So you use your own FTL inhibitors to block them.
Sounds like you just suck.
And, you can go back the way you came in.
FTL Discussion Thread
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Sounds like you just suck.
And, you can go back the way you came in.
Only if I have a planet there which is unlikely. Sounds like you are just being a dick
You can use a bastion starbase to get an FTL Inhibitor, and the bastion would hold them off long enough for your fleet to get back. How bad are you at this game? You establish a defensive line before the war starts, to prevent incursions.
If your empire is gigantic and the borders are gigantic then no that doesn't work, plus why waste precious starbase slots on bastions when you can have trading hubs and anchorages and just get a better fleet? Sounds like you are really really bad at building up your economy.
And you just continue to be of utter bad faith. It's not a bug, it's purposely (so that empire on the arms aren't blocked there forever and can switch arms). You're just ready to grasp at any straw just to ignore the main point.
Hyperlane is a type of FTL that link two systems with a fixed road. It's the basis of the concept. Trying to play dumb to pretend it's different just to "win" an argument is kind of revealing.
That's called asymmetric gameplay and it's tricky but certainly not "functionally impossible". And THAT was what I expected from Paradox - to actually make them work instead of just falling back on a copy-paste of EU4 ground warfare based on "forts" and "chokepoints" because they were too lazy.
Blizzard certainly managed to make up to four completely different races pretty well balanced, it's not "impossible".
I expected that at first too but after playing the game for a long time I think the FTL change was good for the game balance overall. Does it make the game less interesting? A bit, yeah, but it also makes it more enjoyable to play. Ofc I would not mind late-game techs to create wormhole generators just like jump drives come in later on. Having a common root in the start helps a lot, you can diversify the FTL modules later imho and cause less issues as long as there's a common basis.
No, I'm not grasping at straws. Those long hyperlanes are a bug. They should connect closer. Just because you want a single point for your argument does not allow you to ignore that.
Paradox tried to make them work. For 2 years. It didn't work out.
Those 4 races all use the same mechanics, essentially. They need the same resources, they move the same, they have the same number of buildings.
Yeah, that does work. Ya know how I know? I've done it.
I already have enough fleet cap, and am using all the trading hubs I can. Why should I waste starbases on making fleet cap that I'm not going to use?
It just sounds like you are trying to hide the fact that you don't want to change to work with 2.0. Try again.
It sounds like you dont want the game to be improved, try again.
Anyways I don't think there's no way to debate this because we fundamentally see the game differently. You should waste starbases to make fleet cap that you aren't going to use to lessen the effects of war exhaustion and also to increase your fleet temporarily in case a big enough threat comes along like say a fallen empire or an end-game crisis or just a bigger empire/coalition of empires than you in the early/mid game. (Depends what settings you use though).
Also if you played literally any RTS you'd know that static defense is always worse than having an army. That's lesson nr 1 that you learn after exiting silver league in Starcraft. And again it is map dependend, you can only manage about 2-4 fleets in the early/mid game and still have a fleet big enough to defeat your enemy's fleet without considerable losses. So if you say border a neutral empire that is closed off to you but not your enemy, and your only border to your enemy is a single hyperlane you are going to end up with an enemy fleet inside your empire. Now you can either wase resources on bastions through a gigantic border of 10-30 star systems (and in the early/mid game you can have like 22 star bases at most anyways) or you can have one fleet go at the enemy while two defend. And if the two defending fleets are corvettes you can actually catch up to the enemy after a couple star systems are capped that that you can recap for free later anyways. The problem with this is that even if you catch the fleet you will only be able to win the war by going 1 star system at a time.
A similar thing happened to me early on in two different militaristic playthroughs already. It is very common on the edge of the universe especially as AI empires tend to stack in a way where one expands in a circle from its capital and because of it the other AI is pushed to expand in a narrow line along the circular edge of the galaxy.
Sounds more like he doesn't think your ideas are improvements.
Hmmm... is trading 50 energy for 36 fleet cap that you aren't using a great idea? That's a fair amount of minerals every month that you're not getting, traded away for a cap bonus that won't do anything for you until a crisis hits or you start losing a war.
Who cares what happens in other games? Where are you going with this?
Well, ideally you wouldn't dig yourself that kind of a diplomatic hole in the first place, or just attack the guys who're letting the enemy access your space. But yeah, it happens. I actually had something like that happen in my current game, except maybe a little worse. The route into enemy space involved wormholing across the galaxy into an ally's territory and then a long slog to the enemy. Although I had access to two systems at a time when I got there, and once I was through that perimeter it was a straight shot to the enemy core.
Not really a problem, though. The enemy forces in my space couldn't do too much damage before I broke into their core worlds. No sense getting into fights with them in my space -- why give them a chance to rack up WE? I just keep at a distance and reoccupied stuff.
What's the actual problem with "going 1 star system at a time"? Even if that happens -- with default hyperlane and habitable planet settings I've never seen a map like this -- so what? I typically find it more efficient to have only one or two ground force doomstacks for any war anyway, and until the very late game you're better off bombarding only a couple of target planets with maximum power. I'd have less chance of which planet otohit first, but what of it?
Have you got a screenshot?
Well, the problem is, no it doesn't. Restricting FTL methods adds NOTHING to the game. Every single change they added which is actually an improvement is completely independant from the FTL methods. Everything that is good in Cherryh could have been added without changing anything to the FTL methods. And THAT is what drives me crazy the most - they ruined the game pointlessly.
For me it's a tradeoff between game mechanics and game setting.
The mechanics imho have been improved by the change. I'm not going to go into detail, but I think mechanically the different FTL methods added complexity, but of the annoying kind, and without offering actual strategic options.
But the setting has been narrowed. Before, it had hard science fiction (Gene Manipulation, Robots, Warp Travel), new agey stuff (Telepathy, Hyperlanes, the Shroud) and dystopian soft science fiction (Slave labor in space or keeping people as livestock/batteries).
Yes, I definitely put hyperlanes in the "science is magic" category. Just try imagining Star Trek or Star Wars with Stellaris style hyperlanes. I know Star Wars uses the same word, but it's just precalculated warp travel for them. On the other hand, if He-Man and the Masters of the Universe expanded their setting to include Space Fleets and they worked by jumping from one Solar system to an adjacent one, traversing that solar system from one end to another until they arrived on the other jump of point, and repeated that till they arrived at their destination, I wouldn't find it particular strange. But Star Trek? Nope.
From a setting point of view hyperlanes are new agey space magic. And having everyone use them narrows the setting.
I recognize the new rules as having their use for facilitating gameplay in a mechanical problem solving / strategizing kind of way, but for roleplaying they are atrocious.
The mechanics imho have been improved by the change. I'm not going to go into detail, but I think mechanically the different FTL methods added complexity, but of the annoying kind, and without offering actual strategic options.
But the setting has been narrowed. Before, it had hard science fiction (Gene Manipulation, Robots, Warp Travel), new agey stuff (Telepathy, Hyperlanes, the Shroud) and dystopian soft science fiction (Slave labor in space or keeping people as livestock/batteries).
Yes, I definitely put hyperlanes in the "science is magic" category. Just try imagining Star Trek or Star Wars with Stellaris style hyperlanes. I know Star Wars uses the same word, but it's just precalculated warp travel for them. On the other hand, if He-Man and the Masters of the Universe expanded their setting to include Space Fleets and they worked by jumping from one Solar system to an adjacent one, traversing that solar system from one end to another until they arrived on the other jump of point, and repeated that till they arrived at their destination, I wouldn't find it particular strange. But Star Trek? Nope.
From a setting point of view hyperlanes are new agey space magic. And having everyone use them narrows the setting.
I recognize the new rules as having their use for facilitating gameplay in a mechanical problem solving / strategizing kind of way, but for roleplaying they are atrocious.
This is a deeply silly argument. Hyperlanes have as good a SF pedigree as any other FTL method; the difference is that they're not very well -represented in TV and movie SF. I guess if you don't read books you might get the wrong impression about this. Hyperlanes are common in games, though . Wing Commander and Freespace, for instance; the X-Wing games use fixed jump points too, although there the games are getting SW lore wrong for convenience's sake.
Hyperlanes are fantasy, sure, but so are all other FTL methods.
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Well, the major difference is, hyperlanes require the universe to be a certain way. You need to live in an Universe that has hyperlanes in order for hyperlanes to be there. Warp and Worm Holes on the other hand are machines. One thing is a fantasy about fantastic technology in an mundane universe, the other is a fantastic universe. To me fantastic technology is hard science fiction, a fantastic universe is new agey.
I think it has a "magical universe" feel to it, but I admit I haven't read any book with hyperlanes in it. What's the SF explanation for them?
That's crazy. Warp and wormhole drives only work if the laws of physics let them. That's exactly as much a property of the universe as the existence of a hyperlane would be.
Sounds like you've got a feeling and you're flailing around for a reason that the feeling is rational.
Sounds like you've got a feeling and you're flailing around for a reason that the feeling is rational.
Yeah. I recently upgraded my bicycle to Warp-Drive, too, really helps me beat rush hour.
ALL FTL is magic, completely unrealistic, and off the bonkers. Nothing about it is 'hard sci-fi'. We don't even know if the concepts are possible, nevermind that we couldn't produce any "machine" to "punch a hole into space to exit into space somewhere else to basically fast travel like in Skyrim". Wormholes are hard sci-fi indeed
I think there is quite a difference. Laws of physics are universal laws. So allowing a technology to work simply requires the assumption that as of yet unknown physical principles would be exploitable for FTL technology. Standard SciFi
Hyperlanes are specific artifacts existing in a specific place. A MacGuffin placed there to advance the plot/gameplay. It's more of a set-up, more contrived. It's a more "magical" universe with hyperlanes in it.
Hyperlanes are specific artifacts existing in a specific place. A MacGuffin placed there to advance the plot/gameplay. It's more of a set-up, more contrived. It's a more "magical" universe with hyperlanes in it.
Well if you are going for realism "setup" and "contrived" are the way to go. Seeing as we still can't really figure out the fine-tuning of the universe that allows us to exist without assuming a God-Creator or this bonkers infinite alternative universe theory that still can't explain creation, while being as unscientific as the lady next door that swears her bath salts heal her wounds & advance her career.
Still, Good thing there's no DLC's adding space dragons to offend your sense of realism around.
I don't hate the hyperlanes, mind you. It's just that Stellaris started out as an amalgamation of every SciFi trope you could find. To me Stellaris was a clash of different SF universes. Some hard science fiction, some weird dystopias, some new age, ... And now it took a really big step in narrowing down into an own specific setting. I'd use the same arguments to argue for the reintroduction of hyperlanes if they would have been cut.
Previously, I could play as a species that discovers some divine providence allowing them to jump from starsystem to starsystem. But I could also play as a species that invents a means to move to every place in space and just chooses to target starsystems as their destinations because there is no reason to stop in the middle of an infinite void. Those are really different points of view, and normally they wouldn't even exist in the same universe. Almost all SciFi has one way how FTL works in their universe. Stellaris was different in that. Was.
Previously, I could play as a species that discovers some divine providence allowing them to jump from starsystem to starsystem. But I could also play as a species that invents a means to move to every place in space and just chooses to target starsystems as their destinations because there is no reason to stop in the middle of an infinite void. Those are really different points of view, and normally they wouldn't even exist in the same universe. Almost all SciFi has one way how FTL works in their universe. Stellaris was different in that. Was.
Couldn't you look at hyperlanes being weak points in space time just like wormholes? We had to build a drive to take advantage of those weaker points in space to let us punch through and ride the "wave" of the hyperlane to our destination? Sure, some precursor race able to plop down lines might have made the highway to, but it's just as possible it's a natural occurrence that space scientists eventually learn to take advantage of, just like our ancestors did with the waves?