Open Phase Travel vs. Laned Phase Travel

Open Phase Travel has never been offered to us Beta Testers

Not that I personally care, as I like it how it is, just maybe a little more order to the lanes than there are now...

I mean I love the game so far but couldn't this be an easy option or something?

Its easy to implement, but pure hell to defend against.

Imagine the enemy jumping into your systems star, scouting around, finding your home planet capital, and then sending their biggest fleet there to wipe you out.

As it stands now, they have to work their way to that goal.

One could argue that that could be countered with a little space terrain "No, the enemy fleet *can't* come from the star because there's a nebula (of death) and an asteroid field (of terror) blocking the way, therefore they must come from this direction (points away from star)"

But yeah, I'm for Phase Lanes as long as they don't constrict travel too much, maybe having a junction mid lane so what starts of as one branches into two.

That's not fully open then is it ?

Whack-a-mole gameplay sucks.

one could argue tahts why we have space lanes

I'll save you the effort: the Devs are so certain the gameplay style sucked that they never even let us try it. we whined and complained, but they were dead stubborn about this (and we had a LOT of people complaining)
conserve your posting energy.

Didnt we come up with the conclusion that this game would rock if open phase travel was limited to a few types of ships and maybe one race/.

no... we came to the conclusion that its perfect as is now.

keep in mind, if you want to have open phaselane travel, be the Vasari and make gate ships everywhere.

"no... we came to the conclusion that its perfect as is now."

That is dangerous thinking in the beta phase, all I am suggestion is a have your cake and eat it to solution. I think the "it ruins the game play" argument is completely subjective as it would make the game play better for me.

"no... we came to the conclusion that its perfect as is now."

That is dangerous thinking in the beta phase, all I am suggesting is a have your cake and eat it to solution. I think the "it ruins the game play" argument is completely subjective as it would make the game play better for me.

sry for double.

I don't know if its perfect, but out of what we have seen and tried, its the best so far.

Goatman, how can you pass judgement on something you havent tried?

trust me, WAM defence isnt fun.

Not mentioning "You" isn't everyone else, Insta-gibbing everyone elses ship might be perfect for some people but it dosn't mean it make good gameplay.

As lordkosc mentioned, it will be possible (if it's not already) to mod the phase lanes in the game if you wish. However, they are staying for the final release.

Firstly, I am only advocating an option for open jumping. Secondly, I am judging myself, and therefore while my judgment is not perfect I am best at judging myself. Besides think of the gray area you are talking about here.

How do you know you still hate your least favorite food, when was the last time you ate it, maybe if you eat it again you will like it now? Do you see what I mean? When we prejudge our preference to something without trying we are taking a good chance that it will be true, because we generally know our preferences. Again, isn't perfect, but I am the most qualified person to make this decision and therefore you should probably trust that I am correct about my own preference.

In my case I have taken data from my past game experiences involving open ended style systems vs. closed or restricted systems, and given my personality (as more spontaneous vs. less planned and structured) I prefer openness in most systems. This is my preference in most cases, and has always been. I have always wanted free hyperspace jump, much like Homeworld or X3 but less cost restrictive. All I am asking is that the developers can please everyone by including both. They already originally had the foundation for open jumping anyway, so it can be done relatively easily.

I love this game though regardless.


Edit: Oh and didn't see that, mods are great, just curious, how difficult is it to put both systems in your game. Wouldn't it be received better if it had more options, or be a more complete game? You could even recommend people use lanes and have it defaulted but allow it to be changed.

The problem is that if we officially add the option then we're obligated to fully balance gameplay and support it. That's just not possible with the time left to finish the project (plus we've already tested open-jumping substantially and found it didn't work well), so Ironclad is making it easy to mod in for those who want to.  

Well at least it will be possible, that is really cool. How will the mod affect the game? Just allow jumping anywhere?

I decided a while back to stop pestering the Devs about open connection maps. They are going to allow modders to mod open connection back into the game, and that will be enough to keep me happy.

And if it turns out that Whack a Mole truly sucks beyond redemption, then so be it.

I am also looking forward to making phase laned (or maybe open connected) maps that feature entire star systems within a single huge gravity well. Obviously these single gravity well encased star systems won't even be close in size to the present star systems. Otherwise, it would take far too long to travel cross them.

Each of these single gravity well star systems will only have a few planets in them. This way I can make a large number of star systems per game without worrying about gameplay time and system performance. Having dozens of star systems on a map will allow for a truly Galactic feel.

There would be no whack-a-mole effect if the possible range of the jump in an open-connection map is limited with anti-matter. So that you can't just jump anywhere - and the further you jump the less AM you have.

antimatter wouldnt even need to be an issue, it could just be the range of ships


the issue with that though is that you would have to substantially rework coding, and I think its a bit too late in development to try that now.

and goatman: my point isnt that you wouldnt like it, merely that you cant tell that you would like it. the way you worded your earlier post made it seem like you are certain.

True, I simply like it more if it's known what is limiting the ships. AM could be a good option if it was also crucial for weapons - so that if you jump very far you become a sitting duck for any defending force untill you replenish it.

AM is not required for phase jumping period.

I agree on the AM jumping cost limiting the range of how far ships can travel. That option was put into use in Masters Of Orion 2, and it worked out very well IMHO. You could send any fleet to any star in range (provided there were no anomalies to get in the way), and the opposing team could bring in a fleet from somewhere (if no ships were present) to counter-punch.

In Star Wars: Rebellion, there was no distance limit for ships. anyone could go anywhere, at any time, and hopefully attack before an opposing force arrived. However, SW:R was all about WAM, where there were space defenses to speak of really. It was all a game of Who Arrives First? You or them?

The transit routes that are the Phase Lanes have been used in both of the Aerobiz games for the SNES (for you old-schoolers), and even Warcraft (original Warcraft for DOS, I mean)used roads to get anything done. So, both methods of getting from one place to another are old as dirt, and very capable of being exploited.

Now that I set my examples, I prefer the Phase Lanes over open travel, because it pits your knowledge of the units against either the AI, or another players' tactical knowledge of defending a zone of some type. It's fun to see what I need to do to bust through my buddies' front lines to try and cause some real punishment to his forces.

Here's an idea for an alternative between open phase and phase lane gameplay. Still restrict interplanetary travel and interstellar travel to lanes, but instead of having the lanes preset at the beginning of each game, let the player choose where they want the lanes to go by building gates that ships can jump through. Once a gate is built it can't be destroyed and can be used by any civilization. This would create a strategic decision for the player. Too few lanes and you hamper your mobility, but too many and you're providing your enemies with easy access to your planets.