Enforcing borders with NPR

[clement (OP)]

Is there anyway to enforce any sort of border with an NPR short of shooting any ships that come through a jump point?

In my last few games, I have found an NPR and each time they eventually build jump gates to my home system. Next thing I know there are NPR fleets roaming my systems with their Active Sensors on. In each game, the NPR has eventually gone hostile and just started shooting things. I have only had 1 NPR that I have ever gotten to the point where trading could occur, every other NPR has opened fire before Diplomacy ratings got high enough.

I always keep my ships out of the NPR's systems. At least the ones I know they have settlements in, I don't know of a way to get a list of what they consider their systems either.

[Erik L]

It would be really nice if they would honor borders.

[Execrated1]

It would be great to have a more intricate diplomacy system, though I'm not sure about NPRs just becoming hostile. Diplomatic relations are clearly defined, though their feelings towards you are hidden. Do you have a diplomatic team with diplomacy skill of 100 or greater assigned to them?

[Erik L]

It would be great to have a more intricate diplomacy system, though I'm not sure about NPRs just becoming hostile. Diplomatic relations are clearly defined, though their feelings towards you are hidden. Do you have a diplomatic team with diplomacy skill of 100 or greater assigned to them?

It goes back to most AI and nations/borders. They get pissed off when you breach their borders, but routinely run rampant through yours, and get pissed when you complain.

One of the later Civs (don't recall if it was 4 or 5) did a decent job with this.

[clement (OP)]

I have teams with >100 skill yes. I am not so much concerned about why they go hostile as the fact that they have fleets just sitting in my systems. If I did the same to them, then my understanding is their liking of me would drop rapidly and they would attack. I would like them to respect the system ownership and its effects on diplomacy like I do.... without having to enforce it with weapons.

I may just have to start making an example of some of their fleets.

[viperfan7]

I would really like to see something like the culture system of sins of a solar empire, minus the taking over a system with culture only.

it could be a system where the rate of spread depends on the distance, and there is a constant inwards spread, so say that coming from your home system, outward spread is 10, while inward spread for the game is 2, it would spread out at a rate of 8, as it spreads further and further from populated systems, it gets weaker and weaker, untill outward spread is equal to inward spread and it just stops, this way you have unclaimed space, can push back the boarders of NPRs just by having ships nearby, but they can do the same, of course there would have to be a way to determine distance between systems, and each system would have to reach a certain amount of border strength before it starts spreading from there, like an overflowing bucket.

This allows for border disputes and that ships near your border will make you want to take action, as they will be pushing your border back and other cool things like that. I just dont know what kind of limitations going outside your border would have, maybe unable to colonize, or a constant increase in the unrest of populated planets the further away from your borders it is

[Erik L]

I would really like to see something like the culture system of sins of a solar empire, minus the taking over a system with culture only.

it could be a system where the rate of spread depends on the distance, and there is a constant inwards spread, so say that coming from your home system, outward spread is 10, while inward spread for the game is 2, it would spread out at a rate of 8, as it spreads further and further from populated systems, it gets weaker and weaker, untill outward spread is equal to inward spread and it just stops, this way you have unclaimed space, can push back the boarders of NPRs just by having ships nearby, but they can do the same, of course there would have to be a way to determine distance between systems, and each system would have to reach a certain amount of border strength before it starts spreading from there, like an overflowing bucket.

This allows for border disputes and that ships near your border will make you want to take action, as they will be pushing your border back and other cool things like that. I just dont know what kind of limitations going outside your border would have, maybe unable to colonize, or a constant increase in the unrest of populated planets the further away from your borders it is

This would mostly work. Consider the scenario of a multi-polity/single system start, or a NPR 1 jump from homeworld.

[viperfan7]

in the NPR one jump away from start, home systems cannot be made to be outside of your borders, and will outright stop the spread of other empire's borders, and it would be MUCH more difficult to spread your border to a colonized system, maybe by making it so that colonized systems fill the border "Bucket" of the system at a rate of base spread rate* (population(millions)/25)(max of 1), while multi-empire starts could possibly be solved by making all player races use the same borders

[Erik L]

...while multi-empire starts could possibly be solved by making all player races use the same borders

This only really works if all nations expand in the same direction. If one nation goes down JP 1 chain, and another goes down JP2 chain, it would be unrealistic to presume that Nation 1 is welcome in extra-solar possessions of Nation 2.

Probably a better idea is the homeworld of the nation/race is always verboten unless a treaty is in place, and the descending border growth/culture spread only applies outside of that system.

Of course, provisions would need to be made for the case of a player/npr dropping a colony in the same system as an existing colony.

[Icecoon]

Probably a better idea is the homeworld of the nation/race is always verboten unless a treaty is in place

Yes, but the player could also establish his sphere of influence using the tweaked version of the sector system already in game. You just need to build the sector command and that will spread your influence to the neighbouring systems. Or you could build a cultural center or embassy as in Galactic Civilizations.

[xeryon]

It seems like it should be a relatively simple process for the AI to be aware of actions that cause a decrease in diplomacy ratings.  The government type would dictate the level of aversion to decreasing the diplomacy rating.  It would be a short table to calculate the rates of decay:

Homeworld incursions always causes a loss.
The size of the colony population of a system causes a proportional loss.  The greater the population the more rapid the loss.
The size of your military already present in the system causes a proportional loss.

The first alien power to enter the system gains control.  For an unoccupied system for as long as that races ships remains in the system a control counter increases.  More ship tonnage causes your control counter to increase faster.  When you leave a system empty the counter starts to slowly degrade.  When an alien presence enters the system their counter starts to increase.  You cannot see the control counter.  When their counter exceeds yours you effectively lose control of the system and there is no longer a diplomatic score adjustment for the aliens occupying the system.  You shouldn't be able to see the control counters although if you have a fleet presence in the system that has the aliens on sensor you would have an idea of how much your score might be going up in relation to theirs.  The counter setup would make it so that if you occupy a system for a decade with a fleet and then leave to go home for refit that an alien scout cannot inadvertently gain control of the system just by flying through it.  Loss of a ship in combat will cause a direct proportional loss in control counters.  If a fleet of yours gets wiped out in a system by an enemy your control count would be wiped clean.  The colonization of a body in a system you do not have control of would cause a substantial diplomacy hit to the opposing power but also nullify their unoccupied control counter.

In all of these instances you would require direct sensor contact for the diplomacy consequences to take effect.

Once I reread this I see it isn't nearly as simple as I originally thought but I really like the concept.  It would certainly promote the construction of armed space stations in otherwise vacant systems as projections of power and control and increase the need for JP pickets and routine system patrols by your fleets to keep the control counts high.

[Erik L]

It seems like it should be a relatively simple process for the AI to be aware of actions that cause a decrease in diplomacy ratings.  The government type would dictate the level of aversion to decreasing the diplomacy rating.  It would be a short table to calculate the rates of decay:

Homeworld incursions always causes a loss.
The size of the colony population of a system causes a proportional loss.  The greater the population the more rapid the loss.
The size of your military already present in the system causes a proportional loss.

The first alien power to enter the system gains control.  For an unoccupied system for as long as that races ships remains in the system a control counter increases.  More ship tonnage causes your control counter to increase faster.  When you leave a system empty the counter starts to slowly degrade.  When an alien presence enters the system their counter starts to increase.  You cannot see the control counter.  When their counter exceeds yours you effectively lose control of the system and there is no longer a diplomatic score adjustment for the aliens occupying the system.  You shouldn't be able to see the control counters although if you have a fleet presence in the system that has the aliens on sensor you would have an idea of how much your score might be going up in relation to theirs.  The counter setup would make it so that if you occupy a system for a decade with a fleet and then leave to go home for refit that an alien scout cannot inadvertently gain control of the system just by flying through it.  Loss of a ship in combat will cause a direct proportional loss in control counters.  If a fleet of yours gets wiped out in a system by an enemy your control count would be wiped clean.  The colonization of a body in a system you do not have control of would cause a substantial diplomacy hit to the opposing power but also nullify their unoccupied control counter.

In all of these instances you would require direct sensor contact for the diplomacy consequences to take effect.

Once I reread this I see it isn't nearly as simple as I originally thought but I really like the concept.  It would certainly promote the construction of armed space stations in otherwise vacant systems as projections of power and control and increase the need for JP pickets and routine system patrols by your fleets to keep the control counts high.

I like this. Now we just need to make Steve implement it

[xeryon]

Seems like it could be implemented as an under-the-radar system control mechanic.  With the system not being something you can readily see and quantify it shouldn't significantly change gameplay aside from keeping the friendlier or better diplomatic rated aliens from cavorting through your empire all willy-nilly without a concern for your sovereign territory.  Races with an inclination to attack you anyway will push the limits according to their aversion modifier until relations degrade to the point where they would just say to hell with it and start launching salvos at you.

Manipulating only this mechanic would allow for a few additional Diplomacy settings to be interesting:

Commercial treaties allowing trade to occur.  As a throwback to Starfire you could specify which systems are permissible for trading so that you do not need to give away the keys to your empire to their merchant fleet.

Right of passage treaties or non-aggression pacts which would allow transit to and from vacant systems not colonized or ones that you specify.  This could be more broadly used in RP as a measure of how good of a friend the race is.  If you have good relations but are not 'friends' you may select systems that are only borderland colonies without allowing access to the core systems.

[Erik L]

It might be easy enough to apply the "ownership rating" via sector commands. If the system is in a sector, it gets a bonus in relation to its distance from the sector HQ. If multiple races claim the system, they'd all gain based on the rating.

Colonies and pickets should add to that rating.

[boggo2300]

It might be easy enough to apply the "ownership rating" via sector commands. If the system is in a sector, it gets a bonus in relation to its distance from the sector HQ. If multiple races claim the system, they'd all gain based on the rating.

Colonies and pickets should add to that rating.

This is spiffy,  I like this idea lots

Matt