There has been quite a kerfuffle regarding speed issues now that there has been an indication that some form wing-clipping is forthcoming. For those that may have missed the particular post: AI computations increase exponentially as the number of possible moves increases. Net result? Super-fast ships are not something the current AI has been designed to deal with and can unbalance the game.

Proposed solutions to this involve reducing ship speed in one way or another. From the posts I've read, they seem to all revolve around various combinations of the following basic ideas:

1. Increase the size of the engines so less of them fit on a ship.
2. Limit the max number of engines per ship.
3. Diminishing returns on speed gain with each additional engine added.
4. Introduce some sort of speed cap relative to galaxy size.

I'd like to propose a few more for general consideration and feedback:

Gravity Well Generators - These would be star base modules that you could add to military star bases. Their effect would be to slow ships that enter the star base area of affect much like the Yor super-ability (which I think is great!). Like other star base modules, this slowdown would increase as more modules of that type are added. Perhaps with maximum modules the slowdown would be equivalent to the super-ability. This might mean that before you bring in an invasion fleet, you'd be forced to clear out the military star bases first rather than just fly right past them. This would make them even more useful as I often ignore them and just fly past. By building these modules, you'd effectivly be able to shape the space-terrain a bit yourself to aid tactics.

Nebulae - This would be another form of space-terrain. The slowdown here could be either a fixed cap or a % depending on play balance requirements. Is it better to fly around with fast ships or fly through? Also, sensor range could perhaps be halved here too. Because nebulae would be considerably larger than asteroid belts, the slowdown associated with them would be more meaningful. Asteroid belts now slow your ship to 1 but it doesn't make much sense when it's so easy to fly around them. The idea here is that a nebula would serve a similar purpose to a mountain range: They are not impossible to traverse, but difficult. Small paths or gaps between nebula might also serve as natural choke points. Planet position close/far from nebulae would be a big strategic factor.

Both of these suggestions I think would not only provide speed reductions (in certain areas) but also introduce strategic elements because they are non-uniform (unlike the first ideas). The enhanced space-terrain would make for much more interesting fleet movements.

I don't play the Metaverse (like Kryo's hull mod too much), but make no bones about the fact that my strategy involves fewer fleets of fast ships and I always gun for the Eyes of the Universe as do many others. I enjoy guerilla tactics rather than large wars of attrition and generally play gigantic galaxies. My concern over *major* speed reductions is that guerilla warfare won't be possible anymore. Clearly speed 40-50+ ships can be problematic but maxing out at 15-18 might be too limiting.

I'm all for play balance, but please take caution not to limit strategic variation too severely when achieving that balance.

Well, there it is. Gimmie the Siskel and Ebert.