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Author Topic: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?  (Read 1871 times)

Worldtraveller

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Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« on: August 27, 2023, 05:52:26 PM »

I saw the alert, my fleet was right there, I have a battlestation around the planet. I think it has ground defenses too, but not 100% sure now that I think about it.

The fleet just flew by my planet, and I got the message that it took the core. I obliterated the fleet immediately after, but didn't recover the (Beta) core. :(
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Wyvern

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2023, 06:40:11 PM »

Yes, but you have to do it earlier. There are three-ish ways of preventing core loss:

1: Spend a story point before the inspection fleet gets to your system to bribe them.
2: Before the fleet arrives, set your faction to resist the inspection. This will put you at war with the hegemony.
3: Before the fleet arrives, destroy it yourself. If you do this with transponder off (and the fleet unable to identify you, so no ziggurat), you suffer only a minor rep penalty.

Options one and two require interacting with the intel item that says there's an inspection incoming. (I'm not 100% sure, but option 2 may also require setting it before the fleet gets in-system?)

Edit: if you're already at war with the hegemony, it should default to option two.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2023, 06:48:36 PM by Wyvern »
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Aeson

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2023, 07:45:55 PM »

If you can get to your world before the inspection arrives, a fourth option is to substitute lower-value cores for higher-value cores and a fifth option is to hide the cores until the inspector leaves - though be aware that the inspector can take cores from the targeted planet's storage, so if you want to hide the cores you should keep them with your fleet or put them on another planet, and be warned that the inspectors can be a bit... petulant... if they don't find any cores when they were expecting to find something.
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IDA Frigate Captain

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2023, 01:09:23 AM »

Option 5: Take 20,000 marines and plunder Hegemony military bases into decivilisation.

Not sure if you can tactically bombard the military base where the fleet assembles to stop it. I'll try that tomorrow (my latest save was right when I got a popup for my 4th AI inspection. This time I'm not exploring on the other side of the map unlike all the other times and Im ready to wage war on the galactic bully).
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My first thought in winning the flux war - which dumb ass engineer put shields and weapons inseparably linked to the same flux system?!

Worldtraveller

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2023, 05:32:42 AM »

I'm trying to stay peaceful with all the factions, if not friendly, but I guess peace isn't an option. :/

Ironically, since I have over 50 gamma cores, I can just go give one to a few different Heg bases to at least get back to neutral. ;)
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Nettle

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2023, 06:59:02 AM »

I'm trying to stay peaceful with all the factions, if not friendly, but I guess peace isn't an option. :/

Ironically, since I have over 50 gamma cores, I can just go give one to a few different Heg bases to at least get back to neutral. ;)

You don't have to, its relatively easy to stay on good terms with everyone even if you have regular expeditions, provided you do system bounties when they pop-up. As pirate raiding fleets get bigger and more numerous you can easily go from hostile to at least neutral in a matter of days. You can also get a trade contact to somewhat decrease the RNG factor, as they often provide system bounties missions.
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Sandor057

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2023, 02:28:11 PM »

I'm trying to stay peaceful with all the factions, if not friendly, but I guess peace isn't an option. :/

Ironically, since I have over 50 gamma cores, I can just go give one to a few different Heg bases to at least get back to neutral. ;)

Intercepting the inspection fleet is only a -5 rep loss if you're unidentified. Doing a bounty or somesuch gets you even pretty quickly.
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Genir

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2023, 07:34:28 AM »

And there's always the option of not using AI cores in colonies. The colonies generate enough money anyway.
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Nettle

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2023, 08:27:35 AM »

And there's always the option of not using AI cores in colonies. The colonies generate enough money anyway.

But mine hypercognition infinite administrators...
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IDA Frigate Captain

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2023, 11:10:45 PM »

Can confirm: tac bombing the military base where the AI fleet is being planned will disrupt it completely (but you have to bust their battlestation first, so hostilities are an unavoidable outcome).

Spoiler
[close]

Still waiting to see if decivilising all Hege military worlds/stations will cause all AI inspections to cease (after which you can do system bounties to rebuild rep, and there are A LOT of Hege system bounties once you cripple their military cuz the pirates have unhindered plundering of Hege core worlds). I kinda don't want to completely annihilate all Hegemony markets from my game.
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My first thought in winning the flux war - which dumb ass engineer put shields and weapons inseparably linked to the same flux system?!

Worldtraveller

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #10 on: September 03, 2023, 05:13:52 AM »

I got the notice that the Heg was going to inspect one of my worlds again. This time I clicked on the pop up to open the dialogue. I noticed there's an option (is it new?) to tell your colony to resist the inspection.

Yeah, they didn't fare so well against my home fleet. :D
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stopsquarks

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #11 on: September 04, 2023, 01:13:14 PM »

Does anyone know if AI inspections get sent to size 3 worlds? Or only size 4+ worlds like with expeditions?
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Worldtraveller

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #12 on: September 04, 2023, 01:18:21 PM »

I think it depends more on when/if you install an AI core. I didn't install any cores until my colony was size 5 (I think), so I can't say for sure.
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stopsquarks

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #13 on: September 04, 2023, 03:44:33 PM »

I was actually thinking about whether in vanilla I can use alpha cores to set up size 3 outpost colonies in convenient locations without attracting Hegemony attention.
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Wyvern

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Re: Can I stop the Hegemony from stealing my cores?
« Reply #14 on: September 05, 2023, 11:07:23 AM »

Does anyone know if AI inspections get sent to size 3 worlds? Or only size 4+ worlds like with expeditions?
I had, for a while, believed that size three worlds were exempt.

My current belief is that they are not, but that it takes long enough to launch the first inspection that, if you're running free port and hazard pay, your colony will be size four before you get inspected.

(However, I'm also running enough mods that I can't say for 100% certainty that the above is vanilla behavior. None of the mods I'm running should be messing with inspection behavior, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't.)
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.