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[Karnewarrior]

My sci-fi settings usually explain it away as FTL travel not *technically* being FTL at all - relativistically, the ship is moving at STL speeds, but space is warped in such a way as to make the travel faster relative to interstellar space. Entering a gravity well interferes with the warp mechanisms, so the ship quickly slows to (still devastating) less than apocalyptic speeds. Add in warp inhibitors that can kill warp fields over a certain degree within a defined plane, and KKVs aren't quite devastating enough to prevent MAD scenarios.

Likewise, warped space is used as shielding measures, so while you can snipe a ship that doesn't have it's shields up from as far away as you like, you have to get close and use your own warp to stop the shields from deflecting all your weaponry. The distance that can occur depends on what exactly your own ship's warp drive is equipped with, and how it stacks up against the enemy ship. So space battles get egregiously (for space) up close to one another in order for ECM and ECCM combat to allow for railgun and lasers to punch through the field and actually hit.

[Trekkin]

Likewise, warped space is used as shielding measures, so while you can snipe a ship that doesn't have it's shields up from as far away as you like, you have to get close and use your own warp to stop the shields from deflecting all your weaponry. The distance that can occur depends on what exactly your own ship's warp drive is equipped with, and how it stacks up against the enemy ship. So space battles get egregiously (for space) up close to one another in order for ECM and ECCM combat to allow for railgun and lasers to punch through the field and actually hit.

That's a really interesting idea. What would happen if someone built a long-range missile by sticking a warp drive behind a bunch of relatively low delta-v submunitions and coding the missile itself to miss the target by the maximum radius that still keeps the submunitions swarm on course for the target at speed via its warp bubble, then braking so the (presumably expensive) warp drive can be retrieved later?

[Cthulhu]

Realistic low tech space combat isnt that crazy.  Nukes arent the worst thing in the world, most of the damage is from overpressure and air combustion which won't happen in space.  Not as devastating to a spaceship And lasers diffuse faster than you'd think, not to mention can't curve around a planet. 

Maneuvering would probably take center stage, and delta V conservation if we're assuming no torch ships

[Egan_BW]

There is a game called Children of a Dead Earth if you want space combat with realistic physics.

[Karnewarrior]

Likewise, warped space is used as shielding measures, so while you can snipe a ship that doesn't have it's shields up from as far away as you like, you have to get close and use your own warp to stop the shields from deflecting all your weaponry. The distance that can occur depends on what exactly your own ship's warp drive is equipped with, and how it stacks up against the enemy ship. So space battles get egregiously (for space) up close to one another in order for ECM and ECCM combat to allow for railgun and lasers to punch through the field and actually hit.

That's a really interesting idea. What would happen if someone built a long-range missile by sticking a warp drive behind a bunch of relatively low delta-v submunitions and coding the missile itself to miss the target by the maximum radius that still keeps the submunitions swarm on course for the target at speed via its warp bubble, then braking so the (presumably expensive) warp drive can be retrieved later?

I hadn't thought of that, but the immediate counter tactic that came to mind would be to just shoot the warp drive. The drives are fairly large affairs (you need loads of energy, plus a large "engine" to warp the space), and I usually work with settings advanced enough for relatively widespread A.I.s, so it wouldn't be terribly hard.

[Cthulhu]

There's I think an Isaac Asimov story where they use something like an inertia field to block energy weapons, but it works both ways so you have to turn off your own field to attack, so it's all about finding the opening to hit an enemy while they're attacking, without getting hit yourself while you're attacking.

[Trekkin]

(-snip-)
I hadn't thought of that, but the immediate counter tactic that came to mind would be to just shoot the warp drive. The drives are fairly large affairs (you need loads of energy, plus a large "engine" to warp the space), and I usually work with settings advanced enough for relatively widespread A.I.s, so it wouldn't be terribly hard.

You know, we're heading towards a perennial problem with space combat in fiction: if a ship with people on it can do something involving violence, a ship without people on it (which is a missile in all but name) can probably do it without the mass of the humans and life-support system, which also means it's more maneuverable with the same engines and RCS so it can drunk walk more aggressively -- and without fear of crushing the crew. The parts that actually need humans happen before the decision to fire; the parts that necessitate close proximity to the target happen afterwards.

Yours is certainly one of the better solutions; mine has always been to just have space combat by remote control, with the fabrication and repair platforms carrying the humans surrendering once their weapon swarms are defeated.

[Karnewarrior]

Well, like I said, the setting works with relatively widespread A.I.s, so you could make a ship without human intelligences entirely. I usually just rebuff that by pointing out that a lone A.I. on a ship could go mad, and would be significantly more lethal than is tenable. Human crews (outside of colonization which obviously requires humans) are more a safety net to overwatch the A.I. system in the ship - the A.I. controls weapons bays, conventional thrust, and a bunch of other stuff, but is explicitly locked out of systems that would kill the crew before a response could be formed. A.I. in this setting are also hard-locked into semi-portable spheres for similar reasons, so there's something to destroy that gives the A.I. a physical body.

Warp-speed missiles are just too expensive to be worth it, particularly since installing an A.I. on one is liable to A) piss other A.I. off (they're people too, with rights), and B) would make it even more expensive. And an A.I. is pretty key for ECM warfare, since they can make snap decisions with creativity at speeds a human couldn't compete with.

Returning vaguely to topic, this setting also has a system that I wish they had used for Stellaris. I would have much preferred breaking travel into two distinct engines: The warp engine, which a ship could use to jump to any system, but very, very slowly, and Warpgates, which would function like roads and allow for quick travel to explored systems. Construction ships would have to build a gate at the starting system, and one in the destination system. Afterwards they would function much like the hyperlanes we have now.

I just want there to be a macro-scale infrastructure aspect to the game. Hyperlanes already being there makes neat galactic geography, sure, but it removes any reason for civilian ships being in your territory beyond just idle shuffling about. You've already built all your mining stations, so there's nothing much left for them to do until you decide to finally build that dyson sphere.

[E. Albright]

Returning vaguely to topic, this setting also has a system that I wish they had used for Stellaris. I would have much preferred breaking travel into two distinct engines: The warp engine, which a ship could use to jump to any system, but very, very slowly, and Warpgates, which would function like roads and allow for quick travel to explored systems. Construction ships would have to build a gate at the starting system, and one in the destination system. Afterwards they would function much like the hyperlanes we have now.

Of curiosity, did you only start playing recently? Stellaris originally let you pick warp drives (slow unlimited travel with vulnerable spinup and cooldown), wormhole generators (direct teleport to/from any friendly system with a wormhole generator w/in range of your ship), and the current hyperlanes. You could never switch once you picked one, though; the only way to change was to get to jump drives. I understand why they simplified everything and made it hyperlane-only, but the early Stellaris with variable travel modes was interesting and very novel - messy, but neat.

[Karnewarrior]

Nope, been playing since release. Originally, I personally would only research Womrhole and Warp, but it still didn't quite work the way I would have preferred, since one Warp Gate would send you to any star, unexplored or not, within a radius. I'm saying it should be a construction effort on both sides of the gate, more like building roads/railroads in civilization. This is a 4X after all; it's weird there's no equivalent to building roads along tactically important routes.

[Cthulhu]

I like hyperlanes the most, the terrain aspect makes things more interesting and theres a lot of extra headroom in figuring out defense when you have to consider other empires may not be following the same rules.  Even in the old versions i always made it so every empire used hyperlane

[Karnewarrior]

Hyperlane is superior (game-play wise, immersively I preferred Warp) on it's own, sure, but I think mixing warp and Wormhole would have had the most depth. Make the wormholes expensive and rare enough, and players will build their own geography, one that can be surmounted but only at the cost of speed. Ownership of one side of a wormhole would become very important, especially if wormhole gates were fixed to be similar to how wormholes are now - fixed points that link to another system, and only one other system.

Gateways work kind of like that, but come far too late and are too expensive to really be worth it the way roads are in Civ.

[Telgin]

Not to mention they link to every other gateway, so while they're very expensive and come late, they're almost too useful.

I would like to see what the game would have been like if they ended up relying on warp instead of hyperlanes.  Warp interdiction bubbles on stations would be one way to enforce border security, although I can see how that would get kind of complicated and messy.

[Karnewarrior]

Well, part of the reason I wanted Warp + 1to1 gates was because it would leave borders somewhat fluid while still giving tactical use to hardpoints. With just warp, the enemy could come from anywhere systems they had access to came near your systems, while the way it is now I have an ally that I'm spatially adjacent to who, because of hyperlanes, needs to go through a subject of mine to reach my space. While tactically interesting, I do feel like civs that are close and xenophilic would take pains to increase international infrastructure, such as charting/building a new hyperlane. But you can't really do that.

With the Gate!roads system, they could slow down warp to a crawl since preferably only scouts, science vessels and construction ships would be using warp. Everyone else would be using the gateway network, which could be connected to nearby friends and disconnected from nearby enemies. You'd still want to fortify the whole border with that fanatic purifier empire, but you might also want to leave one gate open, both to facilitate your attacks and hopefully tempt the enemy into a hardpoint. Sure, you could equip a whole fleet with warp and sneak attack from the rear, but if it's slow enough then it could get trapped behind enemy lines, adding a layer of risk to such a strategy.

[Zangi]

Not to mention they link to every other gateway, so while they're very expensive and come late, they're almost too useful.

I would like to see what the game would have been like if they ended up relying on warp instead of hyperlanes.  Warp interdiction bubbles on stations would be one way to enforce border security, although I can see how that would get kind of complicated and messy.

You could see Distant Worlds for an example of warp gameplay.  Interdiction bubbles are a thing too.