Sounds like an interesting idea. I'd be interested in hearing suggestions regarding what effects a system blockade could have in the game.

in addition to the ones I mentioned: no credits or resources transfer to any system (also diplomatic demands by others can't be fulfilled by that system), no trade route revenues, no scrapping of buildings inside system (prevents tabula rasa or scorched earth), no ship building and fueling of ships within range (yard is disfunctional so no ship can reach it and refuel there), morale loss (no visiting of far-off relatives , fear, etc.).

We've already got a Subspace Jammer structure in the game, Mal. Dafedz put a limit on the number of them you could build per Empire, but there's no option to set that in the editor, other than one per Empire. Dafedz wanted 6 per Empire. Several other structures are supposed to have a similar limitation but I can't set it for those either. *hint hint*



If you're planning on adding a bloackade system, Mike, then i'm all for it. It would add a very useful tactical edge to the game. If you do make any game changes to add this system, don't forget about the Subspace Jamming option in the editor!

Blockades would definitely do all of the things Mal said in his post above. I've got two other points to add to it though:

How would cloaking affect blockades? In BOTF, you couldn't attack unless your ships had been uncloaked for at least one turn before the attack. I found that system very annoying, as I would have though surprise attacks like that would be much more devastating.

What about minefields? Could mines be used to blockade a system - or prevent a system from becoming blockaded?

of course cloaked ships can break a blockade easily, towards the inside as well as the outside of the blockade. How easily depends on scanning strength differences between the two fleets. Uncloaking should only be necessary for system attacks, not the blockade, because you need to hit often, constantly and hard to make significant damages to the surface whereas with intercepting fleets, you only need to decloak once and engage into immediate battle (where you are uncloaked again!).

minefields increase blockade effectivity as well as defense strength for the trapped fleet inside the blockade zone. It depends on who set the mines and therefore which ships they are programmed on detonating. They won't detonate near their own ships, only when they scan an enemy approaching.

Do we need mines when we already have orbital batteries?
What would be different? (a question, not a vote one way or
da other)

In bote we have them both. It's just about diversity. You could pool them together as one big defense platform, but mines for example could also be cloaked which is less effective for orbital batteries so a little diversity won't hurt since the player can build what he think is most effective. Think of the DS9 wormhole selfreplicating minefield, way better than any orbital battery .

The limitation of Orbital batteries has always been their short range; minefields can be spread throughout the system, or given special properties as Mal said - you could make them cloaked, or ship-seeking, or armed with proximity charges, and so on. Orbital batteries would still be more powerful and permanent, but Minefields would be more versatile and cheaper. Anyways, it was just somehting that I thought we should discuss before a million people start suggesting it all at once.

That would depend on a lot of things - whether Mike and Wolfe want them in, how they will work (Invasion vs tactical combat), whether they are cloaked (Players will have to assume they are there instead of seeing them vs having models and actually making them invisible), the size of the mines (Micromines vs megamines)...

IF we were to decide we needed models, we would also need to decide how those would be represented - would you do a single model and replicate it many times, use a single model and let it represent an entire mine field, or have one model made from lots of mines scattered around?

It all really revolves around how combat works. I think we should concentrate on actually getting it working before we start tacking on features. Lets just discuss if it should be done and how for the time being.