It uses the same chat system the rest of the players have. :)

And again, the purpose of the strike force is not to make it fun for the player who's traveling in enemy territory. It's to make it relatively safe for newbies who have no idea what they're doing yet.

So no comments on my kamikaze support bots idea?

Actually magus, I just finished implementing it. It's sort of weird and hacked in on top of the current system, so the bots aren't as effective as they could be, but they should do the job. I've also lowered the damage of the strike force bots' weapons to that of a Tachyon MkII.

I suggest that there be NPC ships (or fleets of ships) wandering around the universe on patrol instead of interceptors that just warp in. For example, if you're near the core systems of the Serco Dominion, you're gonna see lots of patrolling Serco warships, fighter wings, etc. You'll see a big guard fleet in Geira Rutilus and constant vigilance patrols in the wormhole sector, but between the two in, say Betheshee, you'll only see the occasional patrol flying between Geira and Sol II. Same goes for Dantia and Rhamus.

On the Itani side, there'd be a fleet in Deneb, reinforcements in Eo, a small backup fleet in Cantus, and then pretty much just fighters between there and Itan. Of course, a hostile attempting to penetrate enemy space would certainly face opposition, just not the arbitrary sort they do right now. Let's say I jumped to Deneb. The cruiser posted there sees me and dispatches a wing of fighters to hunt me down. Luckily, I jump out to a different sector, immediately rejump a few more times and lose them for good. That builds the atmosphere while also making it possible to lose enemies.

Oh yeah, and from a design standpoint, no basic game function should be accessible solely from the command line.

I agree with ctishman, various size patrol fleets wandering around would be cool. Chuck in a few capital ships of course ;-)