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[Morgan Rue]

Currently, if you want to "raid" a supply or merchant fleet, you have to deal with all of the combat ships before you have a chance to get at the freighters. It would be cool if you could try to avoid the enemy combat ships by going around them and "retreating" on their "side" of the map. This would turn in to a "retreat" event with whatever made it across with chasing whatever the enemy didn't deploy, with whatever they did deploy in hot pursuit. Perhaps the ships that made it across would take a reasonably severe max deployment time penalty(EDIT: I mean peak performance time). It would also be cool if the AI could do this to you.

This could also be used to expand trading/player merchant gameplay. Instead of having trade disruptions directly affect markets, have them affect "trade routes" between markets. Spawn some pirate or faction sponsored raiders, have those raiders preform "raids" on merchant/supply fleets going on those trade routes. For the player, this means shipping goods between these two places temporarily is profitable, if they take the direct route with the risks that come from the raiders. If they go around, significantly higher fuel used can make it unprofitable, or hyperspace storms and maybe perhaps other deep hyperspace foes can make it equally dangerous. These things should be about as common and reliable as bounties if possible, and should only occur on hyperspace routes.

Perhaps bounties could also be worked into this, with big names with bounties on their heads raiding the trade routes, or with factions giving bounty for enemy ships killed on said trade routes. This could even go the other way, with a faction you are aligned with putting a bounty on all enemy merchant and supply vessels going on a trade route. This could also lead to interesting things with diplomacy and accusations of privateering.

Basically, make it reasonable to play as a merchant and raid other factions fleets.

[DownTheDrain]

It would be cool if you could try to avoid the enemy combat ships by going around them and "retreating" on their "side" of the map. This would turn in to a "retreat" event with whatever made it across with chasing whatever the enemy didn't deploy, with whatever they did deploy in hot pursuit. Perhaps the ships that made it across would take a reasonably severe max deployment time penalty. It would also be cool if the AI could do this to you.

While this does sound interesting I don't think the AI would be able to defend against it, at least not without some major work put into it.
There are also a number of ships that probably couldn't be stopped by either player or AI if they just had to make it to the other side, mainly phase ships and the Tri-Tachyon lineup (Wolf, Hyperion, Tempest, Scarab, Medusa).

So yeah, I like the idea but I don't think it's feasible unless the retreat/raid zone is so small that it can be effectively defended and even then you'd need to make raids separate from regular combat engagements to have the slightest chance of catching any dedicated raiding ships.

[Megas]

Hyperion would probably need Combat Aptitude to avoid losing enough CR to reach malfunction level after one battle, but phase ships, Tempest, and Scarab probably cannot be stopped if they do not want to be caught.  Hyperion with max Combat Aptitude definitely cannot be blocked if it wants to leave.

I would not bring ships that cannot fight (and not fast enough to run away from nearly anything) if the AI can bypass my warships and raid my soft targets.  I would bring more combat ships with good capacity (more Wayfarers, Mules, Apogees, and the like) or high-speed runners like Hounds and Cerberus (that cannot be stopped by most ships) for all of my hauling needs.

[Deshara]

if you implemented the rear-guard raiding (which is what I'm gonna call it), you could make it so that if you send ships to burn through to the enemy's back lines, any enemy ship that retreats gets added into the following combat engagement as a reinforcement, so if you skipped the combat fleet fleet almost entirely to try to hit their freighters and you don't even try to fight their front line then you'll wind up in the middle of their entire fleet in the next engagement, with their freighters in front of you and their entire combat line behind you, barreling down on you teeth-out

[Morgan Rue]

It wouldn't be so much as bypass as actively avoid. Any combat ships you didn't deploy will still be there to back up your merchant ships, and the ones you did deploy will come back at full burn a short while behind the raiders with all of their peak performance time to chase the raiders. I do see what DownTheDrain is saying with phase ships and some select others that are very fast being able to exploit this a bit too much. I was thinking the decreased peak performance time(I'm bad and used the wrong term earlier) would help offset this. Perhaps this would need to be more severe on ships with delicate machinery, which all the phase ships have, although that might not be necessary because they already lose CR faster than other ships. It would definitely have take CR from the raiders as if they had participated in normal combat operations before starting the raid. Perhaps the ships deployed could come in almost as fast as the raiders unless they were damaged/partially disabled in some way beforehand. Perhaps also the zone to start a raid could be smaller than the entire retreat side of the enemy.

[Morgan Rue]

if you implemented the rear-guard raiding (which is what I'm gonna call it), you could make it so that if you send ships to burn through to the enemy's back lines, any enemy ship that retreats gets added into the following combat engagement as a reinforcement, so if you skipped the combat fleet fleet almost entirely to try to hit their freighters and you don't even try to fight their front line then you'll wind up in the middle of their entire fleet in the next engagement, with their freighters in front of you and their entire combat line behind you, barreling down on you teeth-out

That is exactly the idea. Except all the ships that were deployed in the combat will give chase after your raiders and come in as "reinforcements" from behind you, not just the ones that retreat. Maybe the ones that retreat can be there waiting for you. EDIT: Perhaps you could leave ships behind and have your second in command attempt to keep the enemy occupied during raid operations.

[Megas]

It can be messy if both sides decide to raid each others soft targets.  You would have multiple fights within one encounter.  Fight one, resolve main conflict.  Two, resolve player vs. enemy soft targets.  Three, resolve enemy vs. player soft targets.  Four, kill survivors.

This idea may not work very well against players like me who deploy one ship to kill the entire enemy fleet.  Enemy that would try to raid my ships behind my lone ship gets to deal with my entire fleet except the flagship I just deployed.  (I have ten more in reserve.)  I could ignore the enemy warships first and raid the soft targets alone, but since warships have better loot, not to mention I can board one of them and make it mine, I probably would kill the more lucrative warships first, then the soft targets to get a little more xp and loot, and leave no survivors.

[Morgan Rue]

It can be messy if both sides decide to raid each others soft targets.  You would have multiple fights within one encounter.  Fight one, resolve main conflict.  Two, resolve player vs. enemy soft targets.  Three, resolve enemy vs. player soft targets.  Four, kill survivors.

This idea may not work very well against players like me who deploy one ship to kill the entire enemy fleet.  Enemy that would try to raid my ships behind my lone ship gets to deal with my entire fleet except the flagship I just deployed.  (I have ten more in reserve.)  I could ignore the enemy warships first and raid the soft targets alone, but since warships have better loot, not to mention I can board one of them and make it mine, I probably would kill the more lucrative warships first, then the soft targets to get a little more xp and loot, and leave no survivors.

Yeah, it doesn't really fit the way you play the game right now Megas. If you are holding a larger power of ships in reserve than the AI has total, the AI should not attempt to raid(unless they are suicidal, like Luddic Path perhaps). It could get very messy with a large number of combats, but in normal situations, you and the AI should not be raiding at the same time. Preferably, the AI would not attempt to raid if you are raiding/"normal" AI should not attempt to raid. Also, if all ships are deployed, which should be the case if an AI fleet is raiders, raiding would not be an option. Perhaps a failed raid would force an immediate retreat to avoid silly numbers of combats? Eh, thats a bad idea. Hopefully, the CR loss would be enough to discourage silly numbers of engagements.

[Megas]

I am not talking about when player has an obvious numbers advantage - AI will flee instead.  I mean when player roams with his 10-25 ships, and picks a fight with 100+ ships from multiple fleets merged as one.  Due to skills and various exploits, a single battleship piloted by the player with max skills can destroy all 100+ attacking ships single-handedly.  AI would think it has an overwhelming advantage, but in reality, it is a big payday for the dirty fighting munchkin piloting his optimized death machine.

It is possible for all ships from both sides to exceed battle map size, and it may not be possible to force deploy all in that case.  Actually, I am not sure if pursuit or this suggested pursuit-like raid would be possible if there are too many ships (such that it exceeds battle size), and normal combat must be forced until enough ships are destroyed if the enemy wants to fight.  If the raided side does not need to deploy all, it is just yet another round of normal combat where player can deploy another overpowered flagship and slaughter everyone.

[Cik]

battlefield should dynamically expand depending on engagement size;

if you deploy less ships than the enemy (weighted by some measure) they get more lenient deployment conditions.

so behind you if you choose only one ship

but yes OP game desperately needs a more advanced deployment system. what shape exactly that will take if any is of course up in the air.

[DownTheDrain]

Due to skills and various exploits, a single battleship piloted by the player with max skills can destroy all 100+ attacking ships single-handedly.

That's generally broken though and not specific to the OP's suggestion.
The fact that actual fleet vs. fleet combat is inferior to soloing in a maxed out ship is something that eventually has to be fixed as far as I'm concerned.

[Megas]

Battle size is limited probably due to performance reasons.  However, too much battle size such that it is effectively unlimited can make things easier, because when AI can deploy everything, player can hide in the corner (which benefits Onslaught), and the AI ships will overcrowd and smash each other (damaging and even killing each other in the process).  Also, all AI ships out at once means you can sacrifice the CR of your one battleship (with Hardened Subsystems) to wear out CR of every AI ship.  If your one battleship could not finish off everyone in time, no problem, your remaining fresh ships should be able to destroy the entire AI fleet which are all probably at 0% CR.

I agree that fleet vs. fleet should not be inferior to soloing everything.  It was not always like this.  Soloing became optimal from 0.6 to 0.62, then 0.65 made soloing or fleet action useful.  But, gameplay changes in 0.7 (25 ship cap for player, enemy combining into 100+ ship death fleet, almost no more CR recovery for winning fights quickly) made fleet action much more costly than soloing, and soloing every fight has become superior to fleet action once more.