I see the Programmed mission objectives as an option to go beyond your currently established 'network'. The network would take time to expand and improve quality so it wouldn't be the majority of your empire being run by Missions, but rather your frontier/expansion. How far beyond the 'edge' of your empire you can expand directly would rely on your com and sensor network. It offers a choice: Do you expand more slowly, carefully, and reliably, or do you gamble and thrust forward, somewhere deeper in space where you will have less control until you are established enough to have expanded your network to cover the area of influence.

For a 4X space game, it could also be an interesting mechanic of establishing wormholes or something, and it could offer not only your communication network, but also a resource and military movement network options. Com networks would of course be the easiest and quickest to establish, being barely large enough to beam a data signal through, while materials networks taking slightly longer to establish, but would otherwise be mere pipes you push basic stuff through. Sending full sized ships would require a massive investment in time and resources, but could let you jump your fleet between two points on the map in a single turn.

This could give the interesting aspect of empires that spread out in new patterns. Rather than spreading merely to the 'next' system, they can instead send scouting fleets to far flung regions (with the risk of being cut off while being established) and then later 'rejoined' directly with the rest of the empire.

This could give the interesting aspect of empires that spread out in new patterns. Rather than spreading merely to the 'next' system, they can instead send scouting fleets to far flung regions (with the risk of being cut off while being established) and then later 'rejoined' directly with the rest of the empire.

I've actually come with a twist regarding this. I won't go into the details, but I've had to schematised the ideology of each of my species and how they relate to their environment, how they should move, etc. It shouldn't be a forced template that the player needs to understand, but rather, a guideline for production that I want to insure remains a viable overarching strategy (not limiting others from naturally emanating).

I've checked into the actual objective I was trying to achieve:

Objective

Create a decision scenario based on risk assessment:

Do I want to advance quickly, or carefully.

While this objective is already met by at least 2 core gameplay elements, I believe there is still some room to increase the strategic decision here.

Reasons to be careful:

- Logistics impairment that make the ships suboptimal when reaching out.

For example, fuel, is one such limitation. If you intend to go further, you need to plan accordingly or risk being stranded into space with empty fuel tanks.

- Sense of danger.

For example, being unable to rely on sensors (shorter ranges or accuracy by lack of support from the empire's data) would give a sense of danger. Enemies might see you coming even though you are unaware of their presence. It puts your ship in a vulnerable position.

Reasons to move quickly:

- Distress / Strategic Concern

A ship being under attack requiring assistance or resupplying for example. It is understood that many battles will occur in deep space, away from your actual empire (even some defensive battles).

- Exploration / Worthless colonies.

Attempting to find potential colonies might require you to move further away. You might have to discard several planets because of their relative low value, and it will be hard to determine in which direction you'll want to expand until you actually find a potential colony. As a result, you'll be tempted to send scout ships in many directions at once.

- Sweep / Spy

You're likely to want to avoid revealing your presence to the enemy. As a result, you'll want to have ships far outside of your empire. That way, you can detect and intercept enemy ships without giving away too much information about your current location(s).

Likewise, you'll be able to gather some intel on your enemies' location by stationing silent ships throughout the galaxy. Eventually, their freighters and lighter ships are bound to move in the vicinity and you'll be aware of their expansion plans, using that info as you see fit (either strike, or wait).

- It is important that players are able to direct starships out of their empire in realtime. Hence, I'd try to stick away from delayed reporting etc but wouldn't necessarily discard the capability that ships outside of a given range cannot be controlled directly.

I'm trying to find ways into which Communication could play a major role to support this objective as a limiting factor to force the player to consider the advantage gained by moving faster against the drawbacks caused by moving outside from the communication range.

Communication here is just the theme, but I somehow need to graft a logistic mechanic to it that feels organic to the game.

Logistically you could have a maintenance-bay/shipyard/building(my english fails me here) that keeps X ships in the sector functioning properly, if you wanted to attack a neighbour, you would need to build a lot of them on your border with him.
If he would notice this increase in maintenance-buildings he could figure out you're trying to attack him.

You can still allow as many ships in a sector as you like, they would just start detoriating after a while.

Actually carrying resource X(fuel?) to this frontline-area seems too boring for a game.

(Unless spiced up by, for example, the enemy capable of attacking the supply-ships,

you seem to be suggesting your empire is actually more "hidden" instead of "fortified" with a lot of empty space in-between)

Logistically you could have a maintenance-bay/shipyard/building(my english fails me here) that keeps X ships in the sector functioning properly, if you wanted to attack a neighbour, you would need to build a lot of them on your border with him.

I thought about moving Flagships with 'communication' points which would support ships around them. This would give a sort of 'this is a fleet' type of idea.

I could extend the concept and make it so that ships within the range get resupplied by the Flagship in realtime, so long as they remain within range, which would allow them to perform smaller missions for example. However, I feel this is too taxing/limiting on the game and couldn't quite find a different use for it after tinkering with the initial concept.

The part about ships not 'functioning properly', what did you have in mind specifically?

You can still allow as many ships in a sector as you like, they would just start detoriating after a while.

here too, what do you mean by 'deteriorating' specifically?

Actually carrying resource X(fuel?) to this frontline-area seems too boring for a game.

(Unless spiced up by, for example, the enemy capable of attacking the supply-ships,

Freighters can be intercepted/destroyed and even captured.

you seem to be suggesting your empire is actually more "hidden" instead of "fortified" with a lot of empty space in-between)

Not necessarily accurate for all species.

umm, they'd start rusting.

they'd slowly become weaker, less efficiënt and might after some time even break down entirely.

But how would that be related to a lack of communication?

hmm, maybe instead have the ships underperform in hitaccuracy, something about targeting-computers not getting all the enemy locations in fast enough.
(or whatever you can make up anyway)

Now, communication affecting accuracy is very interesting. Sort of a tracking system, which differs from sensors which are merely detecting presence and composition.

Also, communication would apply to manually targetting weaponry in such a way that a missile will hit its target, etc.

The way I see this implemented would be that whenever one of my ships fights within the comm range of my empire, it receives a bonus to the accuracy of its weapons. That would encourage me to either meet the enemy on my own terms (at home) or force outposts with communication devices to support an onslaught.

It's still a bit thin, but it could work.