Jump Suppressor/inhibitor/jammer

[Mr.Steam]

The other day I was working around my station when an enemy vessel jumped right into the immediate area around my base and killed me before I could get inside my station. I would like to have a block that could be added to a station or ship that suppressed the ability to jump. That way if someone tried to jump straight into my sector they would drop out of the jump early and be forced to fly to my base normally. This would give me a little warning before being attacked. Also, they would need to fly away from my station before engaging their jump drive to escape.

This could also be used to set up a curtain of stations around an area that would stop ships from jumping directly through the area. This could be used by pirates to intercept jumping ships. This could also be used to prevent enemies near your ship from jumping to escape battle.

 

[Glutton]

I'm super down with this. I feel like defense completely falls flat right now and offense is superior. As a turtle for most space and strategy games, its very difficult to create preventative measures where needed. This would be a welcomed addition to the game.

I would like to see it configurable server side whether to inhibit all or just enemy jumps. Personally I'd like all jump inhibited, but I am guessing many would want only enemies to be obstructed

 

[Criss]

So basically an interdictor module and warp disruption fields. I like it. But it has been suggested before and I believe it was mentioned already as a planned feature.

 

[srs008]

default "all" would be nice, since as we get nearer to a release, there will be more and more "instant" servers (people just hosting without config, or serious config...)
and although many people would change it to enemy inhibiting, but personally, a field to block a jump drive would be omni-directional, hence, it would affect all ships in range...

like the suggestion though, as stated, defenses in this game are lacking, "technically" you could power drain and shield drain a enemy vessel... but that's not the same as stopping them entirely.
the jump drive does need a serious defense, but it should not be an assault ender, i'd recommend having a hidden "charge" meter, so the first ship would be halted at max distance, but until it fully charged, it got worse and worse, meaning the more ships jumping in, the further the next one would get. this would easily halt the AI fleets, but would still allow larger fleets (factions) to get surprisingly close, especially if they use jump drones to wear the field down.

in case your wondering why i'd suggest such a obvious flaw, it's because i fell everything should have a weakness, this would probably stop ships at the edge of the sector, at a size of say 5000, that's a good minute to the centre of the sector. (and i use a higher max speed then 75, i think it was 300~ish)
if you always had a minute before even being attacked, that would allow even battles, but if they can overwhelm the system, the enemy could easily score a few shots before you made it to a ship, or even a ship core, but still have time to get astronauts to cover before the fleet actually arrives, maintaining the ability to do considerible damage before response, without allowing easy player farming...

that's the important part, if we were the attacker, we'd feel cheated if the defenders could never be ambushed, or surprised. but being a defensive tech, it needs to provide some advantage, so a diminishing effectiveness is the easy remedy.
it provides the advantage, and a method of defeat. pirate fleets would see some of the benefit, being large enough to jump probably about half way. that said, each ship should wear it down less and less, we don't want ships within about 30 seconds of a station... under no circumstance, so the lower that charge, the more resistant it should become to being lowered further.

(sorry for the long post, got carried away.)

 

[Mr.Steam]

From what I have observed, once a ship has initiated a jump there is nothing to stop them from completing the jump. This interdiction system might help balance this out. Also it seems like once a jump drive has been charged nothing can prevent it from being used. This allows ship builders to install several jump drives on their ships and charge them all before battle. Then they can pretty much go wherever they want with impunity. If I am incorrect in these assumptions please let me know.

 

[MossyStone48]

unless it violates some server rule you should really implement some heavy turrets
also on some servers killing someone before they have a chance to defend themselves is a bannable offence as it totally negates the point of PvP, which is to fight someone who can fight back.

now i had gone over a bit on the old site about suppressing the jumping of anyone, friendly or not, but this was long before we had anything more than a scripted change_sector do the jumping.

what i'd like to see is an automatic drop from ftl if one sector away from anything hostile which makes ftl travel dangerous and also give you a moment to arm and cross the gap or turn and run. this would be in addition to a system of jump inhibitors that would cost as much to stop a jump as a gate uses to execute one but does so passively (it auto triggers when an enemy attempt to jump in) one the effect is fired it continues to drop all ships out of jump until a time out is reached likely linked to energy consumption that drains reserves until depleted and a genuine time limit. the inhibitor would be forced to recharge and your turrets might find the power drained by the inhibitor left them without juice to stop further encroachment.

essentially inhibition just give you some time to mount a defense and keeps large ships from approaching before you know there's a threat. but this function would be a duplicate of the ftl failure on hostile contact. i prefer the hostile contact setup as it would be effective even if no user were in the sector as the server would decided when the hostile client is forced to deal with the defenses they were trying to blockade-run.

 

[jayman38]

...what i'd like to see is an automatic drop from ftl if one sector away from anything hostile which makes ftl travel dangerous and also give you a moment to arm and cross the gap or turn and run. this would be in addition to a system of jump inhibitors that would cost as much to stop a jump as a gate uses to execute one but does so passively (it auto triggers when an enemy attempt to jump in) one the effect is fired it continues to drop all ships out of jump until a time out is reached likely linked to energy consumption that drains reserves until depleted and a genuine time limit. the inhibitor would be forced to recharge and your turrets might find the power drained by the inhibitor left them without juice to stop further encroachment.

essentially inhibition just give you some time to mount a defense and keeps large ships from approaching before you know there's a threat. but this function would be a duplicate of the ftl failure on hostile contact. i prefer the hostile contact setup as it would be effective even if no user were in the sector as the server would decided when the hostile client is forced to deal with the defenses they were trying to blockade-run.

Hmm... This sounds like an interesting assault tactic.... Jump in a fleet. The enemy's power supply is drained by halting the first few ships, and then the rest can arrive closer to the target and attack while the energy grid is low. I like that idea. It sounds like something similar to what you see in the movies.

 

[MossyStone48]

and it is a valid tactic which can only be realistically countered one of three ways:
-intelligent use of dockable reactors
-deploying an adequate defense fleet
-??? (no spoiler here, nope)

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I mentioned the addition of "warp inhibitors" a long time ago when first talking about adding FTL to starmade. I think the posts are on the old site though. So yeah, I'd be all down for a warp/jump inhibitor.

 

[rocketman221]

I think the energy usage should depend on the ships mass. That way you can't easily drain the power by sending a fleet of isanths, but if you send a few larger destroyers, it should drain the power quickly. Also it should make the ships exit ftl in a random location around the station.