The PJIs don't have to lock down a fleet to be effective. They just have to stall it long enough for your defenses to attack or to re-position a fleet.

Actually complete lockdown might be fine, *but only in the PJI radius*. So the enemy fleet CAN get past you, but they have to maneuver well outside the gravity well to do so.

Killing off the possibility of raids isn't a good idea, as it removes far too many strategies.

You obviously didn't get to the final tech tree.

Killing off strategy isn't a good idea either, which is what you have done by insisting on your raiding gameplay mechanic.

First off, there is still plenty of opportunity for your raids - PJIs are on up in the tech tree, and even when people have teched up to them, every single world won't have them all at once - they cost time and money.

Second off, your raids aren't strategic, they are tactical. Forcing the game into a wide open dynamic, as you guys have done, without any possibility to create or utilize chokepoints, actually removes a good bit of strategy from the game, and degenerates the game down from strategy to tactics. It degenerates it down to an endless series of running around putting out fires. Boy, isn't that fun

When I was playing the game, that's all I did was run around and put out fires. Go out to try and grab a planet... no, wait, retreat, I'm getting hit! Rinse and repeat that dynamic over and over again, ad nauseum. No time to ever try and execute my own strategy, or even develop one, because there are just an endless series of fires springing up all around my empire at once because there is no possibility to control phase lanes. I simply couldn't play the game because I found that kind of mechanic extremely unenjoyable. I have only semi-stuck around on the forums to see if this will be addressed in any upcoming patch (basically hoping against hope), but I understand that it probably won't be - certainly not to the degree that it should be.

Why in the world you guys insist on ruining the game like this, I'll never know. I suppose it is just your taste in gameplay. But it isn't other peoples' taste. It certainly isn't mine. I suppose you guys win, because the game is already essentially the way you want it to be - congratulations.

You also succeeded in depriving phase lanes of a reason for existing. In that 1.03 wish list, you really should just ask the devs to remove phase lanes entirely (you think I'm being sarcastic - I'm not). Any time your ships are outside the grav well, they should then be in phase space - the lanes are unnecessary. This would suit your gameplay mechanic more, and would also remove the pretense that the phase lanes are necessary and are doing something, when they aren't. Wouldn't that be better for everybody?

In fact, I'll go now and put the request in for you

You are the one who apparently enjoys reading my posts, because you keep reading and responding to them. Why do *YOU* care, dickhead?

I still reckon that Phase Jump Inhibitors should cause ships to have a % chance to fail to achieve jump power and receive a "no jumping" debuff for 60 seconds. You want to flee? Or to jump through enemy lines? Then you will need to be willing to take losses to do so.

The current system favors attackers far too much.

Heck, your "perfect defense point" argument with the blocking Inhibitors only works when you have only 1 access point to your empire. If you have 2, and are not Vasari (even if you are to some extent) then you actually have this scenario.

You have divided your fleet between 2 choke points, your opponent sends his fleet in its entirety against one of them. Your fleets are heavily outnumbered, and your static defenses have only limited-no effect. Your losses are probably on the order of 3-1 in the attackers favor.

I'd love to see some way to place an inhibition on the actual phase lane, something like being able to slow down ships coming toward the system you plant the phase-lane-inhibitor in.

Sort of like the old movie where the guy starts running down the hall and it stretches out away into infinity.. heh heh..

Phase inhibitors, can be allowed to block all traffic rather than just slow it, and this could be something toggled by the player at the beginning of the game. But there could be adverse effects to all traffic being stopped--the owning empire would have a decrement to his economy because of inability for trade ships to pass, for example. In addition, I think a PJI should take up a massive number of tactical slots, so that very little other than one or two Gauss cannons could be fielded by the planet within the grav well. A fleet could be remain in the grav well, but since supplies from other planets could not reach them through a PJI, that garrisoned fleet might have to suffer some penalties, perhaps to attack and defense. Finally, since a PJI could stop all traffic, one must assume that the allegiance of the so-equipped planet to the to the Capital world would diminish, even if it is very close to it in terms of the number of jumps. This further decreases the economy and increases the risk of overthrow.
Finally, I think a PJI that can stop a fleet from phasing altogether would be so expensive and technically difficult to produce that a limitation on the number of them that a single empire can use is reasonable.

A 3 stage research upgrade for slowing enemy phase jumps down between your planet, and a 3 stage high level research for holding enemies completely (10 seconds for each upgrade) and warning you about enemies trying to phase jump through your planets (through the "Threat Report"), as I suggested, is ideal to make as an starting point for rebalancing the PJI as far as I can tell(and also makes the PJI "super" to use in the later stage of a game, be it a medium or large map).
Im all against oversimplified solutions, and deepen the PJI aspect would be good for this game.

Listen here, you little asshole:

1) One of the developers told me to post on this, and even gave me the links to post to.

2) I don't owe you a damn thing in terms of an explanation. As I told you the other day in another thread when you were standing on my dick, I am here, I will post on any topic I like, whenever I like, as often as I like, and I will say whatever I like, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Period. Paragraph.

3) I told you then that if you wanted me to "go away" in your words, you could buy my copy of the game from me. But you didn't take me up on that offer. So I will tell you again, get off my dick.

Of everything recommended so far, IMO the best idea so far seems to be the implementation of all the following:

1) Reduce the speed of the attacking fleet in a Phase lane with a PJI on both sides

2) PJIs affect more/all of the grav-well

3) Increase the jump delay effect of the PJIs

The amount of each will obviously need to be play-tested for balance.

Here is an idea. Phase Inhibitors work like shields. As more ships try to phase jump out/into the gravity well its situated in, the charge up/travel speed is increased. That way, small raiding parties can still pass the outer defenses, but sending a large fleet is delayed greatly, and sending them in piecemeal is a great way to get your units blow up. It also encourages players to send a small party to blow a phase inhibitor up first so there main fleet can move in more effectively.