Map 'Gateway' illustrates perfectly why Phase Inhibiting is broken

from Sins Forums
If you have not tried the medium map "Gateway" yet, here is the general premise. There are two stars: 1 where all players start and another filled with many resources. There is 1 planet, Gateway, which has the only phase lane to the first system's star. The idea is to control that planet and thus control travel to the resource filled second star system (this is stated directly in the map's description).

Knowing this, I quickly built up a large fleet and took control of Gateway. 4 capital ships, 50+ frigates and assorted cruisers. Phase Jump Inhibitors in place, defense platforms, hangar bays, the whole works!!

The result... it's FUBAR. That's F@#^ED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION in case you don't know the acronym. A whole fleet of enemy ships jumps in to Gateway and my fleet engages. 60 seconds later they've jumped to the star. Their total losses? 1 capital ship (that I ion cannoned to death... I can can't even do that anymore with the 1.02 nerf of ion canon) and a few frigates.

My entire MASSIVE fleet could not stop a small inferior enemy fleet from getting through Gateway. They got to the star and jumped systems.

WHAT IS THE FREAKIN' POINT OF THIS MAP???? Now I either split my fleet trying to chase them down weakening the (laughable) "defense" of Gateway or let them go and colonize the other system (and eventually come back to wipe me out). Actually it wouldn't matter since any other fleet can phase in and out of that system at will without any significant loss at all.

Put simply, phase lane control is broken. Why even include this kind of map when there is ABSOLUTELY NO way to truly control a system and block an enemy advance (or retreat).

Please fix phasing control.
37,139 views 43 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
we all know, PJI's are crap right now... give it time, your opinion is most welcome :)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Give one of the support caps some kind of 'blockade' ability. That or make some 'blockade cruisers' for each race. They exist to sit there, near a phase lane, and nothing within their immediate area can jump while they still live when they are in 'deployed' mode. While deployed they can not move. They are durable but no more durable than a durable cruiser, not like a cap or a structure.

They will not be as overpowered as a jump drive inhibitor that covers the whole system and always works, but they will let a purpose-built fleet stop something. Just remove jump drive inhibitors from the game. And put the research for these cruisers where they used to be. A few extra seconds does not do a whole lot of good. That or make jump drive inhibitors make enemy ships trying to use the phase lanes connected to that planet go slower through phase space than normal.

Make their radius small enough that you need a few of them to cover the entire exit points of a phase lane. That and the fact that redundancy is good if you want it to work for any measure of time means that in order to stop movement you will have to devote a decent bit of fleet capacity to this purpose.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
PJIs should have vastly increased bonuses for when the enemy tries to enter your own terrain, as of right now its only use is to kill a couple more frigs when your enemy tries to retreat: not worth it.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Old PJI was not much to praise eitehr, anyone using bombers could destroy it in 20 seconds.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I'd like PJI's which unables enemys to jump anywhere, so it's a do or die. If you don't want to fight, just let a scout fly first, when you see that there is an PJI just don't jump in when you don't want to be forced to stay there until it is destroyed.

Edit: The ships which unable enemys to jump in a specific range are an even better way I think.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Some adjustments are needed. Here is the Pink Space Ponies solution!

1. PJI's need to be cumulative and we need to know how long the delay is.

2. The difficulty with anti mater should be fixed so that if you do not have enough you can't jump!

Perhaps the PJI should be changed into an antimatter eater, lowering the rejuvenation of antimatter after sapping a set amount from the incoming ships.. as an example, all incoming hostiles lose 100 antimatter and the rejuvenation rate is lowered to 50% of that ships capability. This would give us definitive intelligence as to how long we can delay a ship from jumping and plan accordingly. If it is fixed so that ships without enough antimatter can't jump then it opens up additional tactics [like nailing them in the next grav well even if they get out] and improves overall game play without causing a firewall defense that they can't ever get out of or work around..

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Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
It gets worse when you try to control movement through a system where you can't build anything - for example when the chokepoint is a nebula, an asteroid belt or a star.

How about PJIs spreading their effect similar to culture?
Or a new, mobile PJI, some sort of dedicated interdiction cruiser (heck, even a capital ship that can seriously block enemy movement would be enough, if cruisers are too cheap).
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
If you make antimatter a prerequisit to jump, you kill the game. How will you ever use auto-cast in a fight when you're auto-killed by running out of antimatter?

Yes, the pji sucks, (although when it comes to using that ion cannon, or the ultimate phase jump stopper, the gravity warhead, they are a bloody godsend with that increased time frame), but if you want to fix the pji, fix the pji. Fixing the pji by screwing antimatter use and making it take ages to do multiple jump travel is just retarded.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe add a little research thingy that improves PJI's... It should be fairly expensive but it will block ALL enemy Phase Jumping in the little area the PJI is currently affecting until it is destroyed... That way you can actually defensd Gateway (Don;t worry Tech I have this problem aswell and it truly is a FUBAR moment when all these caps go and take over Xi...)
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
The delay PJI's cause for jumping could be increaed, a lot. It's still easily possible to stop or or two capital ships jumping but a whole fleet can get out real easily.

By the way, I love the map Gateway. 20 missile platforms and a heavy fleet can keep that system under wraps though IMHO.

BTW do PJI's stack? I mean, put two of them together and they are twice as effective?
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I always thought itd be nice if they had some sort of defensive structure that slows enemy movement speed within your gravity well. Only problem is howd you work around the idea that only their ships go slower and yours dont? Maybe make it a turret like thing that shoots a ship and for an amount of time its slowed by 50%? Itd definally slow down those damn blockade runners that the AI likes to do.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
personally, I never understood why Ironclad nerfed the PJI in beta 3, it originally stopped all non-ally phasejumping in the grav well. Frankly the only way that the PJI in its original implementation was overpowered was that it didn't cost enough (tac slots or resources). Personally I think we should move back to that PJI since it also brings strategy back to the game instead of just romping through the systems with a couple of massive fleets which is what happens now because there is no penalty other than a little damage, which is quickly repaired, for jumping blindly into one of your enemies key, well-defended, powerhouse planets. Hell, once I know where all the planets are, i don't even bother building scouts anymore, those 2 fleet points are better put towards powerful ships instead of intelligence. The two phase jump incoming warning upgrade gives me all the intel I need as the game stands now.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I'd like to see a support cruiser that disrupts phase jumping within a certain radius (large w/ more research).

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

2. The difficulty with anti mater should be fixed so that if you do not have enough you can't jump!
End of quote


What difficulty? The unstable nature of phase space drains away 100 antimatter if you try to jump with less -- thats as designed, and designed that way for good reason.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
This map is hilarious for that very reason. I played a 6 player ffa and managed to sneak to Xi without anyone noticing early in the game, took over the entire system and locked it down before anyone could send a scout. It was glorious.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

2. The difficulty with anti mater should be fixed so that if you do not have enough you can't jump!


What difficulty? The unstable nature of phase space drains away 100 antimatter if you try to jump with less -- thats as designed, and designed that way for good reason.
End of quote


What I am refering to with the difficulty is this... You should not be able to jump at all if you have less then 100 antimatter. You should be stuck until you get 100 antimatter. The "difficulty" is if you have less you can still jump.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Set the PJI's to fire and use antimatter like other weapons. When they hit a ship, it's given a 2, 3, or 5 minute "no jump" timeout. This way you could stack them and place antimatter reservoirs behind them to help them regen faster. Give them an AM tank that could hold enough for say 10 quick shots or so.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I am not a fan of anything which even further reduces antimatter. I know the incoming fleet loses it's antimatter, making it seem like the defender has the advantage, but in reality since the defender most likely had to run his ships over from some other part of the galaxy he is going to probably be low/out of antimatter too. And without enough to cast abilities the battles end up being bland (abilities being the primary distinction factor between the species after all). In fact I plan on modding it eventually so that phase jumps only cost a % of your current AM (maybe 10% or 15%), so that long jumps series will just leave ships low but not empty. But that is a different argument.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Give one of the support caps some kind of 'blockade' ability. That or make some 'blockade cruisers' for each race. They exist to sit there, near a phase lane, and nothing within their immediate area can jump while they still live when they are in 'deployed' mode. While deployed they can not move. They are durable but no more durable than a durable cruiser, not like a cap or a structure.

They will not be as overpowered as a jump drive inhibitor that covers the whole system and always works, but they will let a purpose-built fleet stop something. Just remove jump drive inhibitors from the game. And put the research for these cruisers where they used to be. A few extra seconds does not do a whole lot of good. That or make jump drive inhibitors make enemy ships trying to use the phase lanes connected to that planet go slower through phase space than normal.

Make their radius small enough that you need a few of them to cover the entire exit points of a phase lane. That and the fact that redundancy is good if you want it to work for any measure of time means that in order to stop movement you will have to devote a decent bit of fleet capacity to this purpose.
End of quote


I love the cruiser idea! Please Dev's!!! (Or it could be a scout frigit's special power...)
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Also, at the endgame, I have to chase the enemy fleet around the system, slowly picking them off. This would solve that problem:



2. The difficulty with anti mater should be fixed so that if you do not have enough you can't jump!


What difficulty? The unstable nature of phase space drains away 100 antimatter if you try to jump with less -- thats as designed, and designed that way for good reason.


What I am refering to with the difficulty is this... You should not be able to jump at all if you have less then 100 antimatter. You should be stuck until you get 100 antimatter. The "difficulty" is if you have less you can still jump.
End of quote


Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
But it's dumb. It makes autocasting abilities in close battles useless, unless you set a threshold at 100 antimatter, which then leaves you handicapped in fights where you want to go the whole way. An interface option for that is of marginal use, situational as it is. There are much better solutions, and solutions that don't create new problems.

Phase Jump Inhibitor
Functions as now.

New ability: Block phase jump. Drains x antimatter/sec, interrupts charging jumps in progress, ends when antimatter is drained or when toggled off. After toggled off, requires a cooldown period of x minutes.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Unless there's going to be a "don't go below 100 AM" threshold button, and a complete overhaul of drain-based abilities and upgrades, then the antimatter idea is really bad.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Dont forget about all the ships that dont even have antimatter. They will need to be given it.

While that may seem good but for a advent player that will make dispele frigs that much deadlier. Drain Antimatter, and transfer antimatter. Basicly if you jump into there area you can be very very screwed if they have an overwhelming force.

So instead of the antimatter Idea. Maybe make a crusier that stops fleets from running and also, let it be an upgrade for the jump inibiter. Make it tier 8 Military.

As a side note. I would like to be able to build maybe a station type thing in those "un colonable places. Or at least in the gas giant/space junk/riod belt, but leave teh Wormholes/and gas clouds the why they are. Make it an upgrade for the colony ship.

Basicly the station gives you tactical slots. *and for TEC the normal bonus for logistic slots.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
I think the cruiser is still the best idea that'd be quick to implement with the current system. I'm not too keen on the whole antimatter to jump thing either. If you had 2-5 "jump blocking" cruisers in a fleet, the enemy forces would have to turn and engage making 1 of 3 choices:

1) Fully engage the entire fleet hoping to win (or loose causing lots of damage)

2) Engage just the cruisers hoping to take them out and escape before they're all blown to pieces

3) Split the fleet into 2 directions and hope 1 gets away


Seems like a good idea to me.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top


What I am refering to with the difficulty is this... You should not be able to jump at all if you have less then 100 antimatter. You should be stuck until you get 100 antimatter. The "difficulty" is if you have less you can still jump.
End of quote


And thats no difficulty, its as designed and for good reason. Do I really have to explain to you why preventing a player from jumping out of combat is a bad idea?

In fact I plan on modding it eventually so that phase jumps only cost a % of your current AM (maybe 10% or 15%), so that long jumps series will just leave ships low but not empty
End of quote


I like that idea.