[Space] Space Strategy: FTL Bottlenecks

[Calvin]

I'm very fond of the jump points dynamic. Stellaris used to have three FTL modes, and you could select one for your empire.

Warp drive worked by giving you a jump range. Any system within X lightyears was reachable, and you'd stop in the system to recharge for the next jump.

For Wormhole FTL you had to build wormhole stations which would allow you to jump from them to any system in the wormhole station's range. It would also create wormholes to allow you to make a return trip.

And finally, there are/were hyperlanes. Which is just a system of jump point pairs. Systems can have multiple points, and each one links to a single specific other system.

It wasn't long before serious players, especially in MP, were running with hyperlanes only. Warp drive and wormhole stations are cool, but it makes strategy very difficult. Warfare devolved into who could create the largest blob of ships to throw at the enemy force. This has since been enforced by the developers, who removed wormhole stations entirely and made warp drive a very late game tech.

With hyperlanes it's possible to have fortified border worlds. Borders in space also make a lot more sense since both sides will naturally seek to have as few external hyperlinks as possible. Nations tend to colonzie only as far as the next chokepoint, and in cases where that doesn't happen the stray systems are usually the first targets to conquer.