Was this a raid (which is added by Nexerelin) or a punitive expedition sent due to market competition (a vanilla feature)? But either way, the autoresolved event saying it's failed while having caused disruption to anything sounds like a bug that shouldn't be possible. (The opposite seems more likely; there are ways it can report success while not having done anything more than kill the orbital station).
This was a raid to disrupt an industry, yes. It's been a week or so, so I forget the exact industry (it was either mining or heavy industry, fairly certain), but the way it played out was:
- I'm notified of the raid
- I stay in system, a few fast pickets immediately kill the tiny raiding party before I can reach it
- I reload, leave the system, since it's clear my help is unnecessary, especially since ...
- The raid says it's likely to be defeated in orbit, yet it winds up being defeated on the ground
- I check the colony, and the targeted industry is still disrupted for a couple weeks (forget exact number)
So, I'm not really sure. It wasn't a big deal, but it was silly imo for it to have to go to the ground in the first place, with a battlestation in orbit, a size 5 and 6 colony, clearly no troubles killing it in space without my assistance when I'm in system, yet a near failure when I left the system. Maybe they "failed" to disrupt the industry, but due to the fighting on the ground it was still... sort of disrupted, for a shorter period of time? I don't know, either way, it seemed incredibly nonsensical and had drastically different results when I left, which is why I mentioned it all.
Personally I don't bother fixing shortages or trade disruptions at all, except when stability drops to dangerous levels. Unless compounded with other problems, the most they can do is cause some loss of income, you may as well do whatever stuff you were planning to do.
I will totally admit this is true. It isn't a huge deal, it's just a seemingly constant occurrence that lends to my feeling that unless there is a constant, personal player hand in most matters, there will be consistent failure mixed in. Certainly not a hill worth dying on due to the minor impact it has, I admit, just a side detail.
Invasion fleets are capped (albeit the hard cap is 2000 FP, which is more than what it considers enough for some of the toughest modiverse star systems like the Legio home system, but a player system's defenses can exceed even that). They do scale based on the target system's defenses and target market size, but the defense numbers go up faster than the invasion size.
One thing I do want to ask regarding this, does the market size and/or alliance size of an invading fleet have an impact on invading fleet size? Because Hegemony is the big boy in my current game (they "won" in the first two months, so y'know), they're in a three-way alliance with the Church and Diktat (it's disgusting), and they have certainly consistently sent fleets that make everything else look pathetic by comparison (outside of, again, player fleet interference).
And would that factor into non actual "invasion" fleets as well? Is it a normal occurrence for an AI inspection fleet, for instance, to consistently be loaded with 4+ battleship/battlecarriers? Onslaughts and Legions are a cakewalk with a player led fleet, but unless I babysit for all their actual invasions (and inspections, I suppose), my colonies are just kind of boned on a dice roll. And that's in two systems with two large, just about max upgraded colonies in each, 7-10 stability each. Keep in mind they certainly focus on the weaker targets of the two, for good reason, but it just feels like my fleets are an incredibly flimsy impediment to their massive fleets, despite max quality fleets ranging from 150-200% size. I guess that just isn't enough when it comes to the Hegemony in a lofty position in the sector.
Loading everything up with AI cores is certainly an option, but for roleplay (and challenge, I suppose) purposes I have kept actual admin slots to humans (with the ground tactics perk on most if not all of them) and AI cores to industries. I know I can't really complain too much if I'm not using the best possible resources for the task, but I do also feel like that shouldn't be a necessity either, in every case.
I appreciate the deeper dive into how it all factors in.