Uses of HasArmedShips..

[Oberlus]

only blockade ships which got actually engaged/damaged in the last turn would be more interesting. It would give an extra use to smaller ship hulls as blockade breakers (more ships with the same PP, higher chance of not being damaged) or at least confusing the enemy (by giving more move options). Also arc disruptors would be good blockade weapons against non-shielded ships and pretty worthless for blockading shielded ships. I am not sure where that leads using the usual doomstack logics. (I think we already had part of this discussion somewhere in the forum)

I think the simplest is to have it as it is now, and change (or not) only that thing about disallowing interceptors and flak cannons to blockade.

[Ophiuchus]

only blockade ships which got actually engaged/damaged in the last turn would be more interesting. It would give an extra use to smaller ship hulls as blockade breakers (more ships with the same PP, higher chance of not being damaged) or at least confusing the enemy (by giving more move options). Also arc disruptors would be good blockade weapons against non-shielded ships and pretty worthless for blockading shielded ships. I am not sure where that leads using the usual doomstack logics. (I think we already had part of this discussion somewhere in the forum)

I think the simplest is to have it as it is now, and change (or not) only that thing about disallowing interceptors and flak cannons to blockade.

certainly won't implement anything like the only-blockaded-if-actually-got-damaged now.
Checking for shield value in blockade would be small and easy enough to implement though.

[Ophiuchus]

I discussed the simple rule for blockade "if it can damage your ships, it can blockade your ships" at the monthly developer chat.

Points made were:

• having the simple rule is good, but actually this mean that you need to understand how targeting, damage and shield works (which is not that simple)
• in a certain sense this means that the combat is taken from the tactical (combat in system) to the strategic level (map movement)
• blockade rules matter mostly for a competitive game (not so much single player)
• there are more details like the blockade lifecycle (e.g. how to establish and keep a blockade up, what happens if there are multiple players with different allegiances) and it is lacking a design document/specification/good explanation in the pedia
• in a competitive game you need anyway to understand how targeting, damage and shield works so there is no extra complexity for multiplayer gamers
• geoff said multiplayer community should decide: if it is good for multiplayer then it is good to be in the game

Current plan: I think I will try to rush the implementation as I envision (taking shields into account). Then multiplayer players can try (e.g. in the slow game) and afterwards either applaud or throw asteroid snails at me (in which case we can revert this or make it a game rule).

edit1: after code diving into how blockade is implemented: this is decided on fleet level (which might have strange things happening if you move ships between fleets(?)), unblockaded is tracked by setting m_arrival_system to the current system ID, unblockaded is "sticky" (if it finds one of your fleets unblockaded all your fleets are), a ship does not have any information about movement or blockade. The fleet level makes checking for UI for checking shields a bit awkward (same as for detection/stealth); a "split all unobstructed ships from fleet" (and probably a find-unobstructed-ships-exist-in-fleet) would need some extra implementation. Introducing a LastTurnDamaged to ships might be actually less messy and faster.