Checkout the document, it has all the text. Copy pasting it resulted in a mess.
This nifty code-function which should be more than plenty with whatever you're having issues with.
Or maybe, you can elaborate a bit more.
Yes the player shouldn't be able to make loads of money unchallenged, but expeditions are not the way to do it.
How to prevent expeditions.
1) Don't use free port.
Yes the player shouldn't be able to make loads of money unchallenged, but expeditions are not the way to do it.
How to prevent expeditions.
1) Don't use free port.
Fake. None of my colony ever used free port yet still getting raids with free port as excuse.
Generally I agree that the worst thing about expedition fleets right now is that they attack you even when 100/100 commissioned and that you lose rep when you defend in person.
Awesome to hear!Generally I agree that the worst thing about expedition fleets right now is that they attack you even when 100/100 commissioned and that you lose rep when you defend in person.
(Both on my TODO list, btw.)
What determines fleet str? Is it just how much money you're making in the market? Both my colonies do not have freeport on and run 0 AI cores, but it still makes me about 200k per cycle (depending on pather junk, which is a different issue).
I wouldn't like the idea that a positive rep with other factions made you immune to this danger. Because expeditions are a big part of the counterbalance to colony profits. Positive faction rep already makes the game easier, it doesn't need to negate half of the endgame threats too. It could increase the interval between expeditions, possibly.
I wouldn't like the idea that a positive rep with other factions made you immune to this danger. Because expeditions are a big part of the counterbalance to colony profits. Positive faction rep already makes the game easier, it doesn't need to negate half of the endgame threats too. It could increase the interval between expeditions, possibly.
To clarify, I agree with that, but factions you have a commission from seem like a reasonable exception, since that's limited to one faction.
Nothing and nobody cares about distance. That's annoying and unrealistic.
What determines fleet str? Is it just how much money you're making in the market? Both my colonies do not have freeport on and run 0 AI cores, but it still makes me about 200k per cycle (depending on pather junk, which is a different issue).
I just let it defend itself and, while the stability has taken hits, it has yet to lose to a raid
I'm on the other side of sector and completely unable to do anything about it.
All I'm getting from this, is that I'm not allowed to leave this colony alone anymore.
I just let it defend itself and, while the stability has taken hits, it has yet to lose to a raid
Congrats on being lucky I suppose.
I left my fortress world alone with a maxed station, ground defence, and miltary base. And plenty of patrol fleets with capships/carriers wandering about boosted by a nanoforge, and the Hegemony pitches up with an "evenly matched" fleet and proceeds to kick all my anthills over while I'm on the other side of sector and completely unable to do anything about it.
All I'm getting from this, is that I'm not allowed to leave this colony alone anymore.
Congrats on being lucky I suppose.
I left my fortress world alone with a maxed station, ground defence, and miltary base. And plenty of patrol fleets with capships/carriers wandering about boosted by a nanoforge, and the Hegemony pitches up with an "evenly matched" fleet and proceeds to kick all my anthills over while I'm on the other side of sector and completely unable to do anything about it.
All I'm getting from this, is that I'm not allowed to leave this colony alone anymore.
What strength-ratings are the enemy expeditions that qualify as evenly matched?
I get about 1 or 2 raids every 2 months. Usually targetting the same colony despite there being 9 targets. (All with free port and high market share of various products, and all size 8 plus)Ah yes. I think factions prefer to target capital world(the planet where your faction sends manufactured weapons/ships) if there are multiple possible, equally large targets.
I meant enemy invasion fleet size. My whole point was that I'm yet to have the trouble many are claiming where they just blitz my colony with a super fleet. They did blitz with something absurd for a colony that was just starting (1 cap and many crusiers) but the largest thing i've seen was 4 caps + cruisers, broken into 3ish fleets, and even waiting for them to all engage my star fortress alone, it still won.What determines fleet str? Is it just how much money you're making in the market? Both my colonies do not have freeport on and run 0 AI cores, but it still makes me about 200k per cycle (depending on pather junk, which is a different issue).
I suspect fleet size/quality factors are exactly what fleet size/quality tooltips state, without any hidden extras. In terms of actual combat ability, your doctrine (with chosen blueprints/weapons) also matters of course.
Currently, they subtract from the gameplay experience, ...
If you're able to build two or more colonies in close proximity (optimal situation: planet & moon, or moons of a gas giant), then once built up with starbases and military bases, they'll be unbeatable by any strength attack.Perhaps. But is double fleet truly enough against all malevolent forces of the sector?
Double the fleets patrolling.
Are those colonies profitable? IIRC the planets are all barren in Penelope's Star.
How long did you spend exploring/grinding to get all those AI cores and pristine nanoforges? Not gonna lie, that is an excessive amount of loot.
19 alpha cores? I found three (counting the quest one) after scouring 80% of the Sector :(
*harsh*If you don't belive me, that's fine. It does not however change anything.
I think the luddites hit you anyway if you have an Orbital Works...I'm p. sure they hit you if you have ANY heavy industry.
What's hitting your fleet quality?234% doesn't seem awful. No idea what's good or what isn't though.
I wouldn't like the idea that a positive rep with other factions made you immune to this danger. Because expeditions are a big part of the counterbalance to colony profits. Positive faction rep already makes the game easier, it doesn't need to negate half of the endgame threats too. It could increase the interval between expeditions, possibly.
A single world cannot stand alone.
Multi-world systems seem to be essential to autonomy at the moment, as a single fleet HQ just cannot form enough fleets to even slow these guys down, let alone repel them.
Hegemony still incoming.
A single world cannot stand alone.
Multi-world systems seem to be essential to autonomy at the moment, as a single fleet HQ just cannot form enough fleets to even slow these guys down, let alone repel them.
Hegemony still incoming.
You are doing something wrong.
Single size 10 world with pristine nanoforge:
Didn't have to intervene since the start of the game, expeditions always lose.
I think this is the point. Colonies don't start out at size 10, or with a pristine nanoforge, but killer expedition forces start immediately.
I think this is the point. Colonies don't start out at size 10, or with a pristine nanoforge, but killer expedition forces start immediately.
Still, I intervened ~3 times total since playing the patch.
Expeditions were eaten up by defenses even on a smaller world, but 6-7 is very fast anyway.
Enemy fleets probably do scale a bit, not sure but they certainly didn't do anything against no nanoforge lvl 2 station/patrol either.
Still, I intervened ~3 times total since playing the patch.
Expeditions were eaten up by defenses even on a smaller world, but 6-7 is very fast anyway.
Enemy fleets probably do scale a bit, not sure but they certainly didn't do anything against no nanoforge lvl 2 station/patrol either.
Neither of these extremes are particularly fun to me--getting your colony wiped in the early game if you dont babysit full time, or having invincible planetary systems on auto pilot. I think players should have to play an *occasional* active role in colony defense for extreme threats for colonies of any size. These threats should be less frequent than they are now, and less severe in the early going. They should be a dramatic event, but not business as usual.
If anything, I think the current curve should be inverted so that reasonable investment in automated defenses is sufficient for most early colony threats, but eventually the player will need to assume a more active role in defending against extreme threats to late game large colonies.
At no point should a player feel like they can never run missions out to the edge of the map without getting called back to defend the colony, which is the way I feel now.
Neither of these extremes are particularly fun to me--getting your colony wiped in the early game if you dont babysit full time, or having invincible planetary systems on auto pilot. I think players should have to play an *occasional* active role in colony defense for extreme threats for colonies of any size. These threats should be less frequent than they are now, and less severe in the early going. They should be a dramatic event, but not business as usual.
If anything, I think the current curve should be inverted so that reasonable investment in automated defenses is sufficient for most early colony threats, but eventually the player will need to assume a more active role in defending against extreme threats to late game large colonies.
At no point should a player feel like they can never run missions out to the edge of the map without getting called back to defend the colony, which is the way I feel now.
Didn't say anything about what I prefer, just that a single system with proper defenses willeasilyeventually fend off attackers by itself.
It's just obvious people falling into traps wanting to rush the colony progress and got instantly hammered for rushing.
The small size colony shouldn't produce as much and shouldn't get as much accessibility to even get a good share in market in first place, while ppl craving profits are doing so, they get those expeditions they're not ready for.
Mechanically it's a well-done design, but practically it needs more tutorial and explanation, like another tooltip when setting up first colony telling you should not produce too much to draw attention.
I dont think a player should face a colony wipe just because they turned on Free Port to supply a need the game tells them the colonists have. I'm not rushing anything, or using AI cores, and I have no idea how to optimize an economy. But I do know that having to tie one arm behind your back and deliberately keep a colony small is not a very fun/intuitive way to play a colony building game.
I dont think a player should face a colony wipe just because they turned on Free Port to supply a need the game tells them the colonists have. I'm not rushing anything, or using AI cores, and I have no idea how to optimize an economy. But I do know that having to tie one arm behind your back and deliberately keep a colony small is not a very fun/intuitive way to play a colony building game.
I think they totally should for not even reading why the major factions want to F with them. If you think you can fend it off yourself go do it, if you can't and want to do something else you also can with "deliberately" keeping the colony small.
Plus, the very first few expeditions can be averted with reasonable small bill.
IMO it's more of a case ppl "deliberately" pushing productivity to maximum without knowing that will draw some serious attention until they literally got spanked.
Players are trained by countless other games to build and produce with their colonies as soon as possible. Pretending that having to deliberately *not* do this to survive, against factions that you otherwise have good relations with, is in any way intuitive for a new player does the game no favors. This game is a commercial product, and having it get hammered by professional and user reviews criticizing opaque and arbitrary difficulty is in no one's interest.
(emphasis mine)Players are trained by countless other games to build and produce with their colonies as soon as possible. Pretending that having to deliberately *not* do this to survive, against factions that you otherwise have good relations with, is in any way intuitive for a new player does the game no favors. This game is a commercial product, and having it get hammered by professional and user reviews criticizing opaque and arbitrary difficulty is in no one's interest.
I think *THIS* is the issue. I never rushed for colony until, well, I feel I wanted to and sit on something like 500k, worried the payroll of crew killing my economy.
It's not that this game is not teaching but otherwise some other game kept giving some biased information and making player make terrible decisions not knowing things just work differently here.
I feel like the underlined phrases contradict each other.
I for one wish game taught me what high Hazard rating will do to your wallet few ingame years down the line.I had no idea 175% would do a number on my account when I first played. With max colony skills, it is okay, but I still want to find the ideal place for a new primary colony. All of the low hazard planets I found for most of my game are either low on resources or highly isolated. It turns out the system just north of the League could be a good multi-colony system and a second next to it. Low on resources, but low on hazard and has what I need. (I explored nearly the whole east of the sector and just have a string of lone waypoint colonies for my trouble.
Regarding the disconnect between faction relations and the seemingly arbitrary invasion system:
Is there a reason why it wouldn't be better to simply have certain colony management decisions (free port, AI use, etc) simply start to decrease relations with another faction until they become hostile, with invasions the natural result of hostile relations, as it would be in most other games with a faction system? This would provide immediate feedback on those decisions, allowing a player to course correct if desired, and be far more intuitive all the way around.
Subjective obviously, but game factions reacting to player decisions in plausible, intuitive manner= Fun. Surprise colony-ending doomstack from a friendly neighbor = not fun.
Regarding the disconnect between faction relations and the seemingly arbitrary invasion system:
Is there a reason why it wouldn't be better to simply have certain colony management decisions (free port, AI use, etc) simply start to decrease relations with another faction until they become hostile, with invasions the natural result of hostile relations, as it would be in most other games with a faction system? This would provide immediate feedback on those decisions, allowing a player to course correct if desired, and be far more intuitive all the way around.
I think it would be good enough just adding a diplomatic stage before any expedition initiates, giving you some "kind" warns and let you have a chance to fix it.
It would be good (and far more believable) if, before sending any expedition fleets, the big faction sent the player a polite letter. "Dear Sir/Madam, We notice that you are now a significant producer of commodities including X, Y and Z. Be careful not to produce too much or we won't be responsible for the consequences." (Although the player would need new buttons to comply, since growth is currently automatic.)I don't think the player should receive straightforward message of "don't do this", but rather have factions annoy you without outright using their military might. Something like Hegemony sending tax collectors, Luddic Church sending their preachers (it would be nice if this had different outcomes, and at least one of them would lead to not having pather cell from the get go), Tri-Tachyon trying to sue you over some inane ***... This could escalate to funding pirates, corsairs and eventually semi-open hostilities, as factions try to prevent others from getting you over to their side. It would also be more natural, as factions wouldn't send expeditions just because, but because you might have legitimately *** them off.
I for one wish game taught me what high Hazard rating will do to your wallet few ingame years down the line.
With all the focus on the rough edges, I'll just mention that I actually enjoy the pirate invasion event. Getting all your big boats out of storage to hunt down and destroy the offending pirate base is a satisfying bit of payback for the trouble they caused you. That is something intuitive that I understand.This.
I just don't enjoy it much when all the various invasion events are happening at the same time.
The issue is that the first time setting a colony you just don't know how much can you do and how bad effects all these modifiers have. It's not half bad if all you lose is your time and some money, if you can earn it back, but if you lose too much (or let your colony grow) it might put you a couple of hours back in your playthrough, if you don't save scum.And this.
Limiting colonies to the late game is one way of 'solving' this mismatch. Although it would be a pretty rubbish way of going about it.
Didn't say anything about what I prefer, just that a single system with proper defenses willeasilyeventually fend off attackers by itself.
Corrected for accuracy.
Then you're wrong - or, at the very least, your experiences do not generalize as well as you think they do. I did, as it turns out, follow exactly the listing you specified - I was a little bit slow on getting the station up, which led to troubles with a pirate raid, but after that? Just the tech mine prompted constant expeditions from the major factions. At size three. If I hadn't had the credits to buy them off, my colony would have been flattened; it wasn't even -close- to being able to fend off expedition fleets by itself.Didn't say anything about what I prefer, just that a single system with proper defenses willeasilyeventually fend off attackers by itself.
Corrected for accuracy.
No need for that, I wrote exactly what I meant.
I mentioned before but I'm not sure if it was in this thread:Especially I'd like to see this vary by faction. Like, say, the Hegemony has administrators everywhere with at least one skill, sometimes two, and maybe a few scattered uses of gamma-grade AI cores. While Tri-Tachyon doesn't have quite so many skilled administrators... but is perfectly happy to use beta-grade AI cores, maybe even a few alpha-grade on their favorite planets. Sindrian Diktat has a single skilled administrator that handles every planet they control (Because really, the Diktat feels a lot like what a player might build). Persean League varies by planet; some have nothing, some have administrators and AI cores both. Independents will use AI cores you give them... and then eventually lose them to a Hegemony inspection fleet. And so on and so forth.
I think a BIG help would be to just make the AI faction's economies better (upping their production, giving them administrators, etc) and in turn raising the threshold for when they get *** off by production.
Then you're wrong - or, at the very least, your experiences do not generalize as well as you think they do. I did, as it turns out, follow exactly the listing you specified - I was a little bit slow on getting the station up, which led to troubles with a pirate raid, but after that? Just the tech mine prompted constant expeditions from the major factions. At size three. If I hadn't had the credits to buy them off, my colony would have been flattened; it wasn't even -close- to being able to fend off expedition fleets by itself.
I mentioned before but I'm not sure if it was in this thread:
I think a BIG help would be to just make the AI faction's economies better (upping their production, giving them administrators, etc) and in turn raising the threshold for when they get *** off by production.
If only I could figure out how to get Tri Tach angry at me, I'd have almost everything I could want, and the ship pokemon appeal of a SS playthrough would be mostly over for me.They once went after me because of... ore. Only once, though. They're rarer than Luddic Church expeditions!
Never mind other factions. Once you start producing good ships and weapons of your own, you can loot stuff from the remains of your own faction and get free stuff that way too instead of paying for production costs.
If only I could figure out how to get Tri Tach angry at me, I'd have almost everything I could want, and the ship pokemon appeal of a SS playthrough would be mostly over for me.They once went after me because of... ore. Only once, though. They're rarer than Luddic Church expeditions!
If only I could figure out how to get Tri Tach angry at me, I'd have almost everything I could want, and the ship pokemon appeal of a SS playthrough would be mostly over for me.They once went after me because of... ore. Only once, though. They're rarer than Luddic Church expeditions!
One just popped. They're enraged by my meager market share of...domestic goods. Hi tech superpower furious over blue jeans and throw rugs.
Looks like Christmas is coming early!
I think part of the problem is that people do not realize that building industry and accessibility will get you on someone’s *** list.
You can generally avoid expeditions (besides pirates) by simply accepting a low profit and growth. A low hazard planet will produce minor profits with no industry and minor to significant defenses.
If you keep accessibility low (~50% or lower) you can even produce reasonable quantities and be safe because you’re not exporting enough to be a problem
If you're trying to play with the big boysThey're not very big if a months old size 3 world in the arse-end of nowhere can take ~30% of the market share of anything just by existing.
I think part of the problem is that people do not realize that building industry and accessibility will get you on someone’s *** list.
You can generally avoid expeditions (besides pirates) by simply accepting a low profit and growth. A low hazard planet will produce minor profits with no industry and minor to significant defenses.
If you keep accessibility low (~50% or lower) you can even produce reasonable quantities and be safe because you’re not exporting enough to be a problem
I'm just quoting this for emphasis. It makes sense. If you're trying to play with the big boys, they're gonna *** on you. In that light, keeping low-profit colonies and letting them grow before you expand seems like a reasonable choice.
If you're trying to play with the big boysThey're not very big if a months old size 3 world in the arse-end of nowhere can take ~30% of the market share of anything just by existing.
I don't know about anyone else, but one of the primary reasons I want a colony at all is to produce supplies and fuel that I can use in a convenient location that does not require that I travel back into the core. And just doing that alone is enough trigger this nonsense.
Hell, the very first world I colonised got roflstomped just for having active tech mining.
Yup. If the player can corner a market this easily, then the NPC market needs strengthening. I think no one will disagree that faction planets are underpowered.
A consequence of this might be that stronger markets will be less paranoid about sending fleets your way, since player colonies will have less of an impact.
This is really unfair and discourages the desire to build colonies.
What is your algorithm to build a colony and survive?
Let pirates raid a system belonging to a faction you want to raise rep with. System bounty will likely be posted, then clean up the pirates to gain lots of rep (and some money) fast.Megas, thanks you for the good tip. It will help me! Previously, I have never performed missions to clean up systems from pirates, since the rewards were low: something like 1,400 cred per frigate.
Once Free Port is on, expeditions are frequent, and rep will be nickel-and-dimed away if nothing else is done. The easiest way to raise rep is system bounties.
Megas, thanks you for the good tip. It will help me! Previously, I have never performed missions to clean up systems from pirates, since the rewards were low: something like 1,400 cred per frigate.
If the system is actually getting raided and there are big enough pirate fleets, you can make some decent money from system bounties. 1400 per frigate may not sound like much, but that's also 2800 per destroyer, 5600 per cruiser, and 11200 per capital (assuming each size class simply scales the bounty by *2). If it's mid-late game and the pirates are active enough in the system or still had some raiding parties there, you can make a pretty easy 50k+ without having to spend the usual amount of fuel to leave the core systems for "personal" bounties.
I wouldn't call those 50k+ "easy", i would call them tedious. It's time consuming and isn't very fun, just like squishing an annoying mosquito that found it's way into your bedroom is just a pure annoyance.
I wasn't implying that the player should ignore named personal bounties and just fly around doing system bounties, auto-resolving against every 6-frigate pirate fleet in the system.The context seemed to imply like that's the solution to the reputation hit from expeditions.
The context seemed to imply like that's the solution to the reputation hit from expeditions.That is the easiest solution. Never said it was great or fun. It beats getting +3 rep from personal bounty, or +5 or so rep from doing an exploration mission. This is, if you need to build up a bunch of rep fast so that you have a buffer from the inevitable rep drops, system bounties are the way to go. It can also generate a ton of money comparable to an endgame bounty if you can smash about a dozen or so fleets, although earning money that way is not the main goal. Also, the systems patrols may be distracted and it may be a great opportunity to stealth raid their heavy industry world yourself for blueprints. One time, I had almost zero rep with Diktat. Then Askonia had a system bounty. I rushed over there to kill pirates near Umbra. On the way to Umbra, I raided Sindria for a blueprint when I noticed patrols were away. After sweeping up pirates at Umbra, I went back to Sindria to raid it again for another blueprint. After I left, I had about 50 rep, lots of money, and two more rare blueprints.
Anyways, the point is that it feels like many on this forum seem to view colonies as after-game thing. Basically a "send endless waves of enemies at me" button. Which it pretty much is, currently, and I don't find that to be particularly enjoyable, especially since I don't view combat as the main attraction.I can understand that. It really gets bad once Free Port gets turned on, and it piles on top of the endless pirate raid spam core worlds are helpless against. By the time I am powerful enough to properly defend a colony from major factions' expeditions which can be as powerful as 350k+ bounties (i.e., multi-capital spam), I have effectively won the game. It does not take much to attract expeditions.
I can attest to this - I was making a fuel run and saw a big pirate fleet about to attack a Hegemony station. Took it out for the supplies and to protect this convenient fuel depot, got a cool 85k as a bonus from the system bounty.I feel one of the odd issues with all this, although it makes sense, is you've really got to annihilate the fleet or else repair costs can eat into you hard. You still get some rep i guess and it's fun to fight pirate fleets, but I was farming bounties early and barely breaking even just because I couldn't quite slaughter them.
Its not a huge amount of money, and a lot less than what I could make from a named bounty of the same size, but I didn't have to do any travel for it at all, which was a big time and supply saver.