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Author Topic: Hegemony and AI cores  (Read 12141 times)

AdmiralRem

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Hegemony and AI cores
« on: July 18, 2019, 04:55:08 AM »

So my main question is how do I keep Hegemony from taking my Alpha core administrator? I can’t remove it before they get there because it won’t let me. If I attack them and OBLITERATE them i instantly go from 100 standing to about -80.... of I attack them with my transponder off all sneaky like I STILL get at least a 5 point penalty to standing.... why? I’ve heard you can bridge them? But how?

I’ve also noticed that if Hegemony does a cargo scan and I have AI cores they don’t do anything. Which is fine with me but doesn’t make sense as far as story immersion goes.

How do you guys do it? Do you even use Alphas for administrators?

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Shad

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2019, 05:11:06 AM »

On the intel screen, where it tells you about the inspection, on the right, there is an option decide how your colony will respond to inspection. The default choice is to comply. You can change it to allocate funds (bribe) for the inspection to just look the other way.
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Megas

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2019, 05:13:42 AM »

Two ways...

You can either intercept the fleet in hyperspace (while your transponder is off) and kill them.

Bribe them.  Default is comply, you can change that to bribe or resist.  It does not remember the option you set, so if you want to go the bribe route, you must do that for every inspection event.  Bribes start at 100k, and go up from there.

If you resist, Hegemony becomes hostile, and the fleet needs to fight through your defenses like expeditions.  They can still steal cores if they beat your defenses.

Bribing is probably the most painless option there is.
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lethargie

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2019, 06:09:05 AM »

Dont use alpha for administrator? I mean, you really don't need them.

The hegemony hates Ai core because of the previous AI war. If you dont want to go to war with the hegemony, dont use them (or bribe, of course).

If you reduce them to paste with transponder off, you get the standing penalty because while they cant be certain, they think you might have done it.
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Megas

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2019, 06:17:38 AM »

Dont use alpha for administrator? I mean, you really don't need them.
- SNIP -
If you reduce them to paste with transponder off, you get the standing penalty because while they cant be certain, they think you might have done it.
Not using cores is clearly sub-optimal in this release.  If not using cores, then player probably gets skills himself, which costs too many skill points.

Bribing is the most painless way to deal with Hegemony.  If inspections only show up once every year or longer, the colonies will make more money than the bribe.  For me, Pathers would be more of a deterrent, if they were not bugged.  AI admin gives 10 interest, so that alpha-run colony will always have Pather cells.  (Cells appear when interest is 7 or more.)

Yes, killing them while incognito reduces rep by -5 or so.  Annoying, but not any worse than repelling an expedition.
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AdmiralRem

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2019, 06:35:38 AM »

Wait repelling an expedition lowers standing too? Haha that’s weird. I have 5 colonies and the AI helped with management since until just recently didn’t have enough administrators, none of which have skills. Do any of them have skills or am I just having bad luck finding them? Having the core gave me an additional 25,000 credits a month soooo it was pretty helpful.

Oh and thanks for the bribe tip, I didn’t know how to do it.
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Shad

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2019, 06:41:25 AM »

Wait repelling an expedition lowers standing too? Haha that’s weird. I have 5 colonies and the AI helped with management since until just recently didn’t have enough administrators, none of which have skills. Do any of them have skills or am I just having bad luck finding them? Having the core gave me an additional 25,000 credits a month soooo it was pretty helpful.

Oh and thanks for the bribe tip, I didn’t know how to do it.
Yeah repelling any expedition (regardless of transponder) gives a -5 debuff to standing.

Inspections are a bit different, since they are "legal" (officially, all the major factions have outlawed AI core use), so openly fighting it makes you immediately hostile to Hegemony.

Administators can have 1 skill, and very rarely 2 skills. AI cores are always better (since they have all skills and do not count for the cap).
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lethargie

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2019, 07:53:26 AM »

Dont use alpha for administrator? I mean, you really don't need them.
- SNIP -
If you reduce them to paste with transponder off, you get the standing penalty because while they cant be certain, they think you might have done it.
Not using cores is clearly sub-optimal in this release.  If not using cores, then player probably gets skills himself, which costs too many skill points.

Bribing is the most painless way to deal with Hegemony.  If inspections only show up once every year or longer, the colonies will make more money than the bribe.  For me, Pathers would be more of a deterrent, if they were not bugged.  AI admin gives 10 interest, so that alpha-run colony will always have Pather cells.  (Cells appear when interest is 7 or more.)

Yes, killing them while incognito reduces rep by -5 or so.  Annoying, but not any worse than repelling an expedition.

I know we often clash about that but ill say it mostly for the benefit of admiralrem. You do not need skills or ai core. The bribe is a constant drain on money that in my opinion is not worth the benefit of a core. 4-5 colonies (which you can get with no core) is plenty to get tons of money. In fact, running no core means less output so you are less likely to get expedition. You can let your world get to size 4-5, build an heavy industry, get plenty of money and get 0 expedition if you avoid AIcore and building too much industries. Then, when you got the defensive building and larger population base, you can start annoying the big guys.
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xenoargh

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2019, 08:19:02 AM »

I just bribe them, then let the Pirates / Path destroy them, so that they aren't sending Expeditions at me any more.  Any Raid going to Hegemony, I just ignore it.  I played out a game where eventually, they were a total joke because their economy was a shambles.  So long as you've secured XIV tech from them, you're good; they don't produce anything of note that you cannot get elsewhere.

I think this is one of those things in the current game where it could be improved a lot.  I'd think that Tritachyon would offer Cores for sale (surreptitiously) and most of the other Factions both fear and want Cores, except for the Luddites, who are poor because of it. 

Meanwhile, Tritachyon is harvesting them from [REDACTED], who is quite aware of this and spreads nasty ones around... and all of a sudden, we have a Zombie Outbreak Crisis somewhere, lol.  I think that AI Cores should be Risky Business, but powerful tools.  Right now, they don't offer enough of upside or downside to consider anything but, "wreck Hegemony passively" in a long playthrough.
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AdmiralRem

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2019, 10:02:16 AM »

Ya the core got taken, but now I have administrators and skills for me to not get the mismanagement debuff and I’m making about 200k a month now which is pretty nice. How much do you guys make off your colonies? I have no reference. When I first started out and was making like 5-10 k I was like... uhhh.... this better get better haha because it was just using up money faster than it would produce it.
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Megas

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2019, 01:46:51 PM »

With max colony skills and four size 7 planets, I made almost a million credits per month by the end of my game.  It took much longer to reach that point than in 0.9a.
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Megas

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2019, 03:34:15 PM »

@ lethargie: Unless you are lucky with planet generation, you probably need at least three colonies, maybe four or even five.  Industrial Planning will probably be required unless again, lucky with planet generation.  If you do not use cores, then you want skills, at least Colony Management 1 to get enough adminstrators for that all-important Industrial Planning.  Without IP2, planets need +2 on at least ore and volatiles to meet demand.  Those are stiff requirements.  If player is willing to spend points on colony skills, might as well go all the way for maximum convenience.  But if player is interested in maximum power, he can get all of the benefits of colony skills with alpha cores alone, although it may take some time before player finds enough alpha cores.

As for bribes... if inspections only occur less than once every year, then colonies will make more than the bribe.  The biggest danger is missing the alert and have Hegemony steal your cores due to Comply by default.  Sure, if you bribe expeditions on top of inspections, you bleed income too quickly.  (Bribing expeditions alone bleeds too much income from no-core user.)

As for more colonies, you still get income from population alone.  Nobody says you need to put industries on the alpha colonies (although redundancy is nice, despite divided income).  Get enough extra alpha colonies, and you can make a nice chunk of change from population alone, if you have enough extra colonies (like a dozen or more).

If anything, industries on those extra planets will probably be Military Base for defense against expeditions.  Maybe Heavy Industry to bloat production limit.  Maybe other marginal stuff like Commerce and Tech-Mining.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2019, 03:38:03 PM by Megas »
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Alphascrub

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Re: Hegemony and AI cores
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2019, 05:21:32 PM »

I generally use cores in my colonies. I will say now that nex lets you succeed colonies to you faction you really don't need to do it all the time. But in the end I get so many cores I might as well use them. I just do so with the knowledge that I either need to wipe out the hegemony or at the very least be at war with them, I also always check the intel menu whenever I here that horn sound to make sure its not inspection. I generally always try to build a decent sized fleet with at least one capital before colonizing thing. Sometimes Ill just get a commission with a faction of ships or weapons I like and then use one of their big markets as a base of operations. Ill build up found my own colonies, they are usually great allies at that point and then after I'm making 1 million or so a month from my colonies ill resign my commission. Heg is pretty easy to wipe out btw and Jangela can make a great planet to take over for a good central place. Sometimes the Delta Hiesengberg system has a good planets or the Duzak system near corvus if you are having issues picking a good planet. Frankly I also generally search for a perfect colony planet. One that has good minerals and farmlands and then focus on said farmlands and a medical center to grow my population fast. Basically the more pop you have the more money you seem to make regardless of industries. Not that they don't help make more money that is. I think I generally go mining, refining and some kind of ship building as early as I can. Sometimes Ill make two colonies, one to refine and the other to mine so I can have patrol stations up running pretty fast.
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