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Author Topic: Killing core to stop the babysitting...  (Read 11471 times)

Megas

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Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« on: August 16, 2019, 07:59:43 PM »

After having an itch to play Starsector a bit, I dusted off my last save and decided to go on a core-killing spree.

A few moments ago, I just sat bombed the last Hegemony planet (in Nakara) away.  Before I did that, I got an alert that Hegemony would send an expedition to one of my colonies due to Free Port.  After I destroyed the last Hegemony colony, the expedition failed due to being disrupted in the planning stages.  With Hegemony (and Luddic Church) gone, I can use Free Port without anyone stopping me.  Also, no more inspections for using cores!

I will destroy the rest of core to make the expeditions stop!  I guess once I wipe out core, I can farm for alphas and build more colonies!

Turns out trying to decivilize planets with prolonged zero stability appears to take a long while, something to do only if I want to decivilize a planet from the beginning and willing to wait at least several months, if not longer.  If I want planets dead now, nothing seems to get the job done as quickly as saturation bombing.

All of that accessibility penalty from hostilities, it slowly goes down as I destroy core worlds one by one.

For some reason, I thought sat bombing a colony to death would leave behind Decivilized.  It does not, just Pollution if it was habitable, or nothing if it was not.  Pollution hurts less than Decivilized.  If I want to take over the planet, I should sat bomb the planet to death.

Feels good to be Black Sabbath's Iron Man.  My character takes revenge for all the obnoxious babysitting and expeditions he has to put up with from major factions.  Time to end it!
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Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2019, 09:15:16 AM »

I finally wiped out all of core and noticed some things (that others probably already knew about).

Accessibility is at maximum, since my colonies are the only ones left.

I have many mercs and freelancers I could hire.  Too bad I cannot hire more.

Pirate activity is almost non-stop.  I guess since there is no one else left, pirates target my colonies.  I wipe out pirate bases, and they respawn and target my colonies days later.  With non-pirate core worlds, my colonies only get targeted few times per year.

With no export income, income per colony is maybe less than a tenth than with everyone around, less than 100k.  Even with only pirate and pather core worlds left, I could make about 200k-300k.

I guess no matter what I do, I will always babysit something.

It seems that if I really want to stop all expeditions from major factions while leaving enough core worlds for pirates to torment instead of me, then I should take a commission for the one major faction I should spare, preferably one that controls the most worlds or systems.  Hegemony is probably out if they do inspections even if commissioned with.  Maybe League, they are as big as Hegemony.  Then again, Tri-Tachyon does not care about atrocities, and they have more markets than Diktat.  Diktat also has lobsters, which means if I kill major factions, I could take out Diktat and take over Volturn to control lobster exports.  Then again, taking over Volturn probably means wiping out Nortia and Umbra to stop extermination attempts.

If I simply want no inspections (no bribes, no chance of core theft), then wiping out Hegemony only seems like a good idea.

I guess if I really want to kill everyone, I probably should farm alpha cores then build many colonies for more income from population before going on the extermination crusade.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2019, 09:35:13 AM by Megas »
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Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2019, 09:47:26 AM »

One more thing I noticed.  Pather Cells did not appear on my colonies after installing a bunch of alpha cores.  I think that happened after I wiped out Luddic Church (not the Path) from the sector.  If that is the case, that means wiping out the Luddic Church is a good idea just to prevent Pather cells from bothering me.

So, it seems if I want to eliminate some but not all of the major factions, then taking out Hegemony and Church seems like the best course of action in anything, just so I can abuse as many cores as I want without any headaches.
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Flare

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2019, 08:10:32 PM »

Going to go try wiping out the Luddic Path and Church worlds tonight and see if it applies to my game as well.
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Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2019, 05:57:25 AM »

Turns out killing all Luddic Church worlds alone is not enough to prevent Pather cells from spawning.  There must be something else.  They did not spawn after I destroyed all major factions.  I have not determined the exact conditions that prevents Pather cells from spawning regardless of industry and core abuse.
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goduranus

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2019, 09:53:57 AM »

Can you try also kill all pirates and also LP planets? Cuz LP are only non-hostile with 2 factions, LC and pirates. Maybe killing all the non-hostile factions to them messes up the supply chain to their bases and cause them to collapse or something.

Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2019, 11:13:08 AM »

I had independents, pirates, and pathers left after the major faction purge.  If it helps, I also stole all of the nanoforges and synchrotrons (except one corrupted at Sindria) from all core planets before I destroyed them (except for New Maxios).

I doubt killing all pirate and pather worlds would stop pather cells.  I did not need to kill them to block Pather cells.

Also, it did not disband the cells at the indie world Argeus, but I shoved an alpha core as an admin at one of my worlds and waited an in-game week for a pather cell to appear.  It did not.  Then I shoved a ton of other cores into my industries.  Still no Pather cells.  Normally, shoving a core as an admin causes a cell to appear almost immediately.

As I wrote above, I have no idea what the exact conditions are to permanently stop Pather cells.  I thought it had something to do with Luddic Church but apparently not.  For all I know, no new Pather cells appearing after killing all major factions could be a bug.

Aside, I destroyed everyone only to receive constant pirate activity, but not enough income to maintain fleets.  Part of the reason for killing all core worlds was to eliminate babysitting.  Instead of defending my world from majors and defending core from pirates, I had to defend my world non-stop from pirates.  A reverted my game back to when I destroyed all major factions only.  There, I have half normal income (instead of a tenth) and pirates torment the independents instead of me.  Basically, Starsector is a babysitting simulator no matter what I do.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2019, 11:16:49 AM by Megas »
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TaLaR

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2019, 11:20:52 AM »

Wouldn't it be better to leave one commission faction as well, beside Independents? TT is the best candidate due to not being bothered by saturation bombardments, but any faction except Hegemony could fit the role.
I mean what's the downside anyway? They'd have no one to have hostilities with, commission faction does not invade, and nobody except Hegemony does inspections.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2019, 11:26:10 AM by TaLaR »
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Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2019, 11:31:24 AM »

@ TaLaR:  None really.  I even mentioned or hinted at that a few posts above.  At that time, I just wanted everyone, or at least the majors, gone.  If I want to min-max and only kill just enough to block all interference from majors, while maximizing income and NPC targets for pirate bases to target, then sure, it is a good idea to spare one.  As for those getting angry by sat bombing, it does not take much to rebuild rep back to inhospitable.  All I needed to do to fix indie rep was go clean up a system bounty, and I quickly went from Vengeful to Inhospitable.

Of course, if killing all majors is what it takes to prevent new Pather cells from appearing, I would kill them all just to avoid pather cells.  Like I wrote above, I do not know the exact conditions to trigger that.
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cerebus23

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2019, 09:46:37 AM »

Yea as someone thaat had murdered luddic path and church, they have zero core colonies left and i own them all now, they wil still send people after you via the outposts they randomly spawn, and will be able to field massive fleets despite not having anything to their name.

Same for pirates you wipe every thing out they will send massive fleets to harass your stuff constantly, well i got a lot of places to attack so they get around, and they field bigger fleets than the factions.
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Sutopia

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2019, 12:37:13 PM »

Um, pacifier style is a much easier way to forget about babysitting
First things first go friend the pirates (4 survey/explore missions) so you can grab their market share along with increased accessibility.
When you establish colony just don't make industrial index over 6. (ship making and fuel production are all immediate 6)
No AI core applied so hegemony don't start inspections, also prevent pather cells.
Since pirates are not hostile to you, they now never send raid to you.
Now enjoy your peace and go feed the "empires" some gamma cores once in a while to cure the standing loss from those stupidly weak expeditions.
Don't bother pather relation until you get so many gamma cores piled and everyone else at 100.

Now I'm drown in cash  8) 1.2 mil per month and everyone being nice to me.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2019, 12:39:11 PM by Sutopia »
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Megas

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2019, 09:00:51 AM »

Pacifist does not work if I want to use cores (to save twelve skill points for combat stuff) and if I want to colonize the whole sector.  Also, I like to produce
my own ships and weapons on demand.  Having Diktat/League constantly attack my colonies just because I want to be self-sufficient makes me want to sat bomb all of their worlds and eradicate them from the sector.  Similarly, once I start to use cores or even Free Port for decent population growth, I want to eradicate Hegemony to make them stop their invasions.

I would kill everyone in the sector if it meant no more or minimal babysitting.  What actually happens is I get non-stop pirate activity because they have no one else to torment, and their is no way to stop them from respawning immediately thanks to pop-up base quota.  That does not work well with only several colonies.  I probably need to colonize the whole sector before I think about killing everyone to mitigate lost profits and non-stop pirate activity.

I do like having no cells, no expeditions, and no inspections.  That is worth killing of the all major factions.  On the other hand, I need to spend more time defending core because small indie worlds are incapable of defending themselves from pirates.

Even if I have no colonies or small low-profile ones, I still need to babysit the core worlds from pirates to prevent their decivilization.  Part of the reason of killing all of core was an attempt to eliminate that sort of babysitting.  That does not work because again, they target my systems if no one else is left.
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cerebus23

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #12 on: August 21, 2019, 10:08:18 AM »

beong that the AI is outright cheating its arse off non stop a way to work around it and even the odds is use the console to spawn yourself some extra patrol fleets, but check up on them on occasion because the pirate raids will  wear them down over time.

it is cheating in the i do not hing fleets you spawn count towards your expenses. but it will allow you to go do other stuff than race from colony to colony defending from pirates/luddites/expeditions.
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Igncom1

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #13 on: August 21, 2019, 10:16:22 AM »

If you destroy the AI's shipyard worlds, won't their expeditions become totally ignorable? Unless the hit to trade is just too much.
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Thaago

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Re: Killing core to stop the babysitting...
« Reply #14 on: August 21, 2019, 10:33:22 AM »

If you destroy the AI's shipyard worlds, won't their expeditions become totally ignorable? Unless the hit to trade is just too much.

Yes. You don't even need to destroy them - just stealing the nano-forges is enough to render all core world expeditions harmless. Disrupting the industries works too, but is temporary.

Pirates are more annoying because they give the stability and accessibility penalty without committing mass suicide, but its not too large a drop in profits if a player wants to ignore them. Annoying though.
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