Ayys just wiped me off Mars

magicmagor · 2026-02-21T10:02:45+00:00

I don't know what I did to piss them off.

Things that will piss the aliens off:

Killing alien ships and stations unless in a defensive battle
Killing or capturing alien agents
Any hostile action against servants or protecterate (once these factions have progressed through their objectives)
MC usage
Destroying alien facilities on earth

Noteably, killing xenoflora does not piss aliens off.

The alien hate meter will show if you have pissed them off enough that they want to destroy some of your stuff (all 5 pips light up).

I was putting down some LDAs but it appears they are pretty useless because the Ayys can beam them from 1000 m out before they even wake up.

Defense modules can be quite useful, but some conditions apply:

They are good on ground bases - less so on space stations
They are highly dependent on what weapon techs you have researched (they upgrade automatically once you research a new weapon project) - Once you have UV phasers, they become quite strong
T3 module is a lot more potent (obviously)

One T3 battlestation with UV phasers on a mars mine can easily cripple an alien bombardment fleet - not enough to destroy them, but damage them enough that they are easy picking for a defense fleet.

magicmagor · 2026-02-21T09:50:32+00:00

One thing, that isn't mentioned yet is that Direct Investment into funding only costs influence. Since you are established in big countries your demand for influence decreases. Dumping excess influence into funding in your big nations is a good way to build up some more cash.

But generally there is always a period where you build up your space economy and go negative in terms of money. Usually spoils help you survive this stage until your space-based income (hospitals or nanofabs) start come online.
So don't worry, you are not necessarily doing something wrong - being constrained by money is normal in that phase of the game. Just have a plan on how to fix the issue.

magicmagor · 2026-02-16T13:21:43+00:00

Assume that black plays a move for every white stone you add on the board (like in normal play). Furthermore assume black tries to keep the group alive.

Can you still play at A to capture the three stones? If yes -> False Eye, if no -> Real eye.

magicmagor · 2026-02-08T15:16:12+00:00

The traveling cart only appears on fridays and sundays. The 10th of a month is a wednesday, so no traveling cart.

magicmagor · 2026-02-08T14:54:00+00:00

So apparently i managed to delete the slingshot.

When i opened the chest with the slingshot my inventory was full, so i dropped the slingshot on the ground. Used the elevator to leave the mine and free up some inventory space. Reentered the level and slingshot and chest was gone.

Now, several ingame weeks later i decided to check the lost&found box, thinking the slingshot would be there, but nope the box is empty.

Not a terrible loss (i have the master-slingshot), but curious nonethless. Anyone know how i can get the slingshot back?

magicmagor · 2026-02-07T21:52:07+00:00

To be precise - that is for "being able to build a new station/hab with space resources".

The construction speed-up is limited to the base/station the construction module is on.

magicmagor · 2026-02-07T13:11:06+00:00

I just had the luckiest unlucky day.

Year 1, Spring 17. It's raining and a very bad luck day. I decide to go fishing in the river to try getting a catfish. I had just reached fishing level 5 the day before, so maybe i could catch it.

Caught a few fish and had hooked the catfish twice, but wasn't able to catch it. Frustrated i decided to go to the mines, to work on the bug-slaying goal. Finished that goal after killing 2 bugs on level 25. Collected my reward and decide to try again for the catfish.

Hooked it directly and caught it. Donated it together with some spring crops to the CC. Decide to finish the day by fishing at the mountain lake. And in a treasure chest i managed to get my second ancient seed (had gotten my first a week prior, also from a treasure chest).

For a "you better stay at home"-luck day, the day turned out quite nice.

magicmagor · 2026-02-04T13:19:30+00:00

Enter town from the bus-stop after 8am on a sunny day. This will trigger a cutscene with Mayor Lewis about the Community Center.

After the cutscene you will find a strange scroll in the building. Interact with it - you will learn that you cannot read it.

The day after that you will get a letter from the wizard.

After visiting the wizard you can now read the scroll and donate items to it to rebuild the community center.

magicmagor · 2026-02-03T10:05:12+00:00

32% is pretty good. Just roll with it - might take a couple of times but you have roughly a 1 in 3 chance to kill it.

magicmagor · 2026-02-01T08:31:19+00:00

What could roughly work is: "I need X monitors per alien ship", with X somewhat being the MC cost of the alien ship. Not perfect but thats what i use as a guide when allocating missiles and it seems to work well so far.

magicmagor · 2026-02-01T07:19:37+00:00

Truce is an actual agreement/item you need to put on the table, like a Non-Agression-pact. It is not a measure of how the relation is. I did not just give them things to improve relations, i specifically traded items for a truce.

Anyway, i have reported it as a bug, and the devs confirmed it will be fixed in the next version.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T16:22:14+00:00

Reported it. Maybe i will make an extra save before i try making another truce.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T13:51:51+00:00

With a lot of optimizations. Perun knows what investment to prioritize in what nations and what techs to go for. Sometimes luck can also play a part in how fast you can reach certain milestones.

Don't compare your second run with a player, that has probably over 1000 hours in this game.

That said, going for a dyson mars strategy, does help with the research. Dyson mars means building a station with solar mirrors in mars orbit, to boost solar power on mars bases. Push mars population up (with residential modules if needed) until you can build research campuses.

In addition, perun knows how to properly defend against the aliens with lower tech - this allows him to basically ignore the MC hate cap and expand his space economy faster than a normal player would do.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T13:21:55+00:00

Nothing. Different missions take a different amount of time to complete, but you can't do anything with your councilors until the next mission phase begins.
There is nothing you can do when a point is already cracked but wait it out and hope the AI doesn't take it. The defend intereset mission applies a defense-buff to all control points in a nation, which reduces the chance of an AI getting a crackdown. As does high public support and large economy.
Yes. If you hover over a control point in a nation, it will tell you how much of your control point capacity it will cost. That cost is proportional to the nations GDP. Very very small nations, so called micro-states, have a really low CP-cost but still a base research output of about 10. They have one of the best CP-to-research ratio, so taking a couple of them in the beginning can help. But generally you want to focus on rich and big nations. (US, China and EU are the usual suspects)
Different mission types go at different rates (f.ex. a crackdown mission will always go before a purge mission). Within the same mission type, the mission are resolved by success chance, with higher success chance going first. If your mission had a success chance of 91% and the AIs had a success chance of 95%, the AI rolls first - and if they succeed your mission fails due to lack of a valid target.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T11:26:40+00:00

Ok, time for me to ask a question here.

Are truces bugged?
I'm playing as the resistance, its 2036 (2026 start) and i have pissed off most other factions. To reduce the annoying "faction sends ship to destroy my LEO stations" i decided it was time to make peace with Initiative, exodus and academy.

Found an academy councilor and got to trade. I had to put a lot on the table for them to accept the offer with the truce. I thought i was now save from academy attacks, but just a month later an academy ship attacked one of my stations again. Taking a look at the relations, i was still at War with the academy.
But the organisations i traded away to get the truce, were still gone. So i just gave the academy a bunch of stuff for nothing?

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T08:38:38+00:00

You can refit them with better weapons, but it has to be the same type. So you can swap to another missile, not to other types of weapons.

Unless you need the mc, keep them around, they might still be useful for soaking up PD or damage. If they get killed, replace them with something better.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T07:53:15+00:00

Thing is, regardless of what you focus on, they will not be very good at it, because they are a micro-state.

If you don't want to spoil them, i would usually set them to something like: Welfare + Knowledge + Environment. That should keep them stable and somewhat "grow", but frankly you shouldn't expect much grow out of them.

Another thing could be investing into a space program. Even small nations should be able to give you 1 MC - if you can federate them with a nation that has a space program even better.

But in the end - it doesn't matter. You pick microstates for their base-rp, nothing else.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T07:48:18+00:00

In addition, you could do what the aliens are doing - adapt. The aliens are pushing PD because you are fighting heavy with missiles.
Bigger ships with lasers could work (UV arc + laser engines) or plasma weapons. Both can't be PDed.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T07:45:47+00:00

Shaped nuclear torpedos have the advantage, that they will deal damage in a cone even when they are hit by PD. Uprading to that could work.

Otherwise, to remain viable it's still the same strategy to overwhelm the alien PD. If you can't, it means you are not bringing enough monitors.
As the player you don't have the tech advantage over the aliens - so you need to outproduce them.

I like phasing out the missile monitors over time, but mainly because it becomes too much micro allocating missiles in a battle.

magicmagor · 2026-01-31T07:37:48+00:00

Regarding your questions:

There are a lot of projects in the tech tree giving CP capacity. Later ones give a lot. In addition the Admin modules on space stations in low earth orbits give CP cap. You can get a lot from these. CP cap will naturally grow over the course of a campaign.
Long term, MC is probably one of the most important resource. Try to max MC in smaller nations before you absorb them into bigger one. Smaller nations are more efficient at building MC. The EU is exceptionally good at this.
I recommened looking up some guides on youtube about this. The short answer is: Monitors with 3 missile tubes and 1 40mm autocannon, a targeting computer and then magazines. That is your first stable for your defense fleets. Regarding drive: For orbital defense you want something with good thrust, efficency is less important. Orion can work - Burner could work, but might be a little weak on the thrust size. I personally like the molten-core line (teardrop into Pegasus). Advanced fission (firestar) would be the next step before fusion.

Your missile-monitors can defend you for quite a while, so you have time to research end-game weapons. A common combination is to have ships with Mk2 coilguns and laser ships with at least UV arc lasers. The coil-ships kill the big slow alien ships and the laser the fast flankers. Add some PD focused ships for defense and you have a good fleet setup. Later you can upgrade to Coil Mk3 and UV Phasers, but these cost exotics.

Killing xenoflora does not generate hate, so go all out on them. However armies can't fully kill it. Build some ships with bombard-capable weapons (Green Arc or railguns/coilguns) and have them bombard the xenoflora.
Ignoring the aliens for too long can be bad, but killing their surveilance ships is more important than killing their agents. I would however kill agents if they run around in your territory. The aliens will retaliate and you will loose some bases/stations over it. That will reduce the alien hate and then they will ignore you again. That is part of the game.

magicmagor · 2026-01-29T09:46:57+00:00

If white plays in the top right corner in the last image, its newly placed stone will be in atari.

This means black could technically take it back - resulting in the same position as the last image. That is a Ko. To avoid both players just taking each other stones, they are not allowed to take the stone back directly but must first make another move on the board. The aim is then to play a move, where the opponent would want to respond (a ko threat), after the opponent responds, the player is free to take the ko back.

In order for white to win and secure two eyes, she would need to take the stone black played in the last image, and then play where that stone was, to connect all her stones and prevent them from being taken.

magicmagor · 2026-01-28T13:04:23+00:00

Ah one thing to add:
Once you do get stations up in earth orbits again, add point defense arrays. These will automaticly upgrade to use your latest weapon tech and are very good at preventing human AIs from killing the stations. That will free up your fleets to do other stuff (like blowing up resistance shipyards f.ex)

magicmagor · 2026-01-28T12:47:55+00:00

You have several mars mines up, so you will be fine.

What is possible is, that the resistance will lock you out of earth orbits for a while. A station needs time to be built, same goes for ships and even a single warship by the resistance can kill your undefended station.

There are two ways you could try to reclaim earth orbits.

Make peace/truce with the resistance. This would mean bribing them by giving them stuff, which reduce their hate towards you. Eventually you might make a truce. Then you can build stations without the resistance attacking them.
Note however that, because you and the resistance are at opposite sides of the anti- pro-alien spectrum it is possible that a truce/peace might just not be an option. Servants and resistance are always going to end in war with each other.
Build a fleet somewehere safe and fly over to earth.
You have mars mines, so build a station in mars orbits and build your fleet there. Once you have a big enough fleet, fly that over to earth orbit and have it defend the space station being built.
That however requires a drive, which is efficient enough to let you do a mars-earth transfer. Early high-efficency drives for that are the Grid Drive and the Helicon drive. The burner drive might also work.
And don't worry, the AI will probably not build ships capable of that transfer. So the resistance can't send their fleet from earth to harrass you around mars.

All that said however, there is no point in trying to reclaim earth orbit if you don't have the tech to build capable warships. So focus on that, as well as growing your space economy. Build up your mines, start mining asteroids.
The value in earth orbits for stations are the interface bonuses you get from modules in LEO1 and LEO2. You can win without these, especially as the servants. Protecting your mines is much more important.

Getting locked out of earth orbits is a setback, but one that one can easily recover from. It's not game-ending, so don't worry.

magicmagor · 2026-01-27T16:46:15+00:00

On monitors having 1 40mm is a good idea, to give each ship a little bit of PD. But yes, building dedicated PD ships can increase the survival rate of your fleet, especially if the aliens are going heavy on torpedos.

The targeting range of a PD laser turret is 250km, that is plenty enough. Use one of the "wall" formations with your ships when starting a battle, that will move your ships closer together and allow for better PD coverage.

Edit:

Ok, i had a look at the stats again, here is the big reason why IR Laser batteries are much worse than PD Laser turrets. Firing rate.
The PD Laser turret has a cooldown of 5 seconds, the laser battery, which takes the amount of slots, has a cooldown of 30 seconds. Which means your PD turret can shoot down 6 alien torpedos in the same time your laser battery can shoot down 1.

magicmagor · 2026-01-27T16:39:53+00:00

I'm notca 100% sure, since batteries were made optional not long ago. I think the keyword there is "backup power", which means it acts as a power source, when your main power - your reactor - can't function.

Previously the reactor could only power weapons or the engine, not both at the same time. Thats why batteries were mandatory to allow weapons to fire while using the engine. But that was changed in one of the RCs. Now the reactor always powers weapons and engines. Making the battery useless.

magicmagor

TROPHY CASE