(It's Dan'Nath, by the way.)

It isn't the best idea, but it is the most cost effective idea for a game mode where the developers only estimate that 5% of players will play.

It would certainly be in keeping with the quality of design I have come to expect of their industry:-)

Doesn't mean they have to do it that way.  Like I said, they are probably only a few ships away from making it work for real.  It can be done through the weapons/devices if they don't have the resources to do passive abilities for the ships.  The timer really is kind of embarrassing "band aid and string" bad.

I agree with you 100% on that point, but disagree with you strongly on the following:

and...

Your argument verges on the tautological in that "it isn't a problem if you build it without the problem".  But you're missing something I think is rather obvious: What if I want it to have that problem, except I don't want people to use it that way?  Let me expound:

When you have a series of ships that are not meant to be balanced, some match-ups will likely be completely dominated by one model - almost no matter who is playing against it.  For example, the original Star Control match-up between the Earthling and the Mycon ships basically ended in one way every time, as did Mycon vs Yehat, or Xform vs Androsynth, etc. etc.

But let's focus on the Spathi ship as my key example, which was designed to run away, keep its distance, and pick away with weak weapons.  It was a good ship and more than a match for most, but battles could get tedious.  So if my friend picked a Spathi and I'm in a Syreen, barring driver error on his part, I'd probably lose.  Why?  Because my friend will do exactly what IB is worried about, and that's not even griefing!  It is the actual tactic for that match-up.  Griefing comes when my friend doesn't even press the fire button, making a potentially infinite match unless I rage-quit.  I may not even have the option to abandon the match and pick my next ship - I may actually be forced to end the entire fleet battle.

So, yes, you could build the game where the Spathi doesn't work that way, or the Syreen doesn't work that way, but then the Spathi loses part of what kind of ship it is meant to be.  Either you simply don't include a long-distance cherry-picker or you do include one and make it so that any ship it uses that tactic against has a solution, which makes the long-distance cherry-picker no fun to play.  To summarize: The problem is not with the tactic, but when you use that very tactic and never press the fire button.

I am still thinking about what proposal I would like to submit to the discussion, but I can't really agree that the solution lies simply in not allowing ships to play in one of the many reasonable ways that players may want to.  For me, the design challenge shouldn't lie in removing certain designs, rather in including them and giving people a reason not to use them maliciously.  But I'd be lying if I said I had an actually workable idea to offer at this moment.

Excellent post. To add to this, most people are going to play the combat game as part of the RPG. The Spathi matchup was a valid early SC2 cheese tactic that was completely valid to use against the AI. Likewise, the AI would never NOT try to attack you. It isn't programmed to be a griefer. Why take this ship concept away from the game just because of some anonymous asshat?

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Here is another solution. Let the players switch ships during matches. 

To switch ships, you have to remain "still" for X seconds (no thrusting, turning, or firing). Think of it like casting a spell in an MMO. Taking damage while trying to change ships increases the delay or resets the "casting timer". Once the timer expires, the player can choose another ship. The current ship would be retired and could be used again (retaining the same crew level). For balance issues, the new ship could come into battle with a penalty such as starting at half energy.

^ Has to be limited. Otherwise, that's another way to abuse the system.

I agree. The time it takes to get to the switch screen needs to be tweaked to keep abuse or rapid-switching to a minimum. Also, the ship selection screen that would pop up should not stop the action for the other player. If you get destroyed while choosing your next ship, that's your fault.

To be fair, though, we already have a similar system. It's called "crashing your ship into a planet". My proposal has less of a penalty.

I have to say, I'm leaning toward favouring a multiplayer that at least has the option of playing differently than single player for the purpose of anti-griefing, for exactly the reason you mention above. I've seen a few games where PvP plays with a completely different rule-set to PvE, largely to bring balance into an otherwise unbalanced system, but also to limit griefing. I don't think Stardock should make a supermelee that differs drastically from the main game, but maybe a couple tweaks could be an acceptable compromise. Of course, it would help if I could turn such tweaks off if I know whom I'm playing against.

One idea that's been bouncing around my head is this: have arcade-style pickups spawn on the map that might give temporary (like 5 seconds) boosts to speed, turning, fuel, weapon power.. same kind of boosts you could get in the SC1 strategy game.  So if someone decides to draw out a match just to mess with me I can probably just put up with it long enough to get a booster that eliminates his advantage. Furthermore, it introduces some chaos into matches that could turn some foregone battles upside-down.

I'm not sure if I'm in love with the whole "power pellet" concept, but it might be a safer version to play on as an optional setup against anonymous trolls. And it actually could be loads of fun. I'd just also like the vanilla, boost-free version to be playable as well.

That's what I am talking about, Dill.  Stand-off tactics still exist.  I don't really see what your point is.  There is no decision to be made here about whether or not "speed is life" and that is how the game will be made.  That is a fact.  A law of physics.  It cannot be changed.  You must work with it, because the game will work that way whether you want it too or not.  I am only providing knowledge of how to make the game work, based on how it unavoidably does work.  The matchup you are describing can easily be made within what I am describing, so I am confused by what you mean there.  With the Spathi thing you are simply describing the Kaufman Retrograde, which I am definitely taking into account in all of this.  A big part of what this does is limit the usefulness of the retrograde without eliminating it.

I am explaining how to solve IBN's problem of a player who refuses to engage.  I knew and understood what a huge, endlessly debatable, issue this was right from the beginning.  Which is why my first post was about this same subject.  Dreaming about making it work another way is pointless.  "Speed is life" is an immutable law, not a game design decision somebody gets to make.  You can either work with it, or allow it to destroy you.

I've thought of another option: the Taunt!

The Taunt should be an action that you can't reasonably use in regular combat (some ideas on that in a moment), but causes such fear/frustration/silliness in the enemy crew that they abandon ship.  The Taunt should be unavailable for the first 3-5 minutes or so of the match, and its cooldown should decrease with each successive use.  Basically, it gives each ship a "personalized" (according to race) jibe at the other player - one more opportunity for entertainment and hilarity - which takes away some percentage of the opponent's crew.  If a griefer tries to prolong the match I only have to suffer through it until my Taunt timer recycles, and maybe after 3 taunts or something I flat-out win.

As I said, obviously taunting should have some use restrictions.  The first I mentioned is a taunt-use timer.  Second should be a certain amount of time to emit the taunt, during which time the taunting ship is more vulnerable/can't fire weapons/slower movement - something along these lines.  This prevents players from risking a taunt in a fair match where both are playing to win, but doesn't make it impossible.  As such, taunting might become a risky but daring tactic for ships that are severely out-matched.

Now, the first obvious trouble I can think of is that if the taunt becomes available after a time, why don't both players use it on each other?  And the griefer can always hope to get his off a moment sooner and actually win!  My thought on this is that each ship has a built in Taunt Power stat, wherein the crew get more focused on the battle and less at distracting comms chatter the more they participate in the battle.  Borrowing a bit from Hunam's idea or scoring aggressive actions, the more you've landed hits on me, or at least attempted to do so, the more quickly you build up a taunt, and the more protected you are from enemy taunts.  This encourages a potential griefer to take an active role in battle or he will simply get taunted to death.

It also lends a small underdog tactic to lop-sided matchups.  The Shofixti vs Ur-quan could mean my Shofixti ship could attempt a suicide run at the match start for maximum collateral damage, or it could mean I risk drawing out the dangerous battle to lay in with a taunt, but then I'm going to have to build Taunt Power to do so.  If I think I'm the better pilot I could really embarrass my foe by staying alive long enough - all while darting in and out of combat - enough to find a safe few moments to taunt before self-destructing.  But if I just run away my opponent will build up taunts more rapidly and I'll be sucking space before long.

In summary, this effectively means each match will have a definitive winner.  It adds the fun possibility of extra ridicule to the game (it's Star Control - we all know we want it!).  And most importantly it allows players to use tactics that are valid against the AI, while taking away (or at least limiting) the trollish fun of just annoying another human player.

Admittedly, I don't know what this would do in my previous Spathi vs Syreen matchup as the Spathi has a rear-firing weapon.  But at least my opponent would have to fire once in awhile, and he'd likely hit me whether he wanted to or not, so the battle wouldn't continue forever in that scenario either.

NB: the taunt ability should be restrictive enough to use that it isn't a part of most combat situations, but it's there if you dare, and there if you need it.

Please proceed to tear apart my idea!  Maybe we can make something better out of it - or maybe not

I believe I had thought about this before when making my own melee clone; you could make the 'bubble' in which the battle takes place smaller and smaller until it is so small that you have to engage in battle after a while .

But the problem with this, or any system that allows fast ships to be 'reeled in' is that it creates a sure win for the bigger more weaponized ship, all he has to do is wait.

Personally I think the battle bubbles themselves could have varying sizes so the environment could have advantages or disadvantages for your ship.

The taunt doesn't restrict fast ships in space, it just demands they engage the enemy from time to time. If you simply run away you will lose in time. If you engage in battle you can keep your opponent from taunting you. So long battles stay long because of strategy, not griefing.

I see these ideas as more potential passive abilities to give individual ships that have a problem with a ship on the map edge.  There are probably only half-a-dozen or so of this ships that have a big problem with this, and between the Dan'Nath already having a prox torp that can reach the edge, and the "HyperWarp Skip" the Scyrve could have... now your Taunt could fix another ship with that problem.  A fourth ship could have Maanvis's "shrinking bubble" that begins "consuming the map" from the moment the fight starts and this, in some way, puts a time limit on the fight when that ship is present.

See how quick and easy totally uniquely different means of solving this problem just flow in once the map size is limited and taylored to the ships?  That's 4 different passive abilities for solving this now, without even really trying, and you probably only have 6-8 ships that need to solve this problem.  In the end, by solving it in a real way like this instead of some "we give up" time limit on the scenario, it can be made to seem like it has a "perfect balance".  That it all just plain works.  It's an illusion, really, created by the limited map size and ships designed specifically for how the scenario works.  But the players don't notice that, they just perceive "damn... this just plain works".

Here is the idea.

When some sort of time limit passes, have space combat map dynamically start to shrink slowly. After some time, ships will be forced to engage eventually.

Two suggestions on this:

1. Introducing multi-ship supermelee back into the equation goes a fair distance to solve this; it is a lot harder to refuse-to-engage if they are coming at you from multiple angles. This does not solve the issue for if multiple ships are eliminated and we end up with a 1v1 in the end - but that ought to be rarer given that a 2v1 or 3v1 finish is more likely.

2. In the event of a 1v1 where a certain time has passed without (successful) combat damage. Say 2 minutes. The battle is draw. (This may lead to active attempts to hold out for a draw, which might be counter-productive).