Suggestion/Idea

I've been reading people's comments and I'd like to throw out an idea with regard to the "jump star-chain" restriction issue.

Personally, I like both ideas: A <-> B <-> C
1) The idea of having a series of star systems be connected by "jump-pathways", whereas ships with jump go from A to B, but can't go from A to C.

2) The idea of having "special jump-drive" ships be able to go from A to C without hitting B. These ships would of course be more expensive, off-jump-lane travel could be slower, you could take damage while moving off-jump-lane, etc.

My question becomes, why can't we have the best of both worlds? The first step to this would be to create a galaxy with more than one "jump-pathway chain". An example would be a galaxy where half the star-systems are in one "jump-chain" and half are in another. Of course, with larger galaxies we could have 3+ jump-chains.

With a galaxy built this way, your empire would contain "Jump-Chain-restricted" ships and the more-expensive "Jump-chain-free" ships. This would of course give an advantage to an empire that is defending one "jump chain" with "restricted" ships against an invader with "free" ships. Then again, too many "restricted" ships would cripple your attack-capabilities. This would make it important for the invader to gain a "toe-hold" in a jump-chain, where he can create the much-cheaper "restricted" type ships.

It is my belief that this would add quite a bit to the "galaxy-wide" gameplay. of course, determiniting the actual costs for "restricted" and "free" ships would take testing to make it balanced...What do you guys think?
4,041 views 8 replies
Reply #1 Top
This is interesting . . A variant on the non-jump and jump capable ships in other games (systems ships and starships) Systems ships are cheaper and can be made in great numbers, Jump capable ships must dedicate part of the ship to the jump engines. . more expensive and possibly uses up vital ship resources.

Your idea expands this to linked cheap drives and non linked expensive drives . . . that opens up allot of possibilities and tactics . .and that is always good.
Reply #2 Top
I kinda like the idea as well. But this would likely increase the time it takes to play a multiplayer game. As it is now, multiplayer games are going to take a very long time to complete.

It would be lot easier and quicker for Ironclad to just allow free travel from any star to any other star. Doing so would also make more intuitive sense.
Reply #3 Top
also, this would take a while to implement, not to mention test and balance, and we all know how lazy the devs are.
Reply #4 Top
Hmmmm. Why not have a ship that is completly specialized in finding new jump routes? Meaning create some sort of exploration frigate (that would have a pretty hefty price on it). u then send it from on system to the other that lacks a route and it will begin forging a new path. As it attempts to forge the new path have its maintenance cost (lets say for example purpose only) triple or so. Then add in the possability that it just isnt possable to create a route and possable have the ship get destroyed while attempting to find a route. This way you can find other routes to other systems but it is extremly costly,dangerious, and far from certain that it will succede (lets say 75 persent chance of failure). Just my thoughts, but what would all of you think about this?
Reply #5 Top
i really like the idea of being able to forge new jump routes. i know the devs have said the game board is going to be improved alot. I dont know what that means, but as it stands the board needs alot of improving and i REALLY like this idea. It would add deapth and a nice new needed level of stratagy.
Reply #6 Top
This game is going to be an absolute joy to mod
Reply #7 Top
lol, I hope they dont give a war3 kind of modding system though... that took FOREVER to figure out.
Reply #8 Top

lol, I hope they dont give a war3 kind of modding system though... that took FOREVER to figure out.


Yeah, but just think about what was doable!