Nprs expanding too much?

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Could someone give me an advice what should I do? Currently I have one npr (128 bloody systems, it's gonna take forever to explore it all and fight them off), and invaders. As I've peeked at db, invaders are even worse, they have a wormhole network of 158 (!!!) systems. And here's the problem.

If I leave the option for nprs to generate another nprs, my cpu will choke exponentially since new nprs will be added exponentially, slowing down the game horribly.
If I leave said option off (probability of 0), I fear invaders and that other npr will explore all the stars leaving me with no other aliens, ancienct or regular, to run into.

I went into db and deleted all jump stabilisation ships of both nprs to halt their expansion at those 158 and 128 systems, but the damage done is already done - fighting all of them is gonna take forever, even after I successfully repel invaders their remanining ships will stay, not to mention that's 286 systems across which I won't run into aliens anymore (don't tell me to use sm, I'd rather have them generated by the game).

I was thinking about simply deleting some of the systems and all ships/populations within them to tone down nprs to reasonable size so that it won't take hundreds of hours to explore their territory, let alone defeat them at last, but that's a lot of work plus I fear deleting systems during real stars game is not something I should be doing.

So, what should I do with this? How should I approach this problem? Exploring dozens of dozens of systems of same npr without a chance to stumble across anything else gets tedious really fast, turning on a chance for nprs to generate another nprs is a big no-no for performance reasons, I'm so puzzled by this...


P.S. If your only advice is "start a new game" please be so kind and restrain yourself from posting under this thread. Thank you.

[serger]

Just adjust game (campaign) options as I point at the image attached and kill most importand planets of NPR.
As for invaders - SM youself ancient constructs, that's the only way to suppress them.

[gor]

Well the game is balanced around nprs ability to find another npr to limit their expansion.   So if you are not willing to take hit for performance i do not know if there is much to do besides the database editing and SM that you already mentioned.   One thing that might help you in future is limit size of your galaxy.   Also have you tried to use automatic detection in systems where player have no presence.   I find that very good performance enhancer when game starts to slow down. 

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Just adjust game (campaign) options as I point at the image attached.

proceeds to facepalm

I mean... I know. But the problem is as I've already described. Increasing nor chances of generating another npr is a no because performance and my own chances of generating npr are irrelevant if the system has already been generated by npr and deemed lifeless (because the npr had 0 chance of generating npr there)

Also the problem of 286 systems remains. How the hell am I supposed to track down every last ship and population across such an amount of space?

[serger]

You are not supposed to do it. You are supposed to have a fun doing it!

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Well the game is balanced around nprs ability to find another npr to limit their expansion.  So if you are not willing to take hit for performance i do not know if there is much to do besides the database editing and SM that you already mentioned.  One thing that might help you in future is limit size of our galaxy.  Also have you tried to use automatic detection in systems where player have no presence.  I find that very good performance enhancer when game starts to slow down.

Uggh... In my post I've mentioned real stars. Real stars for some stupid reason aren't affected by galaxy settings, not to mention I actually want large galaxy to explore.

Automatic detection barely helps when you have so much slowdown that 30 in game days take an IRL minute to process even without any combat happening. I didn't notice much improvement here. Especially that combat is not a problem for me anymore, I just autoresolve it myself (aka do what the game should be doing for me automatically) and just delete relevant ships any time I get combat that doesn't end after 30 IRL seconds.

And I guess judging by my (lack of) performance nprs finding and fighting each other didn't help to limit their expansion at all, in fact it was the opposite because there was more and more of them expanding until l deleted them all, leaving only the one I had already run across.

And holy smeg, that remains me of all the extra generated systems that will be lifeless because they were occupied by nprs I had to delete to rescue performance.

[serger]

Well, another thing you can do to limit expantion of these monsters: filter systems in DB by discovery time, SM new NRPs there and kill those JPs of those systems that are leading outward.
But invaders - that's a thing you can suppress with ancient constructs only. SM dosens of constructs inside your space and use them.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

You are not supposed to do it. You are supposed to have a fun doing it!

My definition of fun in a space game is running across different aliens rather than seeing remnants of the same race over and over again.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Well, another thing you can do to limit expantion of these monsters: filter systems in DB by discovery time, SM new NRPs there and kill those JPs of those systems that are leading outward.
But invaders - that's a thing you can suppress with ancient constructs only. SM dosens of constructs inside your space and use them.

That's another problem - so many systems already explored means no precursors means no suppressing invaders. Besides, I'm fine with them, I like them. Just wish they'd focus on flighting me rather than ruining galaxy generation for me by wasting so many good systems that could've contain other NPR's if I stumbled upon them.

[gor]

The way i see it is that all of your problems is self constructed when you are trying to avoid root problem: performance slow down.  I am sorry to break it for you but you can't really play long aurora campaigns without the hit for performance.

[RougeNPS]

Cant you just make them fight each other? Wipe each other out. You wipe our their remains. And then you have all those systems to explore and exploit?

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Come on, I don't have time for playing loading screen simulator. If not the improvements I already did at this part of the game I'd probably be already several IRL minutes for one 30 days turn.

I'm just trying to get to play space 4x game and there's nothing like aurora out there. Space 4x game, mind you, not loading screen simulator.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Cant you just make them fight each other? Wipe each other out. You wipe our their remains. And then you have all those systems to explore and exploit?

No I can't, how do you imagine this? Besides, they already do in some systems. Didn't slow their expansion at all.

[RougeNPS]

Cant you just make them fight each other? Wipe each other out. You wipe our their remains. And then you have all those systems to explore and exploit?

No I can't, how do you imagine this? Besides, they already do in some systems. Didn't slow their expansion at all.

Forcibly delete their colony ships then.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The way i see it is that all of your problems is self constructed when you are trying to avoid root problem: performance slow down.  I am sorry to break it for you but you can't really play long aurora campaigns without the hit for performance.

I agree... performance will deteriorate as you go along and you just have to deal with it.

There are a few things you can do when you set up a campaign that will mitigate this to some degree and that is to slow down surveying significantly. I have survey speed at only 5% in my game and that prohibit everyone to expand too fast, this gives allot more time to build up as well. I also run with 10-20% research speeds as well in addition so I really have time to build up colonies and infrastructure as I expand and meet NPR or Spoiler races.

Aurora does not really have an end goal so the NPR is not really there to be hunted down and removed or anything like that, the game is about playing it and enjoying the journey as it unfolds.

I would not be too put of if my turn took 60 seconds for a 30 day turn cycle as usually quite allot would happen for me to deal with by the time my game slowed down that much anyway. At least that is my experience.

I usually set up 2 staring NPR and only give them a 5% chance to spawn another NPR. That seem to work out quite well in my opinion.

You can also allow NPR to trigger Precursor and Star Swarms, that should also hinder their expansions as well, I usually allow that.

In my current game after about 60 years of play there still only are me and the two other NPR in the game. Between all of the NPR there is only 65 discovered systems and I have discovered 25 system from my almost conventional start. Turn times are a few seconds still and not deteriorating that much either.

I also never would allow Invaders to spawn until very late into the game, so that should have dealt with them.