The title says all, how long do solar systems remain open?

If the system becomes full it will close.
Otherwise it is a random test every turn as long as more than one race is in the system.

Note that this game is a game of Small Space Fleet Battles.

So once you have a fleet together, rather than the single starting ship you want to move 2 to 4 ships onto a system together. Having more than 1 ship in system will mean mines, gravstars etc will really come into play - as 1 ship can save another while it runs away.

Jonathan

That's good, I've been wanting to move a few ships into a solar system that has action. Originally I wanted to be first into a solar system so I could bring my entire fleet into play, but I could never seem to get even my default ship into Ingabl... (I think a similar problem was mentioned somewhere, so I'm trying to find the thread and post my problem.)

Would a solar system open up if it closes and no longer has the max amount of ships possible?

No.

A system closes and remains closed until there is a winner. Only after victory is there a chance that the same system could again open.

On victory the victors ships are returned to the galactic map.

Jonathan

Ok a few questions/points.

First how do you tell what the cost limit on entering a system is? I'm guessing the answer is you can't. If so it would be perhaps useful to have that displayed on the galactic map when you click on a system.

This would also mean that you could see which open systems actually had units in them, without having to look at the turn orders screen on the website. Ok this is not a big problem at the moment but can you imagine how awkward using that to determine where to move to on the galactic when you've got 40 or 50 players with half a dozen or more ships each.

I've also noticed that when you open the system niew for a system that you have ships in the java window gives you a handy list of all the drone launches, including the player id, the drones locations and so on.

I spotted that list yesterday as well - I will turn it off soon. It was useful debug.

OK, pts and races/ships in open systems. This is a good idea, and very easy to do.

BUT, it is fairly dynamic - if 20 ships all try to enter the system, 5 each from 4 players then it randomises the list, then applies the criteria to each ship in turn:
a) so 1st pass, 1 ship from each gets in
b) 2nd pass maybe one player gets another 2 ships in, and the others get one each (depending on pts costs of ships)
and so on.

Until the system is full. So knowing the pts will not guarantee entry.

Jonathan

Does that mean that the points limit on system entry can change from turn to turn?

I'm guiessing that it would, as if whoever had the smallest amount of points (and thus determines the limit) brings another ship in then it ought to up the limit for everyone else.

Random determination of entry into a system is fine with me, it's just that some way of knowing that there is no point bringing in more ships if they'll automatically fail to enter.