I am not happy with the suggested burn out of Jump Engines using normal use... At this moment all equipment in a ship has got an unlimited life span (think of ISR drives, sensors, gattlings, cargo holds etc etc).. Making it an limited number for some items does seems unrealistic and unfari.

Unfair, because we got some special Jump Drives which are really hard to get.. At this moment the AFT askes about 40.000 stellars for an QJ_Drive (for an 50tus drive).. According to the new rules this enigne will burn out .. and you wlll just wasted your 40.000 stellars. For the player without access to lots of stellars (as 40.000 is quite an investment) it will mean that he will really need to be carerfully what he does with his engine, while an rich affliation or those with an BP will use overload his drive and build a new one.

I would think that it would be better to keep the drive intact as long as you use the normal TU's needed per jump and add wear-and-tear for those who overload their drives.

Also, I am not really sure if INCREASING the number of TU's for an standard Jump is that smart, as it will make trade even less attractive as it is now... Because time is stellars.. and an trade between (lets say Acropolis to Darkfold) takes at least four jumps (is already 400tu's) and then would increase to 480 tu's making it an even more undesireable.

Some other systems (like the DHP) are even more troublesome.. For sofar I know, most of the systems away are more then one jump away... making travelling in regions like the DHP and in some other regions even more expensive.

I would suggest making it an optional use... As long as you use the 100Tus jump nothing will happen with your drive, if you want to overload it you will use your drive up at an high rate...

Uninstallable - just like armour and hulls.

The opposite logic and also be applied - if they burn out, they are simply not worth as much and therefore they are more accessable to other parties.

It doesn't work, I am afraid.. If you can't uninstall them (like armour), you can never upgrade to a newer version... or the QJ/Hyper drive.

That will mean that if you want to have an ship with an QJ-drive you need to get a new design for it.. which means a new BP.

Also, if they got destroyed.. and you are in a regio where you don't have an (friendly) starbase present how do you want to get home, to get a new drive??

Sorry, uninstallable but can be jettisoned.

Yeah, it might be an good idea to make all distances between systems at least three/four jumps.

...does uninstallable also mean unreplaceable so that when a ships JE burns out it would not be able to install a new one?

The overload option would have the opposite effect - it makes it easier to travel large distances, you just suffer more wear and tear and need to replace your JEs more often.

The 120tu jump is for a "standard" jump, with the JE being usuable 1000s of times. A warfleet needing to move fast would be able to do so even quicker than before - they could set JEs to jump in (say) 10tus; enough to get to the battle and back. They would lose their JEs at the end of it, but they would be able to travel further, just need repairs more often.

Mark

Why not install an backup drive instead and use that.. You can install more then one drive, so that you will be able to jump very fast... And if it gets burnt out.. no problem.. just switch to the second one.

Decreasing the number of jumps per day to one would make an QJ/Hyper drive obselete. I prefer myself the more advanced drives which can be researched more easily then the current QJ/Hyper..

Maybe the drive would be some sort of restricted drive, so that you can only use it an couple of times before it burns out??

Changing the current Jump system too much, limiting the number of jump or making the jumps more expensive in tu's will only make the system with "parked" more troublesome...

Basically I don't like it when people just park an ship in orbit around an planet.. and just buys whatever comes up.... why, because only those with lots of ships can do it, so that only they can have the good trades....

Should be annoying if you just started the game and got your first Caravel, but nothing to buy because those rich powerfull long active players just buy everything thats comes on the market....

A good influx of new players, who just start with thier courier is very important for the game... I have seen too many starterships in starbases around the map doing nothing... and with the current market situation this is what most can do...

Yes.. Because smart people will just move away when they got enough tu's to get to the final destination (if possible).. way too many ships are getting boarded due to sitting in the middle of space waiting to get more tu's. I myself tend to wait untill I got enough tu's for the entire trip (i sometimes miscalculate) and then I will leave. If you leave with 300tus or so, then you would be able to jump for seven turns.. While your QJJ will do it just as long as he wishes..

The nice part of the QJJ and the Hyper is that you are able to do three/four jumps in one day and then you wait for new TU"s.. If you can only do one jump per day then the QJJ is useless.

At this moment you get two types of drives.
The 100 TU's drives and the 50TU's drive...

I would like to introduce something more in between, an 75TU's drive.. which burns out after an fixed number of uses... Or maybe an drive that can be used for more then 4 systems.. lets say an 5 Jump capacity for only 100 TU's, also burning out.

The technology needed shouldn't be two 2techlevel but one 2TL and one 1TL, so that altough research is still hard to do, its possible... So people could just reseach the first 2TL and then build the bp with an -7.

No need to mess about with the movement mechanics of the game.
If you want to move about quicker research better engines as Richard(and others) have said.

Erm, wasn't that more or less the orginal idea from Mica?

Alternativly rather than making qqj use 50tus and jump 4 links, you set it so all jumps take 100 tus but the qqj can jump 6 or 8 links instead.

Personally I think you could leave them as they are and they are still very useful, but then i don't have fleets of ships equipped with them.

Yes it was, and i'm still dead against this as it's just another thing to have to remember to replace, surly damage, integerty and crew relaxtion gives us enough things.

The idea was simply an alternative to having drives burn out or altering the fabric of space to increase jump distances. Stopping surprise attacks would not only be hard like you say, but also a silly thing to try and do becuase it's a major part of the game. Although I agree with your point about increased piracy potential.

Quick Jump Drives should jump *quicker* not longer. You would be wanting a "Long Jump Drive"

No, my point was that it'd make surprise attacks *easier* if anything; you can attack without knowing that there will definitely be a massive armed response. And as for making transports more vulnerable, I'd consider that a good thing too - a bit of risk makes things more interesting.

I'm not sure you can apply that as a parallel. If we stick with modern times, why not use planes instead of ships? A jet plane could get from end of the earth to the other in one day, even including refuelling.

Who's to say what space ships are capable of in this [game] universe.
However, I do share some of the sentiment about increasing the strategic elements by moving the systems father away.

But there is more to the game than war fighting. Trade will suffer enormously with this idea as Andy mentions.

I don't think it will effect skirmishing except to change the slant of it. Skirmishers will have to be more independent, long-range types that will not be based at bases, but on patrol near the borders, ready to intercept or hit targets identified by the advanced scouts...

More, and different, strategies...

I'm leaning..

Ah but it will

Skirmish groups will become legitimate targets for a large fleet of ships to easily destroy as they will have no support. Finding and engaging an enemy in the Capellan periphery will become much harder, while the enemy runs rampant. A fleet of small scouts finding targets in advance of a large fleet will be hard to stop.

Andy

So use the skirmish group to lure the enemy fleet to *your* fleet. They won't do that again.

(Mind you, pirates aren't that easy to catch are they...)

But okay, anyone can counter-argue almost any point, let's stick with the main thread.

Jump TUs...

Whatever is proposed for the Hyperdrive also has to be applied to the QJE as well, otherwise you will suddenly see a large fleet of 50 hull ships that are very quick to the point where they are unlikely to be hit.

Is the problem not that the warships save up their TUs to a full 300 as they sit around in defensive situations and can then use them in one go - are we not simulating the fact that the warship in fact takes 1 week to get into position ie 300TU?

1 week to get a warship in position seems reasonable to me. A squad of fighter planes can get to New Zealand in less than a week. I would hope anyway.

Personally I think this is a game mechanic issue as opposed to the jump engine itself - we are simulating 1 weeks worth of movement in 1 day.

Perhaps a suggestion would be to not allow warships to accumulate TUs? They would only have 60TU available to move at any one time (or perhaps 150TU to allow for standard jump engine and movements in system).

This would result in warship orders having to be sent every day (with squads that isn't much of a problem)

It would also allow the hyper jump and QJE to be used not as a game winner but as an advantage none the less.

I for one will be really unhappy to see 1 year of SAs and 3 years of research (10000 point Zionite + 10000 point Hyper JE research projects) going down the toilet. Uhappy would be the polite way of saying it.

Andy

And by the way I think all actions take alot of planning and forethought - like where to station and resupply ships so that they can go and stomp on an enemies positions, like how to arrange a fleet to it's maximum effectiveness so that it can kill as many of the enemy as possible. The hyper jump engine just makes the range of these attacks greater.

That sounds a better idea, much simpler. Maybe just integrity loss rather than damage, though?

But then would you attack if you know that you're then defenceless at home? No, or not with your whole fleet, but with a smaller fleet. However, the attacking fleet then risks either getting pounded when the response comes or the game heads towards hit-and-run being the sole tactics.

As to transports, for affiliations it isn't such a problem as most affiliations can afford to put a couple of Broadswords with a couple of transports. For the IND player, however, the risks become a lot larger.

Nik

The HJE was in the game during the time of BSE so Mica/David would have taken this into account when the game was designed. And indeed it was, since there is a big limitiation with the HJE, that is the need for zionite of which there is a _very_ limited amount in the game. So it is not a game changer and never has been one. If there was no limitation as you say, then why isn't the IMP fleet sitting in Mattalot and responding the next day. It certainly isn't the tech required to research it preventing this from happening.

Apart from which, this can all be aimed at the QJE for which there is no limit when the affiliations get the tech. So at some point in the future, the majority of 50 hull or smaller ships will have QJEs present jumping at 50TUs.

Nik

Perhaps there should be opportunity then for enhanced stargate keys? There's already tech for speeding up wormhole transitions

Dan

We don't want warships to be able to move faster, or at least i don't.

Personally i think it's the ability of powerblocks to be *anywhere* in a day that is causing people to get bored and leave, and the more people leave the worse it gets for everyone.

Okay so this post is at least a bit rant-like, but i, and as others have said before, feel that this is a major problem. Plot elements like the FLZ/FEL war are made mute by the consortium, which is a shame cause i thought that would put a bit of the life back in the game.

Granted this partiuclar issue wouldn't have that much effect on that conflict but being able to get anywhere so fast is still a problem. There is, for example, no way a small affliation could take on one of the powerblocks as hit and run or terror tatics only work on the tiny scale pirate large does them. (Who, atlhough i don't agree with priacy, and want my shup back!, is doing a lot on his own to inject life into the game)

All this is the main reason I suggested the 1 jump per day limit, so maybe you make that two for qqj drives so they keep their advantage, although personally i think the 50tus thing would be enough.

Just for reference the reason I started playing phoenix is that a freind of mine used to play and kept telling me about all the bse things, like the alien ship, now i know some of those things are out there and i'm willing to sa to find them but i can't help but get the feeling that phoenix lost something from bse, no matter how much else it gained.

There are several ways to solve this, including changes that increase the distances/TU's to jump. if you noticed, the start of the post included INCREASING the standard jump TU cost to 120

in many ways it has - and there's a LONG way to go yet. this is the first cycle of a long campaign... if anything the defection of some of the FGZ will increase the public nature of the campaign. And while the distance between jumps does not currently affect the campaign, it will.... so if Mica wants to readjust the jump distances in the camaign area, now is as good a time as any

Yes, it is a shame... but in many ways you can't blame the powerblocs for doing all they can to protect their assets...so the only way to change that is to change the game mechanics (fiddle with jumps), or the game data (increase the distances).

perhaps take the current jump distances and increase them - make it a distance not a chunk of 1-4 jumps? Even make the TU' cost linked to the distance...that makes it a touch more complex, but might solve the "anywhere instantly" issue - or at least make it more difficult

there's still a lot around, you just need to find it

Dan

It's a good point, and very true. The problem though comes from standing war fleets.

For a freighter, yes, the stored TUs took a week to accumulate, a week of doing nothing else, no trading, no transporting items etc. That makes sense, and balances well.

But a war fleet generally does nothing until there is a battle for it to respond to, then the stored TUs were basically for free (they wouldn't have been used anyway), the action happens in one day effectively.

If variable Jump Tus is possible, an idea could be to have it dependant on hull type - the lighter hulls keeping the 100tu cost, heavier hulls being more expensive.

As with any change, though, there will be winners and losers - faster jumps for light ships means GPs can be moved faster into combat zones; higher tu cost for warships means its harder to defend a spread out empire and so makes it easier to defend the empires with restricted access (those through wormholes, stargates, blackholes, etc).

Mark

Great, penalise heavy hulls even more, despite them already being stupidly expensive to build and maintain. :-/

I think the whole direction of this thread so far is that space *isn't* big and it *doesn't* take time to get around.

Were not arguing for making normal jumps go futher, the majority of the points is to make the distance between systems further or to make jumps use more tus.

Most people are saying the problem is that normal drives, and qqj are to fast.

No, but the planet Earth wasn't designed to be an entertaining game.

Um.

I hope!

But would the world be a better place if it could?

I like this idea - in the majority of cases you dont know when you move from one periphery to the next!

Mark
FLZ

And I disagree with that opinion. It's already two weeks' solid jumping to get from Capellan to Darkfold, and that's just travelling within publicly known space, and without taking anti-pirate evasive manoeuvres (i.e. avoiding ending your turn in ring 10). The ratio of time to jump between systems and time to travel across systems is already a lot better than it was in BSE.

The need to travel out to ring 10 can also be a significant factor - hence why a new jump engine that jumps in the same time, but can jump from ring 9, would be very worthwhile.

Nothing said here so far has changed my opinion - the operation of the standard jump engine does not need changing, either to make slower or to make faster.

Richard
AFT

Here's an example of the damage from an EJ...

Emergency jump attempt caused massive internal damage:
10 Heavy Hulls (80)
1 ISR Type 3 Engines (150)
3 Magazines (135)
4 Missiles (209)
1 Thrust Engine (160)
Ship lost 6.8% integrity due to manoeuvre

this was a 'political' Broadsword... now it's in the docks...

Here's another ... much more painful EJ result...

Emergency jump attempt caused massive internal damage:
1 Bridge (100)
1 Bunks (98)
3 Cargo Bays (134)
2 Human Crew (505)
1 Human Employee (501)
20 Industrial Modules (400)
1 ISR Type 3 Engines (150)
1 Jump Drive (175)
1 Kastorian Crew (633)
2 Light Photon Guns (300)
27 Normal Hulls (70)
3 Shields (115)
6 Survey Sensors (380)
3 Thrust Engines (160)
5 Transport Modules (415)

Ship lost 5.5% integrity due to manoeuvre

the second ship is now stranded without a bridge (efficiency penalties apply) and no jump drive to get home for repairs...

These are just examples ...

GTDoug.

but this is very unlikely to happen. we have lost considerably more hyper engines than we have found zionite, and I do not expect this to change, the quantum JE only works for 50 hulled ships.

So I think that the day when everybody (or better every ship) can jump in 50 TUs will never arrive.

Increasing jump distances between certain systems will work nicely to solve the problem that ships can travel too far in a single day, reduing the amount of TUs a ship can accumulate will do the same. but the former is making the game more boring since one will spend ages getting from a to b (totally against the idea of encouraging trade and will reduce stellar revenue for traders) and the latter will make the game even more work to play.

Both very unsatisfying solutions I think.


Thomas

There's already plenty of precedent for changing things because of their effect on the game long-term - look at heavy hull production and maintenance.

I like that idea.

You'd have to make it default to not doing multiple jumps though (otherwise people could get damaged by mistake)

Yep - both sound good ideas to me.

I like this idea. This will prevent hit and run tactics to some degree. But this would at least remove the penalties for trade ships when jumping, which has been suggested in this discussion.

Brian, DTR

I think Hit and Run tactics are an important element of combat; not only from the tactical element it offers.

This would also make Piracy even harder, which I dont think should happen.

I like this idea in general. Warships are allowe dto respond immediately but have to be very careful when retreating.

One concern I have is that it will mean warships with a standard jump drive are going to get clobbered when retreating particularly if moving out to a jump ring as they will not have the TUs to jump immediately. Perhaps 150TU is better as a restriction. Patrolling warships will be able to engage fleeing ships far more effectively. It does mean more careful planning and tactics will have to be involved when assessing an attack so maybe this is not such a concern.

EJump must ignore the TUs left otherwise the defending force can potentailly be masacered

I think if you implemented both options but restricted the TUs to 150 this would be better. The 150TU restriction must be applied after the TU's have been taken off for battle

Andy

Agree this has to be limited to warships.

Piracy will mean that ships need to be staged properly near to scout ships. If this is done then there is no reason why Pirates will be affected more than a War Aff

This could lead to some very novel tatics i think
I prefer this to the cost-per-turn suggestion because i think that would damage hit and run tatics too much, where as this just opens new one, in that it makes it practical to tie up an opposing force, as well as solving the "instant warfleet" problem.