I see little reason for space raids, at least, not without some serious forethought. Building a new system for the criminal faction(s) to pirate shipping lanes and such could be cool, but would be adding an entire new element to the game that's only there for minor factions, and would be very cost-intensive for it's impact on the end product. There could be another workaround similar to the first- use the existing space map- but what would be the goal? Sniping certain ships or structures before the main force arrived, I suppose. But how or why would we use a raid for that? Any method that makes sense to do requires a huge investment of dev time. I don't think spatial raids are very viable at this point in development. Though some of them were rather cool little missions, remember the ones in the base game were just that- standalone missions, essentially purpose-built single fights, that were repeated and repeated until they made you want to automate them if you played for any length of time. The space missions in Forces of Corruption were quite weak, and even the ground ones were easily made boring by repetition. Ground raids are the best you can hope for I think- and the chances do not seem particularly high.
Hmmmm. Pity, though. I like the idea of raiding enemy worlds and stealing income, taking a handful of their ships for variety, and that kind of stuff, but the massive amount of work would probably prevent it being implemented.
I do apologise if I misread you, but did you mean space raids as in corruption missions, or just small stealth fleets (thus no mission other than what the player wanted)? Stealth, raid, corruption... so confusing to know which is which!
I would happily see
only the ability to sneak small (stealth?) space fleets around be implemented. No special coding or repetitive corruption missions, just the ability to attack anywhere in space conventionally so long as the force is small. This cracks down on the risk of it being boring- the Ai won't use it excessively, coded as it is now to use large fleets, and the player can choose to send a small force behind the lines, or they can choose not to. Coruscant would remain effectively impregnable until you get there with the main force. As you said, corruption missions are difficult to code in, so none of that.
If the player advances a stealth fleet to an objective they've set for themselves then small actions, if done sparingly, can actually be very entertaining. Trying to take out a lone gladiator/vindicator in a larger force amassing behind the lines with a few X-wings could be quite exciting and make things (slightly) easier later.
I get what you mean with the 'seize Coruscant with 3 Tanks and a Baby' strategy, ground could cause that problem. I don't think I even played FoC that much due to the ease of that! Nevertheless, I certainly never felt that sending small
space forces in FoC to weaken backwater orbital garrisons ever got boring. The main force was always a threat even if I managed to limit that threat somewhat- and I didn't feel obliged to endlessly throw stealth fleets at enemies.
So I'd argue for it so that the player can use it if they want to, but they don't
have to. Variety comes with player choice, which the Corruption missions didn't provide.
Of course, I'm probably going to be told that stealth fleets can only be both space
and ground units. Ah, the inflexibility of the EAW engine....
But I do hope that I've cleared up what I meant. If I've reiterated a previous point I apologise (arrrgh!). Sorry for the text wall.
P.s.: I'm actually nervous that I'm giving the impression I've ignored your points. If you meant stealth fleets as well I do apologise for this! I just want to make sure.
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), but if they are under fire, setting up defences there and then looks less plausible. Hmm. I will think on this one.