FTL in campaign games

According to the Lafayette campaign scenario a ship or fleet can't change
direction once they've entered Hyper.

So in campaign games, when a ship retreats to FTL, logically the player should
note whether it is leaving the system entirely or attempting a short hop.

With respect to merchant convoys it doesn't make sense to travel sublight
between planets in a system unless the hyper limit is well beyond their
orbits. Alternately, hyper transits within a system have to
be uneconomical and/or dangerous.

The easiest way for it to be uneconomical is for it to require a lot of fuel.
Say a hyper transit requires 1 Mass unit of fuel in Cargo per 100 Mass of
ships per strategic hex.

So a ten hex jump by 300 mass of ships would require 30 mass units of fuel. If
the fleet brings along
a 100 Mass tanker, the fleet, + tanker, will be able
to transit back.

Unless the fleet manages to capture local refining or tankers, the fleet could
become stranded by a sneak attack on the tankers.

If FTL transits within a system are possible but use up 1 Mass unit of Fuel
per 100 Mass per AU traveled you have a very understandable limitation. One
could safely assume that a significant portion of the Mass of the FTL system
is extra fuel tanks if one wants to calculate the endurance of a fleet.

This kind of logistical complication makes it important to set up refueling
outposts as well as setting up provisions to deny those outposts to the enemy.
It also gives the defense an extra advantage. If they can use FTL in system to
jump on attackers, and then jump back to base to replentish missiles before
the attackers can rearm, they have a major advantage. Ships assigned to defend
systems would have a lot more expendable weapons while ships attacking another
system would have to rely more on beams.

Good strategy for an invading fleet would be to first destroy or takeover the
defenders' Gas Giant orbiting refineries before attempting to go after the
settled planets. The attacker might bring his own refinery in and start
refueling his fleet. The defender would have to consider whether to go out to
attack the attackers refueling base or wait for reinforcements.

Of course, if FTL can be used at all within a system then System Defense boats
are hosed. There is no way for them to cover everything.

On the other hand, if an attack fleet needs to commit 5% of its hull space to
fuel the system defense boats will have an even greater edge than they do.