Out of curiosity I would like to know the answer to this question as well. That being said I really have no complaints about how the game plays, though I find the ability to lock down jump lanes to be an interesting concept.

Well, at first in early beta the PJI halted jumping out completely. This of course would mean that people could create Deathstar-like choke points full of defenses and a fleet, that the opponent would have no choice but to attack - and then unable to escape if anything went wrong.

As you can imagine, that wouldn't be very fun. It would cause people to spend way too much trying to build up a fleet capable of destroying an enemy fleet + defenses, which isn't easy by any means.

The old argument for keeping that PJI was "Well, people should use scouts so they don't jump into a death trap" - which is true, but scout or not if that's the only thing you can attack (which does happen) a death 'trap' just becomes a pit of death instead because you're just throwing ships at it hoping to break through.

After that, the PJI evolved into blocking jumps into friendly territory. So half of the functionality remained the same, the enemy had to destroy it to move forward. So it kept the 'pit of death' problem, but it allowed the attacker to retreat if the battle wasn't going well so at least he wouldn't have to rebuild from scratch.

In come superweapons, that are usually built in the heart of your empire, and can hit anywhere. So with the PJI the way it was it created a rather large problem with you bashing your head in the pit of death, unable to get to the weapon to destroy it. Thus we come to the current iteration of the PJI, which slows phasing out by 250% - still encouraging attackers to destroy it because those 18 extra seconds of charge-up time could be quite important, but now it's no longer an invincible pit of death.

Of course it would be "cool" to trap an enemy fleet, make it unable to escape and blow it to bits, and the AI wouldn't care. But if it was in Multiplayer, and you had to attack that PJI-equipped 35-point planet with a fleet the same size as yours defending it, unable to jump out - how fun would it be for you? And how balanced would it be?

Ahh...now that makes sense actually, never thought about that. Good reason to nerf the PJI's then, I couldn't figure out what had led to that decision but I suspect it was something like this combined with the Deathstars (which I probably contributed to , turtle all the way!)

Okay, I got the explanation. Thanks.

I wasn't part of the beta, but I actually don't like the rationale for nerfing the PJI, as I'm reading it here. It seems to me that one needs the ability to create strategic strong points - it makes little sense not to have this, otherwise practically any world can be attacked at any time, anywhere, and you can't simply be at all places at all times with your fleets, and you can't max out all defenses at all places at all times.

I don't mind the way you said they modified the PJI initially, to allow you to jump back out to the system where you attacked from, in order to bail out on the attack (but not be able to go deeper into your empire). That's fine, even great. I don't like it the way it is now. If the problem is the superweapon, then quite honestly I would much rather have a much reduced (nerfed) superweapon, or no superweapon at all, but not a nerfed PJI. First off, I have never cared for superweapons in strategy games anyway. Second off, it simply isn't a good trade in my opinion, to get a superweapon while trading off the idea of strategic use and control of phase lanes and star systems.

The way the game is now, you can basically be attacked anywhere, at any time, and it's the phase jump musical chairs ballet thing. I don't like this gameplay mechanic. Essentially, they have made it so that controlling a nexus of phase lanes is useless as a strategic idea. You can't control a system which has a bunch of phase lanes fanning off of it going into different systems - fleets can simply come right in and phase jump right off to the next system whether you own that system or not. It makes the entire idea of a phase lane useless from a strategic standpoint (you can't really control them), and it certainly makes star systems useless strategically (their only use seems to be economic).

BRING BACK THE ABILITY TO STRATEGICALLY CONTROL PHASE LANES AND STAR SYSTEMS!

I'd like to suggest that in addition to there current effects that PJI's also slow the movement speed of of enemy fleets in the phase lane. E.g., if you jump within the range of an enemy PJI your phase lane movement is slowed by X percent.

This would effectively give advantage to the defenders strategic movement of defensive fleets in his/her own territory. My concern here is that if you have a system with a defensive fleet and someone bypasses it giving chase can be rather slow with any significant sized fleet when everyone has to line up. You could of course begin your jump before the enemy fleet leaves. However, this is very easy to miss-time and if you jump first your screwed since your enemy can just cancel his jump and attack the current system until you get back. With this mod however a defensive fleet giving chase could initiate it's jump right after the aggressor jumps and have a reasonable chance of arriving at the destination system first.

The net effect of this is that bypassing static defenses still remains easy, but bypassing mobile defenses (fleets) becomes more difficult. In my mind this is how it should be.

I worry that a mechanic like this would make it too easy for a marauder to escape if he/she becomes caught far behind enemy lines.

I don't think it would, and I say this as someone who is extremely good at the kind of game play your advocating. The problem, IMO, is that holding one or two strategic becomes and extremely effective strategy that is very simple to do, and the fact that is is simple to do makes the game play less interesting.

I do agree with you that the "hopscotch" that occurs now isn't ideal either as it is extremely difficult to pin down a marauding ships that simply warp out when defensive ships enter the system.

I think that causing enemy ships to move down a phase lane slower if they jump within range of a PJI, is a good middle ground. This still allows for marauding, but gives a strategic advantage to defending fleets. A marauding fleet that warps out within range of a PJI when a strong defending fleet arrives, now faces the prospect of seeing that fleet when imediately when it emerges from the phase lane. This makes it easier to eliminate marauders or clean up destroyed empires when you effectively control and area with PJI's. Of course if you have strong defenses in your outer systems and weak inner systems you'll need a strong defensive fleet to chase down a marauder that bypass your outer defenses, but that's a price for no investing in defenses for your inner systems.

Being able to defend chokepoints is important, because otherwise, there's no difference between a thinly-connected system and a wide-open one. The map differences cease to matter.

The PJI is the key structure that makes maps play out very differently. Right now, it's broken because it doesn't do what it's supposed to.

It is possible to make it functional (totally locking down phase lanes, say) while still having problems like the superweapon use fixed. If firing the superweapon temporarily shut down its owners' PJIs, it would leave him vulnerable to counterattack, and I think it would offer the best of both worlds.

There are many simple ways this could be fixed, though, this suggestion is just one possibility. However, the PJI does need to be much more effective than it is in 1.02 to make the maps interesting and meaningful.

There are some problems with this- a slower velocity for enemies next to the planet is a strong advantage for the defending player. It would enable the defender to out-maneuver the attacker in planetary combat. I don't think we want to make PJIs double as wide-area debuffers like that, it would only make the "death trap" more potent when someone actually tries to assault it.

Instead of simply relying on phase inhibitors, couple them with active defenses like Subjugator frigates and Evacuators with Gravity Warheads.

The game should be about fleet battles anyway, not bashing your head against defenses. That's why defenses are so cheap.

Even if all PJIs do is slow an attacker down, it gives you plenty of time to savage them. Free shots from abilities like Cleansing Brilliance mean it will be a very leaky attack force that arrives to attack your planet.

Actually, inhibiting phase jumps through your territory and forcing people to fight through planetary defenses sounds less strategic. I'd rather they just increase the time it takes for ships to jump again. Maybe a minute or so.

So are feints, circumventing enemy forces, and dividing enemy forces. Wouldn't you say?

Precisely my point, I shouldn't be forced to fight a massive enemy force if my intention is to disrupt his economy, or simply district him.