I got it. A strong, fun way to fix jumpships!

General discussion for the game Anacreon
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As a supplement to my suggestion about giving gunships multi-shot against weakly armored targets (http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=7182), I've come up with what I think would be a great way to further balance jumpships:

I strongly feel that gunships should be a strong counter to jumpships. Consequently, gunship attacks against stationary jumpfleets should be a viable tactic, albeit one that requires the jumpfleet's controller to be AFK long enough to not see the incoming gunship fleet and move their jumpships ahead of it. The problem is that right now, players can attack planets with a jumpfleet and then withdraw to a heavily fortified planet on the other side of the galaxy every time they go AFK, so gunship counterattacks are very difficult to pull off.

Here's my solution:

Jumpships should get a generous "jump radius" (a couple hundred light years minimum) in which they have unlimited freedom to move at jump speed. However, jumpships can't leave this jump radius under their own power AT ALL! Jumpships can still be able to be put into fleets with gunships or capital ships and moved around the map normally, just at starship speed. So if you want to move a jumpfleet to a more distant area, you have to attach it to a starship escort and then detach it when you get near the desired target. The planet where a jumpship fleet gets deployed out of a mixed fleet becomes that jumpfleet's new jump radius center.

Mandatory starship escorts mean that once a player moves a jumpfleet into a region of space, they are effectively committing that fleet to remain nearby for a while. If the player wants to withdraw the jumpfleet to a safe point, they can either A) park the jumpfleet on a planet they already control within the jump radius, B) move it into a nebula (or out of a nebula), i.e., move it to somewhere the enemy can't easily deploy gunships, or C) reattach the jumpfleet to a starship fleet within range and evacuate. A starship fleet should be forced to remain immobile for a couple of hours after jumpships get attached to it, so that nearby gunships under an active enemy player can always get to a marauding fleet before it can flee the area. If there are no friendly starships inside the jump radius, the player will have to send more if they want to get their jumpships out.

Jump radiuses would fix jumpship combat by making it a little more difficult to rapidly assemble giant jumpfleets and keep them out of harm's way. Jumpships and jumpcruisers would still be extremely strong and probably would remain the primary offensive units, but combined arms would become critical to keeping them alive- when fighting a distant enemy, a player would need to bring along a strong starship wing to defend their jumpships against gunship counterattack.

When merging two jumpfleets that have different jump radius center points, the new fleet should get put on multihour movement cooldown and either be recentered on the planet where the fleets merged or inherit the jump radius of the larger of the two parent fleets. This will prevent players from placing fleets or yards at the edges of one anothers' jump radii in a way that allows rallying and moving large jumpfleets faster than would normally be permissible.

What do you think?
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sun1404
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I would prefer just forcing a limit on how far a jumpship fleet can be ordered to go (still pretty far). If a player wants to move that fleet further, they need to wait until the fleet reaches that destination, and order it again. This means active players still get full advantage of a jumpship fleet, but you can't attack a far away planet with jumpships and order a retreat back home then go AFK. You must remain and order the fleet to perform short jumps until it reaches the desired planet.

If a jumpship fleet is ordered to go beyond its range, it travels at gunship speed. The range would be maybe ten minutes at jumpship speed. Beyond that you can't jump.
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sun1404 wrote: If a jumpship fleet is ordered to go beyond its range, it travels at gunship speed. The range would be maybe ten minutes at jumpship speed. Beyond that you can't jump.
The big issue with this is that a fleet in transit can't be attacked. A jumpship fleet moving at gunship speed is almost as invincible as one situated on a fortress 1000 LY away, except that it's vulnerable to jumpmissiles- but jumpmissiles are not cost-effective to use against jumpfleets. That's why I think jumpfleets need to be totally stationary when the player is AFK, and not easy to evacuate from any given zone of space.

A jumpship fleet traveling with a starship escort also can't be attacked, but to evacuate with an escort you have to keep the escort alive for as long as the jumpfleet is in the area or you won't be able to get the jumpships out if things go south. I suggested a cooldown period after a jumpfleet merges with a starship fleet before the combined fleet can move, too. Requiring an escort would generally make maintaining and positioning starship fleets much more important, since right now starships of all kinds are not getting a lot of love.
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Finnian
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What about automatic jump-missiles?
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My thoughts on jumpmissiles are at http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=255
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Its under discussion for starships to have radius-blasts that will destroy several jumpships if there is significant overkill: why not have the same be applied to jumpmissiles, since they can OHK starships?
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Having jumpmissiles splash damage makes sense as long as there's still some way to counter them en masse. It's not much fun if a cluster of citadels with autofiring jumpmissiles can annihilate fleets before they get close and then fully rebuild missile stockpiles before a second fleet can be assembled.

I don't think radius-blasts are a good fit for starships anymore; my feelings on ship balance are at: http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=3233.
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I'm beginning to think that half the game is played here, figuring and un-figuring out the game. When may or may not any of these ideas see the light of day??? I would contribute, but i know nothing of coding.
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Anacreon development seems to be aborted or at a standstill as far as I can tell.
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