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[Dazs]

@mllhild I started looking into your concern and I noticed an error on my end that I *think* may be the root cause. If you navigate to the Hiver Swarm mod folder data\world\factions and open the file called "HIVER.faction" using notepad++. Scroll down to line 269 "combatFreighterCombatUseFractionWhenPriority" it is currently set to 1 now change it to 0.1 also change line 268 "combatFreighterCombatUseFraction" to 0.1 as well and then save. It will not effect fleets that are already generated in game but it should lower the use of logistics ships when it generates a new fleet. I am still doing testing on it so there is more to be done before I release an update but I figured since you were already doing some testing on your own you may be interested.

[mllhild]

So here testing results:

Aim:
1. Not having two battles per fleet

Possible solutions:
1. Enemy uses all vessels in combat
2. autoresolve does consider logistics vessels weak enough to autoresolve

Attempts:

1. Changing supertanker and super freighter to combat freighter
- resulted in no noticable change

2. change fleet points to 1 for logistics vessels
- resulted in no change (this could have been obvious if I googled how the autoresolve works https://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/11/09/automatically-resolving-combat/)

2. change DP to 1 for logistics vessels
- resulted in no change

3. Removing the Civilian tag + combat freighter
- AI now is fielding the logistics ships as combat vessels -> objective achived
- side effect 1: it now feels like you are attacked by quite the number of bugs with more visual variety(positive)
- side effect 2: combat last longer (positive)
- side effect 3: larger ships are more valuable due to higher peak performance time (neutral??)
- side effect 4: nerfs missle, phase and Safty Override ships due to more ships to destroy (anything that is bad for phase ships is good in my book)
- side effect 5: if you are fielding frigates, destroyers or cruisers you now will want to rotate your ships during combat or finish quickly to prevent additional CR losses due to exceeding peak combat timers.

I didnt test the removed Civilian tag alone since Im now out of time.

Suggestion:
- remove the civilian tag from all ships
- Lower the DP of super tanker/freighter to 18, or replace one or two small slots with medium slots on them
- this might influence how they do in autoresolve vs other factions

@mllhild I started looking into your concern and I noticed an error on my end that I *think* may be the root cause. If you navigate to the Hiver Swarm mod folder data\world\factions and open the file called "HIVER.faction" using notepad++. Scroll down to line 269 "combatFreighterCombatUseFractionWhenPriority" it is currently set to 1 now change it to 0.1 also change line 268 "combatFreighterCombatUseFraction" to 0.1 as well and then save. It will not effect fleets that are already generated in game but it should lower the use of logistics ships when it generates a new fleet. I am still doing testing on it so there is more to be done before I release an update but I figured since you were already doing some testing on your own you may be interested.

After testing a bit Im actually quite found of fighting fleets with those huge bugs (logistics ships) mixed in. It also makes for a interresting battlefield due to the large debrie generated.
Also if you decrease the amount of logistics ships this could quite boost the power level of their fleets in the autoresolve.

[Dazs]

Suggestion:
- remove the civilian tag from all ships
- Lower the DP of super tanker/freighter to 18, or replace one or two small slots with medium slots on them
- this might influence how they do in autoresolve vs other factions

I've recently started a new game and have been monitoring the Hivers but not fighting them yet since I am still in the early phase. I do see more capital freighters and tankers being used that I expected so there is something going on. I appreciate the break down of your testing and I'll use your data and above suggestion in my deep dive on the mod as a good starting point. I should have some time later this week to give it some focus since it seems my other mods are sitting pretty atm (fingers crossed)

[HopeFall]

Honestly love this mod. It's fun, and seems to do what Legio used to do before it became a hell of a lot more passive. My only gripe is Saturation Bombardment and the fact that if they capture something, it seems to destabalized and decivilize quickly; but that's a gripe with Nex. Especially since there's no 'fixing' a dead planet, since all unique buildings that say, a modded faction had on, are gone forever. Still, I do like them.

They're very strong it feels like, but then, I'm not running an all capital fleet. That said, it's turned me off from using the UAF because Holy Hell are their fighters broken. I killed so many bugs!

Doing a new run with Iron Shell and I'm crossing my fingers for the massive grand invasion fleet I got to fight once. They had something like 6 fleets! Actually had to fight and retreat multiple times because of CR which was a uniquely fun fighting strat that takes me back to Total War Warhammer and using missile units (I wish you could recover Reinforced ships after retreating - they should become little salvagable dots on the map for later, darn it!).

[Dazs]

Honestly love this mod. It's fun, and seems to do what Legio used to do before it became a hell of a lot more passive. My only gripe is Saturation Bombardment and the fact that if they capture something, it seems to destabalized and decivilize quickly; but that's a gripe with Nex. Especially since there's no 'fixing' a dead planet, since all unique buildings that say, a modded faction had on, are gone forever. Still, I do like them.

I am glad that you are enjoying the mod so much, so nice to hear.

They're very strong it feels like, but then, I'm not running an all capital fleet. That said, it's turned me off from using the UAF because Holy Hell are their fighters broken. I killed so many bugs!

UAF is a well made mod but they are considered a boss faction so using them against a strong mid game faction like Hiver is sort of overkill imo.

Doing a new run with Iron Shell and I'm crossing my fingers for the massive grand invasion fleet I got to fight once. They had something like 6 fleets! Actually had to fight and retreat multiple times because of CR which was a uniquely fun fighting strat that takes me back to Total War Warhammer and using missile units (I wish you could recover Reinforced ships after retreating - they should become little salvagable dots on the map for later, darn it!).

Iron Shell is a great pick, their strengths are good against Hivers and Timid is a wonderful mod maker so give it some love

[Dazs]

V1.08 released today - Save game compatible but if you have a captured Hiver logistics ships with Militarized Subsystems on it you want to remove it before installing or it may get wonky

Made some code changes to make them a little more dangerous and to not use so many tankers and freighters as part of their overall fleet composition. I replaced the ship & alternate ship images on the forum OP with larger, easier to see versions and re-arranged the page to be easier (I hope) to navigate, so go give it a look see.

There are a couple more code changes and the details can be found in the changelog located in the RAR and on the forum OP. I hope you enjoy the changes and look forward to any comments or ideas you may have on the mod. I can be reached on the forum or in discord and I check them daily. Now go open a can of raid on the icky buggers!

[Volsungare]

Out of curiosity, did you ever figure out a way to make them auto detested by other empires so carpet bombing would be ignored?

Another potential issue, I haven't tested this on anything since 1.04 due to other in game goals in the runs, is they don't seem to rebuild worlds?

What I had done:
Raid one system take over all planets/stations (using Nexerelin)
During invasion, remove relics/alpha cores
Post invasion, remove remaining AI cores
Final Actions, sell off all buildings and make colonies semi independent (mine but not under my direct control)

Hivers would retake planets within about 1 cycle, but as far as I could tell, they never rebuilt anything and within a few more cycles the worlds and completely de-civilized and were open for colonization.

[Dazs]

Out of curiosity, did you ever figure out a way to make them auto detested by other empires so carpet bombing would be ignored?

I have them to auto detest everyone by default. Unfortunately I could not figure a way to have everyone initially hate them in reverse. It is still on the Hiver to-do list but I wanted to get this update out ASAP since it involved fixing yet another Dazs boo boo that mllhild was kind enough to help me fix.

Another potential issue, I haven't tested this on anything since 1.04 due to other in game goals in the runs, is they don't seem to rebuild worlds?

What I had done:
Raid one system take over all planets/stations (using Nexerelin)
During invasion, remove relics/alpha cores
Post invasion, remove remaining AI cores
Final Actions, sell off all buildings and make colonies semi independent (mine but not under my direct control)

Hivers would retake planets within about 1 cycle, but as far as I could tell, they never rebuilt anything and within a few more cycles the worlds and completely de-civilized and were open for colonization.

Well I sort of have them set up that way so they do not overwhelm the sector too fast. Essentially they are a menace that wants the sector to themselves but are only really interested in living in their home systems. Anything they "conquer" is de-civilized and hard to rebuild, sort of a blitzkrieg tactic. It gives the player a chance to re-take lost systems if they take an active role in defeating them. If you ignore them and let the vanilla AI deal with them you'll find yourself in trouble after awhile. However it is a double edged sword if you do take an active role and work toward eliminating them in their home systems, it hampers their ability to re-build. It was the best way I could figure to make them a mid-level threat and leave the end game to the Ordo.

The mod is by no means done so I hope to eventually figure it all out and any suggestions or criticism is welcomed so stay tuned.

[HopeFall]

Does conquering a planet of theirs for another faction mess them up? Or will they be effectively able to recapture their market and fix any economy damage done? I know they have strange behavior when capturing other people's markets, leading to them become decived. But what about their own base places?

I've seen them 'Colonize' on Nex and deciv themselves, which seems like odd behavior.

On another note. Assuming they  can fix their own starting markets when they've been captured by an enemy, the Nex Conquest Missions should be upped in value somehow, if at all possible. 1 mil to try and fight the outrageous army in an enclosed system is definitely not worth a measely 1 mil. But I'm not sure that's possible, just some considerations.

[Dazs]

Does conquering a planet of theirs for another faction mess them up? Or will they be effectively able to recapture their market and fix any economy damage done? I know they have strange behavior when capturing other people's markets, leading to them become decived. But what about their own base places?

The thing about Hiver is they are flagged as an "evil" faction so if they conquer a faction's planet that is flagged as "neutral" or "good", which is most of them, then the population will go wild in trying to overthrow the Hivers and it would take them several cycles until it settles down. If the original owner takes it back, the population retains the decived status for quite some time.

I've seen them 'Colonize' on Nex and deciv themselves, which seems like odd behavior.

Nex has a system to pick colony fleets based on the settings in each faction mod. They are then placed in a pool of applicants for the next colony fleet. A mod author can effect that to an extent but it is random chance for a faction to be picked by Nex to send a colonization fleet. The odds of having Hiver picked in your game is lessened for each faction mod installed since the pool is widened.

On another note. Assuming they  can fix their own starting markets when they've been captured by an enemy, the Nex Conquest Missions should be upped in value somehow, if at all possible. 1 mil to try and fight the outrageous army in an enclosed system is definitely not worth a measely 1 mil. But I'm not sure that's possible, just some considerations.

It is a solid idea because they are a harder target then the average faction planet invasion. I am not sure if having a scale based on faction difficulty to payout is doable. That is more a question for Histidine on the Nexerelin thread because I have no clue personally

[HopeFall]

Gotcha. On that note though, I'm not sure if you answered my original question! Or at least, I'm not following. Is it "safe" to do a Conquest mission against Hivers? Can they, reasonably, retake it and then rebuild any changes? Or should I avoid messing with them to keep them as a consistent enemy?

[Dazs]

Gotcha. On that note though, I'm not sure if you answered my original question! Or at least, I'm not following. Is it "safe" to do a Conquest mission against Hivers? Can they, reasonably, retake it and then rebuild any changes?

OH sorry If I misunderstood your question. Sort of, depending on where the mission is. If it is a planet they conquered or colonized then yes they will try and take it back but if you start going after their initial worlds then they will certainly try. The thing is, I have them set in a closed loop economy since no one will trade with them. This gives them some advantages but one fatal flaw. Once you start taking out their initial planets then you disrupt their supply chain and their ability to build fleets. The more of their planets you take from them the weaker they become. Now depending on how long you gave them to build up, they may have several fleets already out there so it may take a couple tries but eventually the goal is to eliminate the faction.

Or should I avoid messing with them to keep them as a consistent enemy?

They are meant to be conquered roughly mid game. If you try to keep them as a consistent enemy too long, well let's just say if left alone they will run rampant over the sector. Depending on how many faction mods you have installed you can ignore them for a bit while you build up but I would not recommend fighting them in their home systems until you are ready to take them on fully. Now you can certainly play tag with them as you build up by going after planets that Hivers have conquered or colonized. What I generally do if I am not quite strong enough to take them on is to play piggyback on a friendly faction that is invading a conquered world and let them tank the fleets and station while I take on the smaller patrols and pick up the scraps. It is a good way to build up levels and story points not to mention credits.

[Dazs]

v1.08a released today -Just a quick hotfix for a potential issue, Save game compatible with 1.08

While helping Unßorn on discord fix an issue he was having with the mod, ruddygreat was kind enough to suggest that using hidden weapons on anything other than a fighter could cause issues. This hotfix just changes the ships that had the Ommatidia (eyeball) weapon from hidden to turret/hard point. I had set some of the ships to hidden because due to the sprite layout it gave the ship a googly eye look. So get ready for the Hiver staring contest next time you fight them and try not to giggle, it hurts their feelings.

[SneakyDevil]

If you try to keep them as a consistent enemy too long, well let's just say if left alone they will run rampant over the sector.

Are you sure about this? Several years have passed and the hiver has conquered two planets (and promptly lost both) and expanded to one additional planet. I'm not sure what's going on but right now they are getting dribbled on by unmodded persean league and diktat.

[Dazs]

If you try to keep them as a consistent enemy too long, well let's just say if left alone they will run rampant over the sector.

Are you sure about this? Several years have passed and the hiver has conquered two planets (and promptly lost both) and expanded to one additional planet. I'm not sure what's going on but right now they are getting dribbled on by unmodded persean league and diktat.

Hello there thank you for taking the time to inquire but some clarity would help me better answer your question. If you are playing a vanilla game then the base factions like the league or diktat should not be able to defeat them, at least that is my experience. Their difficulty level is effected by several factors but it boils down to:

• Which mod factions a player has installed: The ones I know they have problems against are other boss power factions like Legio and UAF. Also, if you have Xhan Empire installed they act as a good speed bump to their advances based on where their home system is located and how well defended it is. I am sure there are others but those seem to be the ones they struggle against or slowed down by.
• How many mod factions a player has installed: Depending on the amount of enemies they have to deal with then the harder it is for them to expand. Remember they are enemies to EVERYONE so the more factions invading and blocking them then the less chance of success they have

With that in mind, roughly how many faction mods do you have installed and are you using any of the ones in my first point?