Well I mean the layout and function of the maps.
Jump routs
Number of Stars
Number of Planets
Number of Planets to a Star

I was just thinking that solar systems could function more like planetary systems in the game. Planets could still be spaced so they take just as long for a ship to travel between, but without phase jumping inside the system. This way solar systems could be a free roam area, but function similar in regards to time needed to travel between planets. There could be more stars with smaller population of planets per star.

Maybe with this there could be a game option where players start out with their own system. (Have your star match your player color lol.)
Each system could be linked together.
Players would have to colonize and defend their own systems from pirates and other players.
Individual planets could be conquered the same way as now.

The jump lanes between planets are not really hard to get a grasp on, but it just continues to be cumbersome and time consuming to get units from planet A to planet D. Jumping does work great for the long empty space between solar systems.

Oh well end of my rambling.

its not confusing to my superior intellect.....

if the dark objects were clearer, and so are lanes, thenb I wouldn't have a problem with them, but its very difficult to see stuff on a dark background,

I wish the phase lane lines were a little thicker, maybe double their current thickness.

I know exactly what you mean Rhaw! I was almost going to make a thread about this until i saw yours.

To sum up I think the way it feels and plays at the moment is more like island hopping than its like interplanetaty/stellar combat if that makes sense. That's not saying that its bad or anything at the moment, just that it feels off and I have to say I'd prefer it a lot if what is currently represented in game as one planet, was actually a star system in its own right.

This would impact a lot of things from something as simple as not needing to use the jump engines to travel between planets in the same system and also putting a much higher value on good defence and strategy. For example at the moment if I get attacked i often think "oh well, worst case scenario I lose one planet" and thats sort of as bad as it can get (unless the attacking force is some kind of crazy pain-train that just hops from one planet to another destroying anything and everything), but if instead of what is now just one planet being attacked, an entire system gets invaded by a fleet, that puts me under a lot more pressure to do something about it.

Did ANY of that make sense?

These are interesting ideas. How do you see yourself defending your planets in the solar system when they can be attacked from all sides?

Well you asked.  

Well defending wouldn’t really change that other than you wouldn’t be able to build up at a specific point for defense and know for sure that is where the enemy is going to pop in. That kind of takes some thought out of the equation.

Planets could be set in a solar system on a free roam plane around the star. Not only could it be possible to set up defense networks and sensor node in your system, but you could position your fleets at important points in the system for quick defense of nearby planets. Ship sensors could be limited to seeing large bodies in space at a distance like planets and sensor nodes could be restricted to planets. So you could see the invaders, but they can only see your planets. Taking a planet would be a significant beachhead and necessary for taking over a system. With this you could detect and meet invaders head on and they can’t see you until in ship sensor range. There could also be other possibilities here.

There are gravity wells for planets yet everything in a solar system is in the gravity well of the parent star. Phase jumping could be limited to interstellar space. Once in the system you could be restricted to sub light drive or something equivalent. There could be 2 gravity wells with % effect on ship speed. The Solar gravity well that of the star (restricting faster than light travel) and the planetary that of the planet (being the slowest zone.) Ships would travel freely from planet to planet and planets could be spaced so that time traveled from each is similar as it is now.

I guess a way to test this would be to make jump routs between each planet to every other planet and work from there. Not saying my idea is supper the system in now works, but it doesn’t give the right feel to the game. The shortest distance between two points in space is a straight line. I don’t see why jumping to planet C from A to get to planet B just go to planet B. “If I have the ability to travel interstellar space why am I zigzagging around in a solar system?” That was the first thing I thought, but I do see why it was done.  

This game kind of reminds me of a cross between Star Trek Armada II and Imperium Galactica II both games I liked a lot so it’s all good in the end.  

hmm maybe, unless the gauss turrets have better firepower and extended range, but after that, not really sure, the nice thing about the current map layout is that you know where the phase lanes are and you know in which direction the enemy may come from, and it would put a bit more work for the player to keep an eye on all this owned area, it would be harder to defend against pirates, as if they aren't tough enough already,

well the alternative would be to give the ships a limited "phasespace range". in essence it would act like phaselines, but you all planets within a certain range would be connected, not just a few (and the others for some wacky reason detatched)

Ive got two more little points to add to whats been said, firstly, about the defence of systems:

yeah, it probably would be a lot harder but bear two things in mind, a) its ridiculously easy at the moment to completely surround the exit to the jump path/s with gaus guns, it almost goes without saying that youre going to jump into the guns when youre attacking so obviously you'll be packing enough to get rid of them anyway (theyre almost pointless if you see what i mean). b) if youve got say 6 planets in a system, youre also going to have 6 times the ships and defences as you currently do defending one planet, so its all relative really.

Secondly in regards to the jump paths, (it would probably be better to make a seperate thread on this because it amounts to a big change but...) i was trying to think of ways in which your fleets could feel more like actual fleets and less like regular rts-control groups. (I dont think I explained that very well but hopefully youll understand what i mean)

What i came up with is how about you only give capital ships jump drives, but sort of area of effect jump drives. The idea being that if i want to move ships from one star system to another, i HAVE to have a capital ship in that fleet that can open the gate for all the other ships. Btw Im goiing with the idea of getting rid of the jump pathways! sorry i didnt mention that.

right if youre still following all this what we now hopefully would end up with, is that if you want to stage an attack on a planet outside your solar system you actually have to put a lot of resources into it, AT LEAST one capital ship. Hopefully you can see the advantages of this, you dont get the whack a mole defence because the minimum force they could do this with is a cap ship, which if on its own, is a vulnerable, expensive way to try and harass someone (making it risky instead of annoying) and if its escorted by a big fleet makes interstellar combat more fun because as everyone knows, big fleet-on-fleet engagements are ace! And if youre still upset about the possibilty of whack-a-mole, just put a 5 minute cooldown on the drives, after all you need to jump less often if you dont have to make 6 jumps to get from point a to point b. And finally my hope is that your fleets would feel a little more autonmous, more like expeditionary forces than just a bunch of units you drag selected and told to move to the next planet.

any thoughts after that massive rant?

EDIT: also i totally agree with what Rhaw said about sensors! It's a bit sad at the moment that once ive arrived in a system I immediately know everything thats in it it seems to me it would be a lot more strategically interesting and therefore, fun if you could hide ships behind asteriods, moons, planets etc.

I don't see how whack-a-mole becomes a problem when we have phase disruption. Going go an open system means that any of your worlds can come under attack, but if you have phase disruptors spread around, the enemy can't exactly wander from planet to planet to stay ahead of your defensive forces. At each planet, they need to fly from the edge of the gravwell to the center, destroy all phase disruptors, and then fly back to the (proper) edge of the gravwell to move on to the next planet. This seems like it should give plenty of time for defending forces to catch up and engage the invaders without turning into whack-a-mole. The dynamic can be further tuned via the durability and cost of phase disruptors and their enabling technology.

Is the 3 stars the max there's going to be?

I'd like it if there was more stars but less planets to them, so solar systems as opposed to galaxies. Just seems more 4Xey.