Any chance that there'll be a way to administrate more colonies without having to resort to AI cores at some relatively quick point? I get that colonizing isn't the intended end goal and all ...
I can't really see doing that, no. As you say, that's not an intended goal, so I don't see a reason to develop in that direction only to need to cut it back down at some point. I mean, had to do that with colony size (pretty much knowing initially that size 10 would never stay as the limit), and look how much discussion that caused. Ha!
... but it never struck me as sensible that some AI colonies can be administrated by a blank portrait saying "no one of particular note" (or some such) whereas your colonies not only must be administrated by someone
The "blank portrait" is more or less equivalent to the "no skills admin" you can hire, so at most that's a UI issue
... but that (given enough skill points invested) four of them can simultaneously be administrated as well as an Alpha Core - and only an Alpha Core - can administrate one planet, by someone exploring the galaxy on the other end of the sector.
Consider that with an Alpha Core, there's a question of trust. There's the core, giving instructions for the optimal and perfect running of a colony, probably. And there's the human overseers, trying to figure out which of the core's instruction *may*, in roundabout and entirely unexpected ways, lead to Bad Things.
A good thing about avoiding officers early, if this proves to be the case ...
Just want to note that I'd be very surprised if this proved to be the case. Combat skills are great and all but you need some numbers on your side, too.
Any thoughts on maybe toning down pirate raids to coincide with their buff to their minimum base modules and nerf to bounties when it comes to starting a colony in the early game?
I find after a pirate raid, they continously raid even if theyve suceeded several times in a row, it would be nice to either pay them protection or have a longer cooldown between raids. P I struggle to stabilize expending so much resources and time in defending my colony. Especially considering I find I get tied down to it very quickly.
The continuous raids are a bug, actually - fixed for the next release! I think it's in the patch notes somewhere.
If they don't already, Hegemony should send AI check expeditions even when the player isn't using AI cores as both a heads-up to new players that "hey if you use these those inspections are going to find them"
What, and ruin the surprise? I get what you're saying, but since bribing is still an option, I don't think the player really needs to be explicitly warned ahead of time.
In fact, I'd say they should function similarly to ejecting illegal goods right before a patrol inspects you:
Removing cores leaves evidence depending on core type for x months (3, or variable 2+2 per core rank?) that Hegemony still picks up on. From my PoV, flying back to remove the cores before an inspection is both unfun and a bit of an exploit (since it seems to me the intent is that you either bribe or fight them if you're going to use cores, and in the next version bribe will function much better since it will be story point cost and thus not just a $ in versus $ out calculation).
Yeah, removing cores prior to the inspection already doesn't work! IIRC you'll still lose them if they're in colony storage, and if not, there are a lot more reputation penalties since they suspect you did this.
Is there any place for us to download the 0.95a in progress version to check it out first hand?
Nope, sorry! It's not in an enjoyably playable state, anyway; you'd be surprised at how late in the dev cycle everything actually comes together to the degree that it makes any sense to have someone outside the dev team play it.
