I said this before!

Great minds think alike!

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.

EXACTLY! and I think the original idea was mjl1817's.

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)

Maybe change it so that inhibitors block enemy travel in the lanes between them?

Or, just place in some psuedo science about needing a device on the other end of a given lane to "anchor" the disruption field that prohibits all travel by ships without the proper jump frequency patterns. (E. G. jump drives can be tuned to specific frequencies, and you have to change the frequency your on in the same pattern as the inhibitor to do any good). You could even explain the slowdown to enemy systems by saying that without the anchor the weakness of the field only slows enemy jumps, rather than collapsing the fields while still forming.

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

Please note that the psuedo science explanation could just be that you need to "know" whats going on phase-space-wise near the other planet, so all you need is to have the planet colonized (and thus PSIDAR installed... ) to be able to properly "tune" the inhibitor. Or, you could just tweak the same explanation to fit the need for a second inhibitor.

Either way, you win.

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.

Don't forget, they also keep the enemy from bypassing defenses. Plop 'em down on a dead asteroid, and they have to destroy the asteroids defenses before moving on. Thats worthwhile in its own right.

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

Ron if you were reading my posts a little more carefuly you'd see that I'm well aware that they prevent a bypass. In fact as of now that is their Only purpose. I'm complaining about how they have stripped away a valid tactic and allot of depth, especially in scouting.

Complaints that it hurts the AI to have the trapping version are frankly invalid considering that it forces the AI to stand and fight rather than retreating. Which as we all know is the AIs greatest flaw. Also the AI was MORE dangerous to me if I did blunder into a defense system with 2 or 3 phase inhibitors.

Your right ron, the ability to prevent bypass is worth it... but for its current cost in tactical slots... meh. Much more worthwhile to place this 2 systems deep and defend their, I hope they do bypass, since it prevents them from going to friendly systems that would effectively trap them again. As a frontline defense system its pretty poor, considering the inhibitor is useless if it isn't present with significant defenses. Which if the AI chooses to bypass would be foolish, because if it needs to retreat the retreaters are still facing defenses.

The bypassing tactic is really useful when the forward system is pathetically defended, or barely colonized, in which case blowing up a phase inhibitor will take little time and therefore not worth it.

SO, its largely useless on a front line system, because either A. the system is not well held and therefore it won't slow them down significantly. or B. the system is heavily defended and they would be stupid to bypass it under most circumstances. In a few rare situations maybe not, like pursuing a flag ship. But in the event of a retreat you will be in a very bad position.

If it stays this way they need to make it cheaper and only take up 2 tactical slots.

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.

I view the jump inhibitors like the warp scrambler, and interdictor spheres in eve online. They should not only block enemy phase jumping, but your own as well. However that would screw up the gameplay big time unless you could toggle the phase inhibitor on, and off.

Another thing that could be done is give the phase blocker an effective radius similar the the gauss guns so if a world has 3 jump lanes spread out you would need 3 phase blockers to effectively blockade a world, or you could just put a blocker to prevent enemy's from entering a certain jump lane.

I also like the idea of a delayed phase charge up time if an inhibitor is present in a grav well.

you can toggle it on and off

I look forward to watching those 4 frigates die uselessly. After all, they are being pounded on by (at minimum) four gauss cannons, plus any bombers that can be spared. While all my defenses are being repaired by two repair centers.



.... what? How, and since when?!

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.

seconded!

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

I'd like to add my vote for the old entrapping behavior. When I assault a planet, I expect it to be a battle to the death, and I expect my opponents to come in with the same intent. This is not about trapping the AI; I want to trap my opponents in multiplayer, too!

If the AI is having trouble with getting trapped in fortress systems, I'd prefer to see the AI's use of scouting improved instead (and an improved capability to judge its ability to win a given encounter, too). After all, the concept of scouting a system first is already used for the AI's colonization behavior.

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.

my goodness you mean that my enemies might not succeed if they came unprepared and didn't scout my system and may have inadvertently walked into a trap. We certainly can't allow that lets change how inhibitors work or reduce their hp to 1.

Thats what I'm seeing here regarding the inhibitors; silliness and reduction of strategy. They have very little point now, much better to invest the time and money spent on them simply building more traditional defenses such as fleets and hangars.

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).

Gauss cannons are a little week, thats why you back them up with (a lot) of fighter and bomber squadrons. I generally use 2 repair centers, 1 PJI, and as many hangars as I can fit while still having room for at least 4 gauss cannons.

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.