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[Megas]

I actually think the TT and PL expeditions could be switched.

I think there must be some variance in their strength, as my experience in RC8 was completely opposite yours: I had to scrape the barrel to defeat PL (commissioning the ships I just destroyed to replace those I lost myself), whereas TT just rolled over and died. PL certainly had more fleets in-system as well - I did not see more than three fleets of TactiStar (and crushed the main one first "on accident" because that was the first one I reached).

In my TT crisis, I had six merc fleets, although only one of them was a big fleet with two or so capitals.  I picked off two smaller fleets in hyperspace just outside my system, and picked off two more separately in my system.  Later, I picked off another.  Finally, the biggest one at a battlestation, where the battlestation died (because I could not deploy Radiant as my flagship until battlestation died).  I had more trouble not killing other Independents that sided with the enemy and totally ruining rep.  This happened before the hotfix.

Just recently, level 2 boss for me is the Persean League, and the HA bar is almost full.  It will not be long before I can try to fight the blockade.  In any event, I can steal that pristine forge with my 20 Phantom and 4k marine ground force during the crisis and see what happens.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I actually think the TT and PL expeditions could be switched.

I think there must be some variance in their strength, as my experience in RC8 was completely opposite yours: I had to scrape the barrel to defeat PL (commissioning the ships I just destroyed to replace those I lost myself), whereas TT just rolled over and died. PL certainly had more fleets in-system as well - I did not see more than three fleets of TactiStar (and crushed the main one first "on accident" because that was the first one I reached).

In my TT crisis, I had six merc fleets, although only one of them was a big fleet with two or so capitals.  I picked off two smaller fleets in hyperspace just outside my system, and picked off two more separately in my system.  Later, I picked off another.  Finally, the biggest one at a battlestation, where the battlestation died (because I could not deploy Radiant as my flagship until battlestation died).  I had more trouble not killing other Independents that sided with the enemy and totally ruining rep.  This happened before the hotfix.

Just recently, level 2 boss for me is the Persean League, and the HA bar is almost full.  It will not be long before I can try to fight the blockade.  In any event, I can steal that pristine forge with my 20 Phantom and 4k marine ground force during the crisis and see what happens.

Just did the TT crisis. They had seven fleets, two very large with the remainder being "light" i.e. cruiser spam, plus the local Nortia patrols. I beat the entire thing in one go, I didn't even have to redeploy. I lost 0 ships, and 4 crew in total.
They're big but they are very suboptimal in the most recent update even with their s-mod and officer spam. The only had five capitals in total. Two Odysseys, one Conquest, one Onslaught, and
a Pegasus that showed up and promptly died at the end.

I didn't check at the end, I was panicking with 15% CR on my flagship and they kept fighting until there were five of their ships left, but I know it was over 1000 DP.
Additional experience rate was 497%, I had seven officers at level six plus one officer at level one.
Total skill points gained, and I still had excess bonus at the end, was 15. So, the enemy fleet was worth roughly 3,750,000 XP. I would say about 200 DP of ships retreated and I just didn't have enough CR to kill them.

I'm going to try the same thing with the Persean League. I won't be able to fully win with redeploys due to them sending so much more, but I want to see how far I can get.
I may actually solo it due to the mercy mechanic, we'll have to see.

[Histidine]

I actually think the TT and PL expeditions could be switched.

I think there must be some variance in their strength, as my experience in RC8 was completely opposite yours: I had to scrape the barrel to defeat PL (commissioning the ships I just destroyed to replace those I lost myself), whereas TT just rolled over and died. PL certainly had more fleets in-system as well - I did not see more than three fleets of TactiStar (and crushed the main one first "on accident" because that was the first one I reached).

Yeah the PL forces are roughly twice as numerous as the TT merc ones (before faction size modifiers, if they're used here). The merc event's base size is actually a bit higher, but it doesn't benefit from Kazeron's >2x fleet size mult. Though the green barcodes make up somewhat for it.


What I meant was switching their gameplay+lore behaviors, as follows:

• Current behavior: TT mercs are big, League blockade is extra big, mercs raid planets directly, League 'blockades' in-system (hassling fleets in the system if not hostile or fighting them directly if they are)
• Proposed behavior: TT mercs are small, League blockade is extra big like current, mercs blockade out of system in hyperspace where it's safer, League raids planets directly

EDIT: Occurred to me that if the League event went straight for player planets, the fleets would need to be fewer/smaller so it's actually viable to fight them off, unlike now where they don't pose an immediate threat and you can thin them out over time or wait for an opportunity to snipe the leader/supply fleets. Now it wouldn't necessarily be bad for the fleets to be less bloated, but the implications would need to be considered nevertheless.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I actually think the TT and PL expeditions could be switched.

I think there must be some variance in their strength, as my experience in RC8 was completely opposite yours: I had to scrape the barrel to defeat PL (commissioning the ships I just destroyed to replace those I lost myself), whereas TT just rolled over and died. PL certainly had more fleets in-system as well - I did not see more than three fleets of TactiStar (and crushed the main one first "on accident" because that was the first one I reached).

Yeah the PL forces are roughly twice as numerous as the TT merc ones (before faction size modifiers, if they're used here). The merc event's base size is actually a bit higher, but it doesn't benefit from Kazeron's >2x fleet size mult. Though the green barcodes make up somewhat for it.


What I meant was switching their gameplay+lore behaviors, as follows:

• Current behavior: TT mercs are big, League blockade is extra big, mercs raid planets directly, League 'blockades' in-system (hassling fleets in the system if not hostile or fighting them directly if they are)
• Proposed behavior: TT mercs are small, League blockade is extra big like current, mercs blockade out of system in hyperspace where it's safer, League raids planets directly

EDIT: Occurred to me that if the League event went straight for player planets, the fleets would need to be fewer/smaller so it's actually viable to fight them off, unlike now where they don't pose an immediate threat and you can thin them out over time or wait for an opportunity to snipe the leader/supply fleets. Now it wouldn't necessarily be bad for the fleets to be less bloated, but the implications would need to be considered nevertheless.

If they directly attacked the player's world then for normal difficulty, they would need to be smaller. For a "hard" mode the current iteration would be fine. As I stated in my original post, I defeated 7 or 8 fleets before they fully arrived in my system and defeated two more immediately afterwards. This was done with a suboptimal experimentation fleet.
No stations were lost in the conflict, and only my Aurora was disabled defending the station.

[Megas]

Just beat the League in my system.  Picked off fleets one at a time until they left.  Lured two or three of the tougher ones to battlestations.  They were dropping so many ships that I replaced some of my pristine ships with their junk ships and used them.  Why throw Glimmers, Tempests, or expensive cruisers that I will have to Restore when I can send Brawlers and their other ships to do their work and scuttle them later?  The toughest of the blockade fleets appeared to be on par with 250k+ bounty fleets, so if I want to beat the fleets, I want a fleet powerful enough to kill any human bounty, and my fleet cannot include Ziggurat if I do not want to destroy rep in one go.  Speaking of rep, I lost close to 50 rep after fighting numerous fleets until the blockade was broken and they left.

So far, I only got the rep gain from Hegemony and Independence as my immediate reward.  I have not visited the archon or Yaribay yet to see if I can get more (like Arroyo with TT).  If the rep gain from two factions is it, then that is lame, especially after losing so much rep with the League (went from mid-20s to -24) for defending my worlds from their aggression, and I could not use the fun not-Vindicator, Ziggurat, to do it.  The biggest reward so far is replacing my fleet's pristine cruisers with their junk cruisers so Hull Restoration can fix them and become pristine eventually - yes, lame.

I stole the pristine nanoforge shortly after the blockade fleet was launched, but that did not seem to do anything more.  I could have stolen the forge much earlier with my overwhelming ground forces instead of waiting for the League to start the blockade.  I just might steal the Diktat's synchotron and Hegemony's remaining items will I wait for the level 3 boss with Pirates or Knights.

Without PL blowing up my Hostile Activity fast, it will be slow raising HA points for Pirates or Knights.  I definitely do not want High Command to slow HA progress now.  If anything, I wish I can remove all of my Military Bases, but I want them for the +2 stability.  I have almost all the blueprints now, only things left to raid for now are the stray forges and synchrotorns, and few pirate blueprints for junk ships (did not find pirate bp pack yet).  I do not need a bunch of Military Bases anymore for fresh marines.

If my patrols cannot fully defend against big raids spawned by Hostile Activity (cannot take care of themselves), then the only use of Military Base is to give +2 stability instead of +1 from Patrol HQ, and to meet my colonies' demand for marines used by basic Ground Defenses (which is must-have for the +1 stability).  I do not need so many Military Bases for that, although I would not hesitate to build military bases if I needed more stability.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Just beat the League in my system.  Picked off fleets one at a time until they left.  Lured two or three of the tougher ones to battlestations.  They were dropping so many ships that I replaced some of my pristine ships with their junk ships and used them.  Why throw Glimmers, Tempests, or expensive cruisers that I will have to Restore when I can send Brawlers and their other ships to do their work and scuttle them later?  The toughest of the blockade fleets appeared to be on par with 250k+ bounty fleets, so if I want to beat the fleets, I want a fleet powerful enough to kill any human bounty, and my fleet cannot include Ziggurat if I do not want to destroy rep in one go.  Speaking of rep, I lost close to 50 rep after fighting numerous fleets until the blockade was broken and they left.

So far, I only got the rep gain from Hegemony and Independence as my immediate reward.  I have not visited the archon or Yaribay yet to see if I can get more (like Arroyo with TT).  If the rep gain from two factions is it, then that is lame, especially after losing so much rep with the League (went from mid-20s to -24) for defending my worlds from their aggression, and I could not use the fun not-Vindicator, Ziggurat, to do it.  The biggest reward so far is replacing my fleet's pristine cruisers with their junk cruisers so Hull Restoration can fix them and become pristine eventually - yes, lame.

I stole the pristine nanoforge shortly after the blockade fleet was launched, but that did not seem to do anything more.  I could have stolen the forge much earlier with my overwhelming ground forces instead of waiting for the League to start the blockade.  I just might steal the Diktat's synchotron and Hegemony's remaining items will I wait for the level 3 boss with Pirates or Knights.

Without PL blowing up my Hostile Activity fast, it will be slow raising HA points for Pirates or Knights.  I definitely do not want High Command to slow HA progress now.  If anything, I wish I can remove all of my Military Bases, but I want them for the +2 stability.  I have almost all the blueprints now, only things left to raid for now are the stray forges and synchrotorns, and few pirate blueprints for junk ships (did not find pirate bp pack yet).  I do not need a bunch of Military Bases anymore for fresh marines.

If my patrols cannot fully defend against big raids spawned by Hostile Activity (cannot take care of themselves), then the only use of Military Base is to give +2 stability instead of +1 from Patrol HQ, and to meet my colonies' demand for marines used by basic Ground Defenses (which is must-have for the +1 stability).  I do not need so many Military Bases for that, although I would not hesitate to build military bases if I needed more stability.

I did the Church event. Only five fleets and they were a lot weaker than TT. However, they did field more capitals, five Invictus and six retributions. Still I beat them in one go. Ended up losing 20 crew because a Shrike plasma burned into a dead Invictus and lost 75% of its hull.
The Church fleet was so weak that my system defense fleets could have stopped them. For reference three of my four planets have patrol HQs, two of those have AI admin. The fourth and final planet is an extreme heat AI admin world with an alpha core improved Cryoarithmetic Engine High Command.
This setup was not enough to stop the TT's merc raid, and it is not enough to stop the PL blockade which I'm about to do. They're only sending 13 fleets this time, I'm not sure why it is so low as my total colony size is 21, 5+5+5+6.

It looks like if you want a colony system to be fully self sufficient you need multiple worlds set up like my extreme heat world. Given Cryoarithmetic Engines can be somewhat rare, this may not be possible in some runs.
I have done this when playing Nexerelin, I don't recommend it as it becomes unbearably laggy.

It is also worth mentioning that all of my planets have star fortresses, and my colony's average detachment has three Paragons.

[Megas]

I finally visited Kazeron to see what the archon and Yaribay would say.  Nothing about the blockade like the crisis never happened, so all I got was rep gain from Hegemony and Independents in the end.  Thanks for nothing!  Much later, I found League inspectors harassing traffic in my home system, so I ate another -10 rep to clean them up.  One case where I cannot afford to gamble on auto-resolve pursuits when each attempt costs -5 rep.  Not sure if they were leftovers from the blockade or new fleets that pop-up like pirates.  Eventually, I found a system bounty in Yma that let my rep climb from the negatives to all the way to 50, so I am friends with the League now.

While the TT crisis was fun, the League crisis was a big letdown.  Has high HA even after their nerf just for existing, so they will harass, and I found them tougher than Tactistar.  And the reward for smashing the blockade is a letdown.

I only have one hot world, but the item used is pristine nanoforge (I am not using another item because of Pather cells).  However, if winning the Pather crisis means their cells disappear or go to sleep permanently just like giving them the planetkiller, then I will load up on items to aggravate the Pathers and get some crises over with faster.  Of course, I will ruin my rep with Pathers doing so.  (I have built up rep up to about -30 with them.)

Now that I have a fleet that can handle 350k+ bounties, and the crises fleets do not appear to be any stronger than that, I am ready to pile on a lot more HA points to get the crises over with fast and effectively finish the game.  Maybe I should start stuffing my colonies with all of the colony items and AI Cores I have found to draw out the Pirates, both Ludds, Diktat, and Hegemony.

I have a cryoarithmetic, but the worlds and systems I wanted did not include a very hot world.

[Genir]

Just wanted to comment on this real quick - it's *supposed* to be pretty overwhelming.

Please, don't let people convince you the fleets are too strong. They are not.

They are strong compared to rest of the game, that's why they may be perceived as a difficulty spike. In fact, the crisis fleets are one of the very few hints of a challenge in the game. A good solution to solve the apparent difficulty spike would be to increase the difficulty of the rest of the game.

A difficult mode perhaps?

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Not sure if they were leftovers from the blockade or new fleets that pop-up like pirates.  Eventually, I found a system bounty in Yma that let my rep climb from the negatives to all the way to 50, so I am friends with the League now.

They are leftovers. There's been a bug since I started the playing this game where some event fleets get trapped in the system. It's most noticeable with Nexerelin.

Haven't had a fight with Pathers yet, I'll let you know if I do before you have a chance. This is my second run and I'm stuffing my colonies with alpha cores and items. So, eventually they should attack.

Just wanted to comment on this real quick - it's *supposed* to be pretty overwhelming.

Please, don't let people convince you the fleets are too strong. They are not.

They are strong compared to rest of the game, that's why they may be perceived as a difficulty spike. In fact, the crisis fleets are one of the very few hints of a challenge in the game. A good solution to solve the apparent difficulty spike would be to increase the difficulty of the rest of the game.

A difficult mode perhaps?

I've been saying the entire time that the League Blockade as is would be fine on a hard mode.

Speaking of which, I beat the League again. I tried to solo the entire blockade, the mercy rule only allowed me to fight six of the 13 fleets. The elite, 4 detachments, and one resupply fleet.
I failed, still I killed 1,203 DP of ships before retreating without ship losses and gained 4,125,000 XP. After patching up at Sindria I wanted to go for a round two, but the remains of the Admiral fleet wouldn't reunite with the blockade, so I just killed him.

Also fought the Diktat. Five fleets, 13 capitals, definitely harder than the Church. Still beat the entire thing with one re-engage. It was large enough that my system defense was uncertain if they could win.
@Alex, defeating the Diktats saturation bomb attempt counts as a hostile action. I didn't become hostile due to having my transponder off, but still that seems incorrect. Only a Diktat trade fleet was aware of the battle.

Currently getting ready to fight a pirate raid that consists of 13 very strong fleets. So yea, apparently the pirates are as well off as the League, who knew?

[Histidine]

So, Pather and Remnant crises were about what one would expect.

If you can take the other crises head-on then Pathers are a joke, four fleets are not up to the task of assaulting an average den of Moloch even if they bring almost a dozen Prom MkIIs between them. Although I suppose if you're unlucky, they could go for a smaller, weaker colony that happens to have a cell (the random picker is weighted by square of Pather interest, so you can honeypot them by stuffing a lot of AI cores and colony items on the toughest targets, but there's always the one-percent-chance).
As a bonus, defeating the Pather expedition removes their hostile activity contribution permanently without needing to give them the PK. Nice!

Remnant crisis might be a good way to fight full-size ordos if you don't have a red beacon system handy. (The fleet I brought was not good enough to handle even a double ordo, sad!)

Last one I need to try is the Hegemony AI inspection.
Fun fact I noticed in the code: a planet needs more than 8 points of AI core usage to be a valid inspection target (gamma = 1, beta = 2, alpha = 4, admin = 10). So if your AI usage is sufficiently distributed (each planet can safely have an alpha, a beta and a gamma) the Heg will presumably seethe forever at your AI usage but never really do anything about it. Any AI admin on a colony that's at least 180 days old will make it inspectable, however.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

So, Pather and Remnant crises were about what one would expect.

If you can take the other crises head-on then Pathers are a joke, four fleets are not up to the task of assaulting an average den of Moloch even if they bring almost a dozen Prom MkIIs between them. Although I suppose if you're unlucky, they could go for a smaller, weaker colony that happens to have a cell (the random picker is weighted by square of Pather interest, so you can honeypot them by stuffing a lot of AI cores and colony items on the toughest targets, but there's always the one-percent-chance).
As a bonus, defeating the Pather expedition removes their hostile activity contribution permanently without needing to give them the PK. Nice!

Remnant crisis might be a good way to fight full-size ordos if you don't have a red beacon system handy. (The fleet I brought was not good enough to handle even a double ordo, sad!)

Last one I need to try is the Hegemony AI inspection.
Fun fact I noticed in the code: a planet needs more than 8 points of AI core usage to be a valid inspection target (gamma = 1, beta = 2, alpha = 4, admin = 10). So if your AI usage is sufficiently distributed (each planet can safely have an alpha, a beta and a gamma) the Heg will presumably seethe forever at your AI usage but never really do anything about it. Any AI admin on a colony that's at least 180 days old will make it inspectable, however.

Only 4 fleets, that is a let down. I wonder why they are so much weaker than pirates.

Also beat the pirates, I was able to fight 11 of the 13 fleets, the mercy mechanic said no more. 7 armadas and 4 corsairs. Only two Paragons with every other capital being an Atlas unfortunately.
Still, I would say it was easier than the TT event, probably on par with SD's event. After two rounds of combat, I defeated 1165 of DP of enemy ships. The third and final I think I beat around 700 so 1,800 in total.
Despite the large size of the Pirate event, given all their ships are trash I would say it fit normal difficulty. So really only the League is the odd man out so far.

[Siffrin]

The power difference between the Persean League and Tri-Tachyon crises compared to the Pathers and Church feels really bad especially since you generally end up dealing with the first two before the Luddic factions.

[Serenitis]

Finally got round to playing through some stuff, and have done 2 crises so far.

The first was the pirate mini-crisis, which I resolved "accidentally" as I was lurking around the system they started in as it had a system bounty.
And the fleet got bopped without me even realising it until the battle was over and I got the "crisis resolved" message.

The second was the League mafia protection racket.
16 fleets looks like a scary wall of doom that you can't really win against in a straight fight.
So I chose to follow them from the outskirts of the core on the way to my colony at the edge of the sector, and give them a Vietcong style jungle hyperspace adventure.
Whenever a fleet got separated from the pack it "mysteriously vanished", and by the time the blockade reached its target it was just over 50% strength.
I entered the system behind them and dropped right on top of the remaining supply fleet, and the blockade was "solved" after achieving almost nothing.

The rewards were however literally useless - extra rep with factions I already had maxed out rep with isn't exactly great.
I did enjoy the fights, even though there are plenty of hints to try other less direct things. The League don't deserve them though...
Maybe the boot is it's own reward when applied to the correct rear?

[Candypowers]

Overall, I like the new system. However, I wish there are optional reoccuring large threats after you are done doing the 1 time threats. Because by the time you’ve got all the star fortresses up and high command with cryoarithmeticengine, there’s hardly anything to defend against anymore.

[Megas]

Just fought level 3 boss - Pirates!  They had 14 huge raider fleets, like those they send at the core worlds but more of them.  However, they spawned at a pirate base near my main system, which I left alone intentionally to make HA points rise faster.  I just flew over to their base, picked off five of them at once.  Went back home, healed up, and picked off a few more fleets in hyperspace.  Did not need to kill every fleet.  Reward was permanent "Pirate Respite" condition for the permanent +10 accessibility - nice!  And I did not even need to beg Kanta for it.  Now this is a nice reward, maybe not as big as Tri-Tachyon, but much better than the League that gives nothing but rep I may not even need.

Right now, I have hostile activity with Diktat and Knights, but they are ticking up too slowly now.  Soon, I will steal some more items from core worlds, then stuff them in my colonies to draw out Pathers and crush them.  If doing so means the cells go to sleep for good, then that will be a very good reward, for me at least.  For most releases after the first colony release, I have gone great lengths to avoid cells at all costs because I absolutely refuse to play whack-a-mole with Pather bases, which meant only one item per colony, no Mining->Refinery->Heavy Industrial with forge chain on the same world, no AI cores.

The rewards were however literally useless - extra rep with factions I already had maxed out rep with isn't exactly great.
I did enjoy the fights, even though there are plenty of hints to try other less direct things. The League don't deserve them though...
Maybe the boot is it's own reward when applied to the correct rear?

League reward is lame, probably the worst of them all if other posts are any indication.