If you set a ship's auto-attack range to weapon range only, and then order it to attack something outside of its weapon range, it will turn as if to attack the target, but will not move to attack it. You have to order it to move closer to the target before it will attack. The exception to this is if the target is a planet, a ship will still move to bomb a planet regardless of auto-attack range.

I agree, that is a bug we'll fix asap.

Yeah, but if we do the solar flares thing, nobody will ever want to ever be around stars. So there will never be any huge battles around them like we talked about earlier. = stars become useless zones.

Trigger-able solar events might be an interesting ability (racial or otherwise). It would give say the Vasari a big advantage when fighting around a sun. You'd have to balance it by using a lot of antimatter and having a cool down time but it would make the Vasari's tactics and anti-Vasari tactics even more unique.

Hmmm, as long as players can't create facilities and platforms at stars, they won't really become impenetrable choke points. Any battles at these locations will consist solely of fleet versus fleet engagements. If you move your entire fleet to a star in an attempt to create a strategic choke point, your opponent always has the option of sending his entire fleet to engage you at that location. Victory in these situations wills still come down to numbers, quality, fleet content and tactics....as it should be.

Of course, if Ironclad doesn't create a Phase Space Interdiction ship, it will be extremely rare for battles to occur around stars. So please allow us Phase Space Interdiction ships. Perhaps these ships could be balanced by a Interdiction range or by AM usage.

Also, sensors need to have MUCH shorter ranges for detecting inbound enemy ships/fleets. Research upgrades for sensors could increase the range at which inbound ships are detected. This sensor range system should also be used for star to star fleet detection.

@Schem - one of the reason the devs used to justify the phase lanes was natural choke points. Using the star as the choke point or "gateway" to the system is only reasonable. Additionally I dont follow your need number of three points need with regards to the number of points one would need to not stagnate play especially given that the number of stars is not fixed. Moreover your argument of stagnant play does not wash either, as the stars would be no different then a planet in that respect.

The stars however when used as a gateway to other stars, as it is now and with fleet defense does allow for massive fights between many factions that likely would not normally occur in system combat due to the nature of the game.

yep. The same jumping issue that plagues the planets also plagues the stars. Again as I sad in my prior post the stars are really treated as "planets" except you cant build anything round them. There needs to be some unique dynamic developed for the stars that can be shared or monopolized that players will want badly enough to station fleets at stars other then just for gate keeping purposes.

I'm stating that making it one choke point stagnates the game. simple assertion, and I'm pretty sure one that most people would agree with.
its already difficult with your enemy knowing that you're coming with a whole fragment of an hour to prepare, its not justified to have ONE defense point, not in any way I see.

they can do that some other way, without making it nearly impossible to breach a star system.
I for one, am a hardcore defense artist. I prefer a DIFFICULT defensive manuver, countering enemy force flow of many quick units with overlapping fields of fire, fewer, slower, but more powerful ships. that to me is fun. sitting at a star and completely making a metal fortress out of it is not.

it sounds too simple and cheezy to me. I'm thinking something more complex, like a research giving all of your ships bonuses if you have control of a star within a solar system (SMALL bonuses) or like I said, allowing accelerated jumps to other galaxies. I still have an issue with the idea of being able to stop an enemy by simply sitting your ass down on a star and doing crazy-defensive on its ass.

which brings up a proposal; I think planets that have excessive defense platforms should suffer diminished returns. (but for gods sake, boost the power of the turrets).
this would make sense (hey, should we be living here if it really is THIS likely to be attacked???) and it would also bring a more complex duality between your war machine and your civilian engine, beyond the simple economy-stress of the percentile-thingy.

I tried that, but it looks cheezy as only the first shot makes a sound/makes a visual explosion
it also doesnt quite fit the look of a large artillery cannon (or railgun)

I think what ever if any benefits given for having "control" of an area around a star should be energy based and or have a science bonus. I also agree with the phase space interdiction ship idea as long as it is run off of AM and has a limited range.

Moreover I also agree that the turrets are way under powered and should have shields and modified my game accordingly. I did basically what lordkos did except I boosted the range by 1500.

At the moment the only thing I can see being built at a star is a space station. One that provides diplomatic, cultural, energy and science bonuses. I think it should be very expensive and have a limited defensive ability but also serve as a repair station. It could also store AM for fleets.

Regarding Legerdemain's comment, neutralization of "the whack a mole" perception, of which I disagree with was the reason for phased lanes. These of course inherently promote a lazy defensive posture as well as counterintuitive platform development. So most people will simply develop a single mega fleet and follow the lanes to each end point repeating as needed and leave cursory defenses behind the "line" as it changes since they know the enemy can basically only come from one or two directions.

Hmm... flesh it out for me Para!!!

Go-go Para!!!

Personally I dont think a fleet of less then say an equal mix of 50 ships should be able to trash a home world of another player if a basic defense system is in place. Sadly enough that simply is not the case with the game right now. I can trash most home worlds with less then 12 ships on the hard settings. I attribute this to the rather weak static defense gun platforms.