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Under the normal rules, the length of a basic supply route is always 2 jumps from any Good Order colony with Census and Productivity greater than 3. While this rule is easy to remember, it is also very artificial and leads to "island hopping" operations where one empire expands/invades up to 2 jumps from its nearest colony/supply depot before stopping, consolidating, and then resuming their slow march.

For the last year or two, I have been playtesting an alternative where the length of a supply route is based instead on a new statistc: Supply Point Rating. Each colony has a base Supply Point Rating equal to its Productivity divided by 3 (round down). This means that 0-2 is 0, 3-5 is 1, 6-8 is 2, 9-11 is 3, and so on. This Supply Point Rating is the length of a supply route traced from that colony's system. Each supply depot in the colony's system increases this rating by 1, too, so you can use them to artificially extend your supply routes -- at a cost to build and maintain those supply depots.

This does mean that, during a war, you could rush supply depots to the front and deploy them to open supply lines deep into enemy space. However, it opens the door for an enemy attack on these assets -- such as the one the Narn fleet attempted against the Centauri supply depots at Ghorash VII. Should such an attack succeed, then your forces could find themselves caught behind enemy lines, terminally out of supply.

Can a blockaded system with a population of 1 and production of 0 but with a supply depot be "starved out" ?

mriddle wrote:Can a blockaded system with a population of 1 and production of 0 but with a supply depot be "starved out" ?

Here's a write up of the rules that I wrote once (about a year ago); I had to see if I addressed the question or not:

BASIC SUPPLY ROUTES
A basic supply route represents the transparent flow of civilian and military freighters through an empire’s territories.

All supply routes originate at supply points. A supply point is typically a heavily-industrialized colony world, but some empire’s will find it prudent to use supply depots to extend its supply routes. All colonies have a supply point rating equal to their Utilized Productivity statistic divided by three, rounding fractions down. Colonies with a supply point rating of one or more are considered supply points.

The length of the basic supply route that can be traced from a supply point is equal to that colony’s supply point rating. For example, a colony with 7 Utilized Productivity would have a supply point rating of 2, indicating that the basic supply route originating in the system extends a maximum of two jump lanes outward from the system.

When using the Commodore or Admiral advanced system generation rules, basic supply routes operate at the system level and not colony level. In these cases, the supply point rating of a detailed star system will be equal to the empire’s colony with the highest supply point rating in that star system.

While supply routes can be traced normally across minor, normal or major jump lanes, they cannot cross a restricted jump lane unless the systems at both ends of the jump contain military supply ships owned by the player or an allied power. These military supply ships must have a Supply or Collier rating of two (2) or more in order to carry out this mission, or else a player must devote a number of lesser military supply ships with a total Supply/Collier rating are essentially making a constant circuit across the restricted lane, carrying supplies from one system to the other in order to keep them in supply.

MORALE AND SUPPLY POINTS
The Morale level at a colony will have an impact on its usefulness as a supply point. If a colony is in a state of Unrest (Morale less than half Census), it will receive a -1 penalty to its supply point rating. A colony in a state of Rebellion instead receives a -2 supply point rating penalty.


SUPPLY DEPOTS
The presence of a friendly supply depot (either planetary or orbital) in a star system will increase its supply point rating by one for each depot present.

A supply depot must be able to trace a basic supply route to a controlled or allied system in order to provide its rating bonus. Supply depots that are themselves out of supply provide none of their normal bonuses. This is the Achilles’ Heel of the supply depot; if an enemy manages to cut a depot off from its source of supply (i.e., the system or systems to which it is connected via a basic supply route), the supply depot will rendered ineffective. Despite this weakness, supply depots are an effective means of cheaply extending an empire’s supply network to encompass additional star systems.

Example: The Wolf 1061 system is located along a vital hyperspace route that the Terran Commonwealth is determined to protect. However, it lacks vital supply lines into the region.

The Wolf 1061 system contains a single colony with 2 Utilized Productivity. This is not enough to provide a single point of supply point rating, so Wolf 1061 is not currently a supply point. However, if the Terrans were to place a supply depot in the system it would increase its supply point rating by 1 to 1, which would convert the system into a supply point that could extend supply out one jump from the system. If a second supply depot was placed in this system, its supply point rating would increase to 2, allowing a basic supply route to be extended out two jumps from Wolf 1061.

Two distinct types of supply depots can be encountered in a campaign. The first, and most common, is a planetary supply depot that is purchased and deployed like a ground unit. Orbital supply depots can also be encountered in a campaign, either as a stand-alone supply depot installation or a larger military starbase that possesses the Supply Depot unit ability.

I like it though there is one exception.

Tyrel Lohr wrote: Each supply depot in the colony's system increases this rating by 1, too, so you can use them to artificially extend your supply routes -- at a cost to build and maintain those supply depots.

Supply depots should be built on the frontier and not at your homeworld (or other high productivity colonies) safely behind the frontlines.

I agree,

The current supply rules are sort of OK,

If you add the settlement rules then building a settlement and then shipping in a supply depot from your homeworld is pretty easy - and allows for fairly quick expansion anyway,

And for exploration, freighters (and extended supply lines) are the way to go,

Rainer wrote:Supply depots should be built on the frontier and not at your homeworld (or other high productivity colonies) safely behind the frontlines.

The only good fix that I can think of for that would be to institute a maximum supply point rating that any system can have, because I think that it would be the only way to directly limit abuse without breaking the functionality.

The problem I see is that, though well-developed systems shouldn't necessarily benefit from supply depots (except as backups), some smaller empires may have "major" colonies (even homeworld systems) with a normal supply rating of 1. In those cases, I think it should be thematically valid for them to place a supply depot at the edge of their system to help supply their forces.

I can see that cumulative bonuses probably aren't the way to go with these things. In conjunction with moving supply depots from being standard units to Supply Depot as a unit ability, you could just have the best Supply Depot in a system provide a bonus, up to some stated maximum. What should that maximum be? 5 sounds like a good, round number to me, though 4 is probably more practical.

Tyrel Lohr wrote: I can see that cumulative bonuses probably aren't the way to go with these things. In conjunction with moving supply depots from being standard units to Supply Depot as a unit ability, you could just have the best Supply Depot in a system provide a bonus, up to some stated maximum. What should that maximum be? 5 sounds like a good, round number to me, though 4 is probably more practical.

I would say that only a single supply depot can be applied to the planet's/system's supply rating. If you can build a supply point that extends 4 lanes out (every 4 jumps), what's the point of tracking supply at all?

-Bren

I think a supply range of 4 would be a good hard limit, as its the maximum that a homeworld system can support without supply depots.