Alright, I can see where OA gets some strategic value and inherent difference from LoS, by "Planet Munching" as it seems to be called; As long as planets are placed with care on the map this shouldn't be a problem; It acts alot like my HQ idea, though you've obviously thought about this much more than me.
The base line still bothers me; It seems to me that you're implying in D3, a bunch of freighters are dispatched to a hex to build a base. In D2 (I think for both EAW and OP) there's a problem with this:
1) the players carry the bases themselves, and is often used as a trick to avoid mandatory missions.
2) In OP at least, the mission seems to be bugged; As long as you don't die, the mission is a success (you can have the base destroyed, run off the border, and still win, somehow).
3)regardless of mission outcome, if you do a base placement mission, the base is placed.
4)no matter how many base destruction missions are run after this, the base is NEVER DESTROYED, even if the hex if flipped (the base simply belongs to the enemy now).
To be succinct, in D2, unless carefully (read: painfully) monitored, a base is a permanent object that can be generated an infinite amount of times by a player; placing a base means very little, and if bases are equal to planets in OA, then by placing base lines one can easily turn it back into LoS.
To argue a more academic point exaustively, I don't find LoS silly on the grounds that 'space is a big place.' So was the sea, in the 14th-18th centuries, but SOMEHOW if you were in enemy waters a frigate would find you. It wouldn't find them all, or even most of them, but it caught enough of them that travel wouldn't be safe, and most captains from the merchant marine wern't exactly risktaking, enterprising privateers (or they would become privateers, and hunt merchantmen
). An economical view that planets supply everything, when scrutinized, isn't valid either. If a planet already had everything required for space travel, it wouldn't need to trade for anything. This is called a closed system in economic theory and was one of the reasons for the imperial doctrines of colonization at the time. It's fairly clear that empires in this fantasy world trade, for some reason, though what they're trading is largely unknown. Some infrences can be made however: Firstly, it can't be for indeginious consumption, as the natives of any given planet must have had what they needed to survive on a planet there already, or they wouldn't have survived. The most logical conclusion is, then, this trading that is going on is for space travel, and that like earthbound economies, a closed system is in practice impossible to achive. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that a single planet must almost always never have all the nessisary output required for space travel, and thus the need for supply lines. In short, freighters exist, so trade exists, so closed systems don't exist, so supply lines exist.
To argue another academic point, the point in making a difference to BB's and FF's is (for me) to encourage smaller ship use; Everyone's well aware what a BB can do that a FF can't: Blow (more) stuff up. My questions are what a FF can do that a BB can't, and if that answer is nothing, why bother producing anything other than a BB at all? This academic excersize was to point out the lack of tatical variety in D2 servers, and that tatical variety is important to interesting strategic gameplay. FF's DD's CL's and CA's should have SOME importance other than a player's placeholder for before he assembles his three DN fleet. BB's and DN's should be rare, rather than the norm. The empires wouldn't produce them otherwise.
As i've indicated the last two points are largely academic, and the very last point probably complicates the game more than people want. Since the fact that an OA itself has to be taken to extend OA has been kindly mentioned, I can now easily grasp the differences of OA and LoS; The need to defend strategically important sectors, blockades. As i've pointed out however, gurellia tatics like freighter ambushing won't work due to how D2 works, leaving tatics other than assaulting (more strategically intresting assaulting, yes, but...) almost impossible to execute, which leaves the underpopulated empires as yet unresolved. Perhaps you could place planets in a manner that makes more obscure emprires harder to assault... yes, perhaps that would work.
Now that I realize the strategic implications of OA, I feel you should disregard my more academic points and test this thing now, and see who likes it/doesen't like it/says as an aquaintance of mine once put succinctly, "Get stuffed" and leave. I still stand by the 'bases should be worth less than planets' however.
It's a strategic step up (with no additional complication from what I can see), and i'm eager to see how this ruleset turns out.
As I understand it, it's easy to flip a hex against the AI, and players aren't always on 24/7, so mabey you need to stiffen up the rules for when a OA can be taken (perhaps owning the surrounding sectors before taking the planet?) This, of course, has been mentioned before in this thread.
Strategic center for mousing,
Holocat.