yeah, there is a mod, called DOME something, it has something similar, a phase jump inhibitor that prevents you jumping outside your few planets or whatever but it loses 1 health per second whatever, and once it is destroyed all teams get to go at it with whatever they have built up as of yet

but thats a mod, idn, in Sins, if you want to stop rushing you play on a slightly larger map...

ive got nothing against the idea, but i dont see too many uses... as smaller maps are designed for quick games anyway so spamming/rushing is a very valid tactic...

just an alternative to this would be to set all empires to be neutral at the beginning of a game, though in terms of lore it wouldnt make sense for TEC and Advent for example to be neutral... then again... it doesnt make sense that any of them can have alliance anyway so...

yeah, but Sins already has this dynamic built into the game. the sheer distance between players acts as a time barrier.

but yes, medium-large maps that give a bit of breathing room but can still be rushed could use this option... idn, im not a big MP player, so i cant tell you how they think. some may like the idea, but i have a feeling the majority may feel it useless as they usually only play hour-or-two-long matches anyway...

but yeah, why not

this however is a bad idea, because you could simply rush a coloniser and a few frigs right out to some chokepoint or 2 that will keep the other player bottled up with only a few planets to expand to, while you have the rest of the map. so for those 15 or however many minutes, the other player cant expand, cant upgrade and research even attack your world (that you dont even have to fortify till the last minute) to get more resources.

its not a perfect cheat, but it would work enough times to be annoying and unfair

well, you could always let ships pass though, but not able to attack each other. like a forced peace treaty.

actually, i just thought of something:

atm, when you have a peace treaty, you have to officially break it and tell the guy you intend to stab him in the back etc etc

so what happens, is you break the treaty, but you cant attack for i think its 2 minutes or 1:30, then when times up its fair game.

so, in a game with a forced non-hostility timer, IC could just use that existing function, except set the time to be whatever the player chose before starting and set it so the peace treaty ends (i.e. the countdown timer starts) as soon as the game does.

if that doesnt work (i was just thinking for that split second at the beginning of the game where the players are allied. it could show everyone where everyone elses homeworld is...) so if that doesnt work, the Akkan has an ability to force all ships within the ability radius to cease firing, but become invulnerable. so, if the same effect could be applied to each teams ships but without the invulnerability bit, then it could achieve the same affect

in terms of the ships thing, well, like i said, you can let them in your systems but they (nor you) will be able to fire. until the time is up and you can always put a scout in all your border worlds to give advanced warning of a player trying to sneak up on you

The problem with just having everyone roam free is that people will still "rush."  A strategy that would arise would be manufacturing a fleet and just having it wait on their home world... Just waiting for the timer to run out...

Perhaps a better thing would be not allowing anyone to go more than five or so spaces from their homeworld.  The Longer timers give you more room (up to seven worlds) while the small ones are just like two...  That would help.. After all, you won't be going more than two worlds away in a 5 minute delay...

Perhaps you could have something on your home planet that pulls a Kostura on your ships if you stray too far...  You could leave, but you would get shot.  At the end of the timer, the cannon blows up, leaving you free to roam the galaxy...

Actually, just make something that has an engagement range of 1,000,000,000 or so and is like Cleansing Brilliance.  It has a cooldown of five seconds and deals 2000 damage per second for three seconds and ignores shields/mitigation...  (Just for the record... That would be the most awesome gun the world has ever known... )

Yeah... Problem was, I was trying to avoid this...

why?

i first saw it in an email years ago, i couldnt think of anything really good-yet somewhat original so i went with that

if you want it, go google image search "Peace Explosion" you should come up with it

there is another one with the explosion giving you 'The Finger' =P