Re: Combat Initiative...
Talenn:
Under my proposal, you could only retreat if the other side doesn't have a speed advantage.
If you are faster, you SHOULD be able to evade the defenders in open space and get at the planets.
This is realistic. Let's look at the early 20th century naval paradigm. A force of "fast" (30 knot) battleships could evade an intercepting force of "slow" (25 knot) battleships and accomplish its mission.
How do you defend against this? First off, it gives smaller but faster ships an important role throughout the game to delay raiders until your heavies can catch up. This would be true both at the tactical level (preventing retreat) and at the system level (intercepting a heavier raiding force with the intent of sacrificing themselves to hopefully inflict engine damage on enough raiders that the raiding force cannot outrun your heavy force that arrives later).
Admittedly, it would work best with proportional movement at the system level.
Something could also be done similar to "Stars" in which ships can be ordered to intercept an opposing force. It seems like in one of the MOO games, enemy seekers moved during your turn - one square toward your ship on which they were targeting every time your ship moved one square. Sort of automated proportional movement. A fleet ordered to intercept an enemy fleet would move like that during the enemy's turn, borrowing against its movement allowance from your next turn. Fleets could be given orders to intercept anything coming through a warp point, with options for threshholds (number and/or type of ship) and/or ignoring the first "x" targets that warp in. This would limit the ability of the invader to decoy the interceptors and set up sort of a guessing game (which is very realistic - look at real life naval history).
Finally, the best defense is a good offense. If your own raiders wack the enemy refueling bases they won't have the endurance to reach deep into your territory. This could be enhanced by eliminating quantum reactors. Purpose-built raiders would have to sacrifice weapons for fuel load-out. While I was at it, I'd doctor the ship designs & components to make sure you can only build a cheap tanker on a slow "freighter" type hull and extending warship range would be expensive in both resources and hull space.
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