warp drive is used but in the shorter trips is the string induction drive not used? If they did use the warp drive it would go as fast as when the warp drive is used on the wavy lines which it certainly is not. This would allow for reliable interception of enemy fleets as long as they aren't going through a wormhole or using a wavy line to go to it's destination.

My understanding is that both movement along the straight lines (Cosmic Strings) and off of them use the same FTL scheme. The tech that lets your ships travel without the use of the Strings essentially allows you ships to create their own, slightly less efficient because they have to do the space warping themselves, Very Fast Space corridors between stars. I think wormhole travel is instantaneous for the same reason it takes all of a fleet's movement points and requires a tech called "Total Hull Integrity" to do (super fast travel because it sucks you in and spits you out violently...and probably the fraction of a second you're in there isn't too fun either).

I don't think that it should be possible. The way fleet movement is in Endless Space strikes me as being very similar to the way fleet moves in Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series. The distance between stars is, obviously, massive. To get to any star quickly you need to travel at FTL speeds, likely on certain paths that we see from these cosmic strings. While traveling at this speed (or while in jump space, as Campbell calls it) you can't do much.



And, realistically, think about it. If your ship is moving at speeds faster than light, what kind of time would you have to even react to other ships? Seeing as you are traveling faster than the light that would let you know another ship is there, you wouldn't know to attempt to fire your weapons until (at best) they were far behind you. And that's even assuming that it would be possible to come up with a firing solution, given the different kinds of relativistic distortion theorized to happen as you achieve light speed.



If you see a fleet almost to one of your systems, and you have a fleet of your own able to reach that system, instead of worrying about engaging them on the string, just put a blockade up on your own system. They'd be forced to try and flee, or fight your fleet anyway.

I'ma against it.



The inability to battle in string is one of the important strategic data of the game. You cannot suppress it.

TheVulture98 wrote:
I would like to suggest the addition of the ability to engage a fleet while it is traveling between systems.

While I understand where you're coming from, I disagree with the idea. The necessary technology needed to attack a vessel at FTL speed has only rarely been dreamed of. I suppose if you knew what information would be passing through a string at a particular moment you could then scramble the information while it existed in a 2-denominational plane. Sort of like scratching a photo up. However, I really doubt a ship could posses such a wondrous tech. More than likely it would need a planet. Kinetic or beam weapons just wouldn't work.

Kingherod wrote:
While I understand where you're coming from, I disagree with the idea. The necessary technology needed to attack a vessel at FTL speed has only rarely been dreamed of.

I've read a few sci-fi novels that involve ship-to-ship combat inside various concepts of narrow warp tunnels and hyperspace corridors between stars. So it's not unheard-of in sci-fi. If the travel time isn't instantaneous and more than one ship can use the string at the same time, the idea of combat within the string isn't necessarily excluded, unless you want to add other restrictions (like weapon systems not functioning in the string, etc.).



There are also ideas about using certain weapons that kick ships out of hyperspace travel mode, back into normal space where combat can occur. IIRC, that was in the Independence War 2 game.



I'm just not sure how well it would work in ES, since the AI is being programmed for strategy based on star systems as the battle zones.

Zenicetus wrote:
I'm just not sure how well it would work in ES, since the AI is being programmed for strategy based on star systems as the battle zones.

It wouldn't be "too" extensive if you took every +1 travel point and made a small dot for each one, not only for measurement of travel but also as a mini-battle zone for mid-travel interception. Besides if we were basing it off of the value of a narrow corridor you wouldn't want ships going through at the same time anyway or they might run into each other, again besides the point because they are using 'warp' technology at later times anyways.

Well in order to see if my original idea is at all correct I have a question. Do the FTL drives require jumps in Endless Space? If they do then because of the natural instability of warp drives as mentioned in ES itself fleets have to periodically jump out of warp and into normal space. You simply cannot keep up that kind of interstellar travel stable for the entire trip using warp drives. It wouldn't take an advanced civilization a lot of effort to calculate when and where an enemy fleet would come out of warp. It certainly isn't unheard of in Sci-fi.

I thought this was about gameplay, damn this got way too Sci-Fi for me. I'll leave it to the devs to make that stuff for background info.



I just think it's annoying a ship can jump around and not engage because it doesn't stop at a planet -____-

Mufasa wrote:
I thought this was about gameplay, damn this got way too Sci-Fi for me.

Well bro, this is a Sci-Fi game

TheVulture98 wrote:
Well in order to see if my original idea is at all correct I have a question. Do the FTL drives require jumps in Endless Space? If they do then because of the natural instability of warp drives as mentioned in ES itself fleets have to periodically jump out of warp and into normal space. You simply cannot keep up that kind of interstellar travel stable for the entire trip using warp drives. It wouldn't take an advanced civilization a lot of effort to calculate when and where an enemy fleet would come out of warp. It certainly isn't unheard of in Sci-fi.

It honestly depends. I don't think that the jump drives used to travel the strings are the same as a warp drive, which comes later and lets you cross "dead space." It might just be Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet influencing me, as I'm just about done with the series, but I want to say that the most you can do in jump space is, well, whatever you can do on the ship you're on. You would have to wait to come out of jump space to do any engagements.



As for where they'd come out of warp, well, again, I've been imagining things like certain jump gates in the system that mark where the strings are. If you know someone was coming, or were playing defense in a border system, you could mine the gate. Place the mines so that they drift along with gate. Have your fleets waiting just past the minefield to engage the people coming through it. This idea I know has come up already, though, using mines and whatnot.



I still just disagree about being able to engage in transit. It simply doesn't make sense to me.