Typical combats between fleets are direct slug fests between two coherent forces. It comes in two main flavors, the direct engagement and the fleet pursuit. I'll assume everyone here is familiar with these two archetypes of battle. The main idea for this thread is to create an additional type of battle, a fleet raid.
The fleet raid predominantly favors small, fast ships and fast battles, as though it were a cavalry raid. The battle grants huge advantages to the raider early on, but those bonuses quickly diminish as the battle continues. The main goal of this type of battle is to avoid a direct engagement with the enemy fleet. Perhaps the enemy fleet is too large, or there are so many enemy reinforcements that you can win the first battle but will clearly lose the fifth one. Instead you want to only engage a handful of enemy ships, and stab away at the weak points of a fleet until you are comfortable with a direct battle.
The main lore behind this fleet raid deals with the nature of fleets traveling in a "drive bubble". An interdiction pulse disrupts the nature of a drive bubble, reducing enemy speed and letting your ships catch up. A "raiding pulse" goes one step further. Using sci fi magic your fleet bubble collides directly with the enemy drive bubble, shattering it. It's like how your fleet gets easily pushed around in full burn mode. The enemy ships end up violently pushed in random directions and their fleet cohesion is lost. Now that the enemy fleet is scattered, the raid begins.
I've been bouncing around various ideas for the rules of the raid. So far I have something like this:
- The raiding pulse costs fuel and supplies for balance reasons. You are blowing their fleet apart, after all.
- Your deployment points are extremely limited. Only a small number of ships can engage in battle and full reinforcements are not allowed.
- The enemy can not choose defenders. They are scattered into a small selection of fleets, and you either choose one or they are picked at random. This is the main reason you have to pay for the pulse, otherwise you'd roll dice on it all day.
- The defenders start off towards the center of battle. They represent the cluster of ships being hit by the raid. Their initial behavior is to withdraw and regroup with the rest of their fleet.
- You can deploy flanking frigates, which start the battle in a frontal position.
- The defenders can summon reinforcements, probably after an initial delay. This represents their fleet coming back into cohesion.
- The defenders have full fleet deployment points. Once they start calling in ships, they will become aggressive and easily overwhelm you.
- The enemy fleet is automatically disorganized, and does not gain a free pursuit battle after you withdraw. You are expected to withdraw.
- You still gain a free pursuit if the enemy withdraws. (They probably won't withdraw, the whole point is they can kick your butt in a direct fight)
I feel it is important to keep player deployment costs limited. Otherwise, they'll use the raid as a way to score free kills before escalating into a full scale battle. A raid is not meant to ever turn into a full scale battle. Enemy reinforcements place a time limit on the player, so that they can't go raiding forever. Giving the raider a good time for their attack is important, but giving the defender a chance to defend is also important. That balance won't be easy and should consider the target fleet as well as surrounding allied fleets. Every raid costs valuable resources and many raids in a row will strain the raiding party's CR.
There is no explicit lockout on which ships can participate in the raid. Any attacker can raid, but the rules of engagement should naturally favor fast/lethal ships that can make an easy escape. Raid with a Legion if you so dare, just don't be surprised when it can't escape and enemy reinforcements swarm it down.
I don't have much clue on how the raiding pulse should behave on the strategic map. Should your fleet be required to collide with the enemy fleet at full burn? It may look cool but it's not an easy maneuver to set up. Should the enemy fleet only be vulnerable at full burn? Should the player have to spend their emergency burn? Should the raiding pulse be a menu option when encountering an enemy fleet? Should the raiding attack only exist for smaller fleets (I.E. your fleet is too large to disengage = too large to raid)? Can a starbase even be raided, or would it allow ships in its protection to be raided? I don't have answers for those kinds of questions.
Raiding can hopefully be a new and exciting way to play. I don't think it should sit out as a niche option that players sometimes use. Raiding should be an option that players can fully commit to, with dedicated hunter-killer fleets and fast support ships that can reliably pick apart an enemy force in piecemeal. Safety in numbers need not apply here. We already have balancing methods thanks to supply costs and withering CR, so the costs of a raid can be kept in line with the benefits that it gives. Extreme raiding may require cost reductions and bonuses from player talents, but a base level of raiding should be offered at all times. If the player doesn't like it, they can always go back to the default warfare of slugging it out. That's fine too.