I said this before!

LordKosc, would this phase inhibitor system still allows enemies to jump deeper into your territory at a 2X penalty increase in jump time? Or would it only be 2X when they retreat?

IF what you are saying is that enemies can't jump deeper into your territory AND suffer a 2X phase space jump penalty when they try to retreat....well, I can support your idea fully.

Like I said before, I would be happy with an increased cost in time or anti-matter for retreating fleets.

Frankly trapping the AI is not what I'm worried about, I'm mostly thinking of the fact that right now defenses are not terribly powerful. Especially as someone pointed out, the enemy can probe my systems with no consequences. They now know the location of all of my defenses. Frankly its very easy to bypass them, destroy the civilian structures and ships, and then destroy the defenses with ease. So I don't think turtling is really a valid strategy even with the old inhibitors.

Its not cheese, perhaps poorly balanced, but not cheese at all, frankly its a benefit for the AI to get trapped, they will actually start to fight for freedom rather than pointless retreat and lose ships anyways. It was also quite damaging when I entered a system and found the ai had three inhibitors, defenses and a fleet. My few lost battles have been to inhibitor systems.

You are discouraging intelligent tactics of scouting out enemy systems. Their is little reason to build an inhibitor on the front line now, since they can escape, and bypassing the first system isn't too clever, it is usually much better to just take and consolidate. If you build inhibitors in the second system in, and they bypass without destroying your first planet, now they are stuck in your space, so there is less reason to try and risk deep penetration missions.

Its just allot more boring as the risk to my fleets just went down immensely. It was a great ambush tactic, and now its gone. Maybe the other races will have a better inhibitor, or some such, but I see the TEC just got a major blow to their defenses.

A larger time penalty for jumping would be a nice compromise for everyone. (And still not jump deeper into your territory)

This is a good alternative idea to consider (not as good as mene but then again how many are?)  

you can have any pseudo science you like, it won't change the fact that the way it is now, or the way you suggest (2 phase Inhibs block a lane between them) makes them far far less valuable, and tactically much less important, as the border systems where the battle will occur is not going to benefit from the inhibitor. Great they can't bypass the system, but who cares? They wipe it out, take the planet, and then move on anyways.

At least if it punished retreaters it would have a tactical purpose beyond slowing an advance which should operate slowly anyways.

They only need to distroy the pji and you could sacrifice 3 or 4 frigates to accoplish that.

I like the idea of only being able to block phase lanes BETWEEN 2 phase Inhibitors. Otherwise, you should only delay escaping ships by 2 or 3 times the jump prep time.

you can toggle it on and off

Yarlen:


OK, i am looking forward to seeing the other factions!



There is no doubt in my mind that stardock can program kick-@ss AI. But I still don't see the whole "insurmountable deathtrap" argument, because phase inhibitors can be easily destroyed. THEN you can still retreat.

i think gauntlet is right in his argument, and i think the no jumps when on is a good one too since it turns into a double edged sword

Except... they aren't all that easily destroyed. Just place a repair building near them, and add in a few gauss cannons, and they can really be a pain to take out. Especially if they have hangars in-system to pound you with fighters.

have never stopped me. i admit, i don't like how weak they are. i think they need some AA guns to shoot down those bomber swarms. in the last beta, my ships never even got close to them (thanks to their super-short range).

well, I second the notion that I prefer the old inhibitor.

Logical side, this doesn't make sense. If it blocks jump, then it block jump, a phase lane to your planet or other planet doesn't change the nature of the phase lane. I can understand if they are connect by gates, but they are not.


Also agree that this can be classified as a simplification and it does take quite a bit out of strategic decision. Not only it's no longer needed to scout a system before attack, one can just try to jump in and out until the right opportunity arrive.


Another oversight is this: when attack a system with old jump block, not only I need to scout the system before hand to see if my force can deal with defense, I also had to prepare some back up in case they send re-enforcement. With the old block system when thing started to look bad, I have 2 decision to make:

+ Send in more ships to rescue the attacking ships and hopefully take over the system. It's the either win or die trying scenario.

+ If I deem the situation is totally hopeless, I may have to forfeit the attack force and keep save the re-enforcement ships.

With this new jump blocker obviosly this decision maker isn't really needed, I probably don't even need back up as I can always withdraw if the situation become desperate. I mean, no matter how well one prepare, attacking a well defense system is a gamble, one that you can certainly lose, the new jump kinda take the risk element out of that.  


And Hit and Run anyone? Jump in, cause maximum damage and high tail out of system before the opponent react? I'm 101% sure that tactic going to be exploited both in online and off line play, it's too tempting to say the least, quite cheesy like macraroni too. While it's true that the inhibetor is to prevent incursion, I also think prevent riad like this is one of its legitimate function.   


I don't think this gonna help the AI (if it was an intention) because from some angle, it hurts the AI more then it help the AI. If you're talking about MP balance, then some frustration and tactic are being trade off for that balance.