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[0.97a-RC11] Vanilla colony crises fron new-player perspective

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Remisc:
It's my first play-through, I'm playing vanilla (ok, I use Planet Search but that's a pure UI utility mod so that doesn't count)
I wanted to share my thoughts about colony crises because I think they are poorly paced at the moment.
Difficulty is relative especially depending on how one plays so I want to be clear: it's not about difficulty,
sure, I did struggle a bit and had to reload quite a few times but that's not what I want you take out of it. It's about when, how often events
occur, how hard they hit (or rather how soft), and how long do they last.

Basically: I knew about crises before establishing colonies from the wiki,
I found a very good system (3 habitable, all resources, 3 stable locations, one hot, one extreme heat, about 30 ly from core, see attached)
Before starting the colonies I stocked about 5m credits, surveyed entire sector, had a reasonable fleet and more ships in storage.

So I established 3 colonies, food, light industries, 2x mining, heavy industries, from the start I already had
all colony items stocked so not much time passed and I slotted in 4-5. patrol HQ on all, accessibility above 100 after megaport
+ Cryoarithmetic Engine extreme heat one, orbital stations on all.
And my terran world only had farming+light industries so I got a fast start with luddic majority.

Not much time passed and I already had grown to size 3-4 and sunk a few mil.
Even so - the whole system was unprofitable (hazard pay being a big factor now that I think about it, but I didn't notice at a time)

And then all hell broke loose (about the time colonies grew to size 4).
Immediately I got league, pirates, path, church and tri-tech on me with the bar filling up fast
- first small pirate raid - trivial
- then a church takeover fleet - big but all I had to do was to engage only the main fleet right after in entered a system without any others
- after defeating them the bar lowered back to only about half and grew comparably or even faster since colonies grew
- not long after that tri-tech. I knew what to do, take a 1.5k marines and raid, not hard and I got it resolved
- again the bar went back to half and league was next
- except at this point I was already starving for cash, and more important: time, I was constantly going back and forth
  core and my colonies, fighting, fulfilling contracts trying to not bankrupt myself. (with all that I completely forgot about hazard pay)
- league dispatched ther 17 fleets, I was in my colony waiting with around 1m in a bank, looked scary, but again after a few
  reloads, trying different angles I managed to get the main fleet without others next to my small defense station.
  That worked and I was seemingly free.
- At this point I had hi-command and only pirates and path with destroyed base so the bar is now filling very slowly
  except pretty much none of my patrols helped in any battles when I fought with those big raid armadas. They were always
  somewhere else near another colony...
- This is the point where I'm now

So I had this sudden difficulty spike with everyone piling on at once without time to do any plots, missions,
develop contacts, blueprint hunting, or really anything not related to getting ready for the next raid (doing
bounties and those big transport contracts not to bankrupt).

And now after I had a small breather my colonies had a chance to upgrade patrols to military bases and high commands,
they became profitable, and now would be more appropriate time to start feeling pressure but instead it died down and
waiting for me to build fuel production and start using AI cores that I can trigger myself.
(and path and pirates alone will be easy to handle)

So the pacing was off: I got a sudden severe hit early on and now I feel like there's nothing more difficult coming.

My suggestions to improve things:
- after a big event is defeated lower the bar to zero instead of only a half, and fill up slower
- more smaller raids in the beginning with big armadas kicking in much later (colony size 5-6) and with bigger intervals . So a loop of 6-10 smaller raids every few months followed by an armada every 1 or 2 cycles.
- colony profitability being a big factor for bar increases. At least for tri-tech that seems fitting lore-wise.
- similarly If a league is patrolling my space then pirate-related increases should probably be slower
- armadas are too easy to defeat - 17 league fleets and I only had to defeat 1 or 2 (same with church). It would be much more interesting
  if I had a manageable often raided colonies for a few cycles and then to see a big league blockades that actually sticks around
  for half a year and is not defeat-able after a single battle. or to have several levels of major crisis from which only the biggest would
  actually make the faction stop further attacks
- when church was raiding my colony but my other colony in the same system has a military base with Cryoarithmetic Engine
  and big patrols it did not send any significant force them to guard preemptively. This seems weird.

robepriority:
FYI - you can enter negotiations with factions to prevent gain, and then break those agreements when you feel like you can handle them.

Remisc:

--- Quote from: robepriority on March 23, 2024, 06:34:32 AM ---FYI - you can enter negotiations with factions to prevent gain, and then break those agreements when you feel like you can handle them.

--- End quote ---

That I didn't know, thanks,
I was under an impression that if I settled with with the church or joined the league I would be locked in.
for tri-tech I am not sure if there is a way, I mean I do not think there is a way to cap exports to remove their interest

Edit
Also: I also want to emphasize that the main thing I want to convey is pacing. multiple faction events starting happening at once and, appearing threatening and failing after defeating 1-2 fleets only to stop hostilities right after.

Phenir:

--- Quote from: Remisc on March 23, 2024, 06:40:51 AM ---Edit
Also: I also want to emphasize that the main thing I want to convey is pacing. multiple faction events starting happening at once and, appearing threatening and failing after defeating 1-2 fleets only to stop hostilities right after.

--- End quote ---
That's what happens when you colonize 3 planets at once. You basically opted in to big trouble by doing so. If you had only colonized one planet, you wouldn't have had near as much trouble with the bar going up so fast.

Remisc:

--- Quote from: Phenir on March 23, 2024, 08:52:31 AM ---That's what happens when you colonize 3 planets at once. You basically opted in to big trouble by doing so. If you had only colonized one planet, you wouldn't have had near as much trouble with the bar going up so fast.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, you are right, I can't deny that was the reason, nonetheless I don't think the game gives you any hints that establishing multiple colonies can mean this kind of spike. From my perspective I see a good system with complementing planets that I can colonize at once for better synergy so I do.
And the fact that there is a clear reason doesn't mean this sort of threat avalanche is something that wouldn't benefit from some tweaks.

I'm here to share how things went from a non-veteran perspective and suggest adjustments that I feel would make things better in my particular situation.

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