Because, as has been said again and again, the devs must balance any options they add for all possible combinations of options. And, on top of that, if they made an option for every single thing people have asked for, you'd have a solid wall of options, and not only do all possible combinations have to be balanced, but they wouldn't have enough time to do actual bug fixes because they'd be so busy adding every WIBN and stupid idea people come up with.



Logic is a great thing... when you actually bother to remove all other possibilities, the only thing remaining, however improbably must be the truth. Too bad you missed the first half of that (quite wonderful) quote.

Clearly you aren't the only one who wants this feature, I'm not sure why you haven't asked the developer to include both concepts.

stress isn't fun. no one plays games for the stress it causes. if people don't want to deal with unnecessary stress in their games, i don't see why that's a problem. in terms of strategy, following around an enemy fleet as it leisurely strolls through your territory isn't strategy. there's no strategy in me being forced to follow another players fleet, where if i stop following him, there will be nothing i can do to defend my planets. with actual choke points a player has to decide how to intelligently expand his empire to have as few choke points as possible, while not ignoring those planets that are high in value. there will also be situations where players will split fleets to draw opponents to one choke point, so that they can bust through the pji in another, and then make the move to key points in an empire. in the setup you're requesting, it doesn't matter where the player tries to defend. he'll just be ignored as his opponent passes him by. it makes no sense whatsoever that raiding an enemy is easier than defending against it.

so yeah, apparently it can be argued.

I definitely like that slow phase lane travel idea for the PJI, maybe 2x-3x the transit time per inhibitor. It just feels right, you can still get through if you really want to, and since the delay is in phase space the defender doesn't get a few minutes to just smash the offensive fleet for free. All it means is that a superior defensive fleet can actually do significant damage to the invading fleet by being able to keep up with them. While I certainly don't thing there should be an invincible defense, it does seem like a larger defending fleet should be able to make the attacker pay for every inch.

The players have spoken and we have listened. The PJI will be evaluated for patch 3  

Great news. I leave you with a quote from a very important reference on this game:

"Phase lanes indicate the corridors of space through which a ship can enter Phase Space. This is important, as it means that you can create bottlenecks to protect your empire from invaders." - SoSE game manual, p. 17.

I for one would hate to see the PJI's cause an absolute block on jumping; the only reason I can see anyone would want them to do this is so they can lock down their system and not have to worry to any great extent about defending multiple fronts. Fine if your the one locking down, not so much fun if your trying to attack.

I agree the PJI's should be more powerful though - the ideas about stacking, or increasing the time to move through phase space sound perfect.


I must admit, it does seem to me that there's seems to be an awful lot of "the game doesn't suit my play style so change it" going on in general, eg seige frigates, PJI's. I really hope that the designers don't make huge changes to try and please everyone, and end up turning the game into some grey, generic mush .....

But then, I'm a noob so my thoughts don't count

[quote]
stress isn't fun. no one plays games for the stress it causes. if people don't want to deal with unnecessary stress in their games, i don't see why that's a problem. in terms of strategy, following around

My point being that stress was the real reason for this complaint, not because raiding was debilitating to strategic action. In terms of forcing players to fight through jump points, that definitely is not as strategic, and all I'll touch on why.





Doesn't the current setup force you to intelligently expand your empire more so? If I'm not mistaken, the foundation for this complaint is that renegade fleets bypass defended planets, and head for those that are "undefended" in player territory? Are you telling me that by constraining attacks to primarily front line planets, and ensuring that enemies can't reach other planets in the rear of the empire, that you'll be as concerned about expanding your empire, or leaving planets undefended? Doubtful...

And why will a player need to split their fleet? Most of the combat will take place on the front lines, where enemies can amass all their ships. Combine a slew of defenses and capital ships........



Doesn't this go back the argument you made? That players need to watch how they expand their empire? Particularly when you have planet's completely undefended?

And again, I only recommended a time increase before enemies can jump again.



Precisely my point. Why would you be concerned about defending outer planets when you can simply confine the enemy to certain fronts?

i feel the problem is not the pji its the super weapons as per usual
pji would not be as they are if it were not for super weapons
But the devs have spoken and i look forward to see how they solve this one
as it seems to me its a particularly tough nut to crack

good luck devs and keep up the good work
  

no, in the current system it doesn't matter how you expand your empire, since you're not going to be able to defend your planets no matter what you do. there's no real incentive to try to grab planets that create choke points or avoid expanding too quickly. if your opponent feels like it, he can hit any of your planets he likes at any time. you might as well just colonize every available planet you see and hope for the best. with pjis that do something, there might actually be incentive to create some choke points in your empire, where you can cover two or three enemy phase lanes with one fleet.

So you're telling me, contrary to what has been stated, that you can't possible have fleets defend your planets against enemy raiding parties? That doesn't make an ounce of sense to me....If you can't defend planets by having less of them to watch, how is it going to be different with PJI's that limit ship movement? Huh?




Again, if you can hit any planet with or without a fleet, what difference is it going to make with PJI's? All an enemy has to do is hit the planet and flee. Again, not making sense here.

Now you may say, "well the other player will be taking up all the planets in the mean time", well you can do the same. If you can't support enough fleets to defend all your planets, it won't be any difference with PJI's. Your opponent will just have to fight through a helluva a lot of defenses, but, according to you, which is contradictory, you can't defend planets, no matter how many you have. So, essence, what difference does it make, right? In that case, it's fine as it is.

You're missing the point heflys. The issue is that, as it currently stands, the enemy may fly through the chokepoint and jump deeper into your empire where you do not have as many defensive structures and higher income planets even if you use phase jump inhibitors and a decent defending fleet. The PJI is, in theory, supposed to somehow mitigate this by making it more difficult for the enemy to pass through the chokepoint without engaging its defenders. This would make controlling the chokepoint more valuable, because a fleet stationed there may effectively defend the worlds behind it. It's not that you can't defend planets no matter how big your fleet is because the defenders beat you, but because they fly PAST your defenses into a system where you don't have a fleet, despite the presence of structures that ostensibly inhibit this. It's entirely possible to defend a single planet, people are upset that defending a single system does little to defend the other planets that can only be reached by passing through the defended system.

Which is why I stated, several times, that I would like to see the time needed to increase the fleets jumps, as opposed to taking out raiding and circumventing major defenses as whole. I believe the current setup forces players to choose more carefully, as opposed, as people stated occurred in the Beta, allowing people throw everything to the front line, and force people to fight through defenses. This is primary reason why it was changed.



Yes, I know, which entail people throwing most of their defenses to the front line.





I realize this, he stated that you couldn't defend a planet no matter what you did. I never said that they didn't bypass defenses. That's the point of raiding, attacking undefended planets. I was stating something along the lines of not taking as many planets, or protecting your most important planets with fleets.



Yes, again, I know this already, which is why I advocated a time increase for units, as opposed to completely limiting their movement. Did you read any of my other post?

You would have to scout every single planet before you jumped in, not saying this is bad or good but jumping into a planet, then having a massive fleet arrive and you have no way to leave just ruins the strategy of a RTS game. You need options available to so you can make choices that have meaning. The more choices in the game the better. PJI should have its slow effect increased slightly, but there are several mods available already that do this. I think most people complain about the pji tag because the AI in this game is absolutely terrible. The hard AI is a joke that only bomber rushes your planets and is so incredibly easy to defeat its pathetic. Playing with my friends I don't notice nearly as much the phase tag game. You can also see the AI waits on the border of nearby stars gravity well, they know your fleet is there so they just wait, then when you phase somewhere they immediately phase in and start killing. You come back, they leave. Hopefully an AI patch will be coming soon that makes them not terrible, as well as adds an "insane" mode or something because as is they are way to easy to defeat. Upgrade planet defense, build hanger defenses with only fighters to stop bombers and you win. Thats it. They build fleets with no variety as well, they will have 2 capital ships and 60 cobalts when I have 9 cap ships and a massive fleet of missle frigates and cruisers. They need to mix it up more and build fleets more intelligently.

You will have multiple fronts to your empire most of the time even with a decent PJI. What the current (non-functioning) PJI does is make every single world in your empire a front.



It is completely fine either way. If I am attacking a system that is "locked down" so to speak, that is perfectly fine with me.



If you dislike the "lockdown" game mechanic, why would you want the PJIs made more powerful?



Well it seems the game must suit *somebody's* play style. The question is, who's? I would say that most strategy gamers would prefer the so-called "lockdown" play style vs. the style that exists now. People who like tactical clickfests would probably prefer the existing mechanic.

This game seems to have been originally conceived with the "lockdown" mechanic in mind, because there is no point in having phase lanes otherwise, yet phase lanes are there. Further evidence that the original intent of the game was the "lockdown" mechanic is the quote from the game manual which you can read above somewhere. Yet more evidence is the existance of the PJI itself, which currently does nothing. Even more evidence is the Vasari having the PJI tech earlier than other factions, which actually makes the Vasari an inferior race to play currently, as they have a useless tech cluttering their early tech tree. On and on....

The current gameplay mechanic would do quite well in a tactical space battle sort of game (picture the tactical battle mode in the "Total War" series, but instead of spending a set number of points on infantry, spearmen, cavalry, etc. you would spend them on cap ships, frigs, etc), but it really makes no sense in a strategic, empire-building game.



In fact, it does not. Right now, there is not much of an intellegent way to expand your empire. With the PJI the way it is supposed to work, there is definately an intelligent way to expand your empire - you expand to a good chokepoint.

Right now, every planet in your empire has to be ringed with defenses to the max. The better setup is to strategically choose which worlds will be dedicated to defense, which ones will be dedicated to resource production, which ones will be dedicated to laboratories for research, etc. Dedicating chokepoints to defense makes much more strategic sense than dedicating every planet in your empire to defense. Having a defensive fleet near a chokepoint makes much more sense than having defensive fleets on every planet in your empire.



Your doubts are unjustified. If you want to win the game, you have to expand your empire. You won't win just taking a few planets and then sitting on top of them. Also, would I leave some planets in my empire "undefended" if I could defend a chokepoint instead? Absolutely - they would actually be defended by the chokepoint. That's actually good for you with your raiding philosophy, because if you break through the chokepoint, you're gonna go on a rampage as a reward.

Your question also has a false premise it it - "ensuring that enemies can't reach other planets in the rear of your empire." Of course they can, but not by simply ignoring occupied chokepoints and flying right past them.



People used to say this, but this valuable discussion has revealed the truth: it really isn't about superweapons at all, it is about gameplay mechanic. The people who want a weak PJI want it to stay that way even when you remove the superweapon from consideration.



Can you stick fleets on every single world you own? Sure, I suppose. Does that make sense in a game which was billed as a grand strategy empire building game which professed to eliminate micromanagement so that one could focus on the big picture instead? I don't think so.



LOL - I think your idea of what the gameplay mechanic should look like is so warped that it is difficult to understand, much less respond, to what you say.



Which makes much more sense in every sense of the word if that front line is a strategically valuable chokepoint.

Looking on a map, some worlds will stand out as much more valuable than others from a strategic standpoint. Even some crappy asteroid can have its value multiplied many, many times over if it is in the right location, and controls the right phase lanes. THAT CRAPPY ASTEROID CAN BECOME THE FOCUS OF THE ENTIRE GAME. That's a much superior and interesting game dynamic to me. But not to you - you'd rather asteroids serve as economic benefits and nothing else. Why? Because your only interest is in creating some "raiding dynamic" for the game, to the detriment of everything else.



Personally, I don't care about the AI as it simulates a player (I *do* however care about the AI as far as it making good choices for me when I have it on "autopilot"). In short, my views and the views of others on gameplay mechanic have nothing to do with AI.

I don't think we are going to change minds here, no matter how much we go back and forth. The reasons have become clear: two groups of people want to play two different games, and argument, logic, and reason have nothing to do with what kind of game one wants to play.

I for one am quite happy that the devs will look into the PJI. The vast majority of true grand strategy gamers are with me.

Yes, and you want to change it to a few. So to prevent enemies from raiding your weaker planets.



I thought I already explained this....I'd prefer to weaken the enemy fleet as opposed to forcing confrontations, since I find the raiding to be a viable tactic, otherwise folks wouldn't be complaining about it, no?



Again, obviously they didn't, or it would've been in the game. People played with the setup your recommended, and they didn't like. Most of the people in this topic have recommended a system that mostly increases the wait time, the effect of defenses, slowing down raiders or boosting the wait times through adding additional cost.



That means nothing if it were changed, which it was. Woulda, coulda, shoulda but in the final project, it ain't.



I'm not sure why it doesn't make sense, considering the validity of such attacks being utilized in modern warfare.



Yes, you inch your way across the galaxy, setting up choke point after choke point. Whilst at the same time amassing your fleet on the front. Strategic mobility will revolve around either fighting, or......Well, not much else. It'll be interesting to see how battles turn out . What will be the point of raiding if you have to fight through massive fleets regardless of ones efforts? Nothing.



If... I break through the chokepoint that is, and the fleet that will be surely stationed there. I'm glad you mentioned expanding your empire, which is one thing I've been considering throughout this discussion. I hope you all are conducting the same raiding parties against your enemy instead of vice versa. Also, I already stated that one should sit their fleets on their most vital planets.



Which was my point, it's doubtful I'm going to go raiding once my fleet has taken a considerable beating fighting through choke points. Or better yet, unless it's on a larger map, the defending fleet will simply retreat to planets behind the choke point, thus repeating the same process again.





Did you read his post? He stated it is impossible to defend anything in the current setup (no matter if a fleet is there). If it is impossible, then what differences will choke points make? It should be clear now.



Yes, particularly if you enjoy fighting through amassed fleets, and enduring possible stalemates, which people, who have played with the setup you recommend, stated frequently occurred.



But that's moot, since in the current setup, I don't have to concern myself with whether a crappy asteroid is a viable choke point. I can simply bypass it, and head towards the valuable planets that you left mostly undefended.

And if that crappy asteroid is valuable, in case you mean resources, why is it being left undefended, or prone to being raided? Doesn't make sense to me, but meh.....



I'm not sure why you made a lengthy reply refuting me then. It'll be left up to the developers to make the decision, and it seems they already have.

It's not. It has defenses, ships, and a PJI sitting on it.

The reason the crappy asteroid is valuable is because of what I said - it is in the right location, and has the right phase lanes going through it. With the game you want, an asteroid only has a resource value and nothing else. With the game I want, that asteroid can have immense value irrespective of its resources. That's the point I was making. The game you want is rather shallow and simplistic when considering the value of something like a crappy asteroid. The game I want isn't.

You want a game which revolves around a raiding mechanic, and you want nothing in that game which could interfere with that raiding mechanic. Look, that's fine and dandy, I personally like dipping fried fishsticks in chocolate. But unless the devs wanted to make a game which catered to a niche group, it is an exotic mechanic to revolve an entire so-called "strategy" game around.

Read my post on possibly using maps to solve this issue. If this could be done, would that be acceptable to you?

Use gravity warhead already.

Asteroids in strategic areas are immensely valuable, bypass or not. Mass raid fleets only happen if a game has bogged down entirely. You have to have immense reserves to throw a fleet away like that.

Wow. I have been reading this thread for the last five minutes, and I must say,
Agent of Kharma, you need to shutup. You've pretty much drawn a line in the sand and tried to stop any discussion related against your point. This 'your style my style' nonsense is not helpful.

Anyway. How about just giving PJIs the ablity to cast Area of effect Gravity warheads or something like that?
Or perhaps add a costly ship like some kind of interdictor crusier?


It works in Star Wars, where there is hyperspace, why not this game?

Or give the PJI an ability to turn off jumping out system for a number ,of seconds equal to it's antimatter. And perhaps limit the amount of PJIs to one or something. Who knows? Quite frankly, locking down the ability to raid should be frowned upon, but there needs to be a way to 'set up traps' .

Perhaps allow it to block systems, but give it a high cost- something to prohibit you from putting one on every planet, but making it a useful tool for building traps.

i think the solution to this is to have pji block phase jump into friendly space and also make sure that the big super weapons can only shoot one phase jump away that way it would make sense but what dose worry me is a bottling up of the game were it might degenerate into a stale mate with no options to flank or manuver but the again i guss if you have the scout that can destroy buildings and is immune to pji the it would be fine

just my 2 cents let me know what you think

Hi TarISS. You've got me pegged totally wrong. I have never and would never try to stop any discussion related to anything - in fact I fully invite discussion. Sort of ironic that you accuse me of trying to stop discussion, while also telling me to shut up (in other words, you ordered me to stop discussing, LOL). However, no hard feelings as far as I'm concerned.

The "your style my style" is actually *QUITE* helpful. What is not helpful is a fog of obfiscation and misdirection, where people complain about superweapons when their real beef is gameplay mechanic. "Your style my style" is simply cutting through all the BS to get directly to the heart of the matter. No sense in beating around the bush and pretending the problem is one thing, when it is really another thing.

I hope this means something like 3x research levels for improving the PJI's slowdown, and a 3x high level research item for holding enemies for like 10/20/30 seconds, and not just X buff to PJI's slowdown or complete lockdown . ^^

Sorry I didn't read all the replies and don't know the beta history but one idea?

How about a specialist ship or technology which lets you take out inhibitors quickly? A special ship or gun which does extra damage to those inhibitors. But it has to get to the inhibitor to begin with, so you can't just send one in by itself - must send it with a fleet if there are defenders. Maybe make it expensive to produce so you can't make lots of them? Maybe have it also so that the inhibitor destroyer ignores the dampening effect so it can still jump even if the inhibitor is still active.

But the catch is the inhibitor hunter can only damage inhibitors, so making it useless to swarm past defences? Perhaps it can have weak defense so you can't just send a swarm of them either (plus it would be too expensive to do anyway)


Then you could have an inhibitor which actually stops phased jumps, but a counter to it as well.

I'm guessing that rearranging the tech tree is something that is beyond a patch. But either way, why do you believe all of this extra research is necessary? Couldn't they simply make the PJI lockdown jumps further into the empire until the PJI is taken out?

KISS (keep it simple, stupid)

Maybe Limit the number of PJI to equal the number of military labs you have. When You can usually pretty easily have 4 military labs by the time you research PJI, so you can make 4 of them right off the bat and extra PJI is going to cost you tactical and logistics space for the extra military labs. PJI are supposed to be scavenged tech, right?

Anyway, After reading all of the posts, I don't think a PJI that completely stops all phase jumping is a good idea. A delay is the best thing. In addition to the 250% charge up, it should have a castable ability that can target a small AOE(area of effect) within the PJI range that really warps space so no phase jumping can occur for a much longer period of time. Duration of 60 seconds and a cooldown twice, or thrice that. Represented by a graphic so you know you need to move your ships out of the disturbance, and into a stable region of space to warp out.

This could mean having to choose when to use it and offering some tactics to beat it. Such as using a small force feinting retreat to cause an enemy to waste their ability thinking they have an easy kill, then bringing in reinforcements and rushing the blockade to the next planet.