A few questions about precursors

[Foolcow (OP)]

1.  How do you know if the hostile contacts are precursors?  All over the forums I see people talking about the precursor ships they've encountered, so I'm just wondering how you definitively identified them as precursors rather than normal NPRs.

2.  How common are precursors?  What percentage of systems do you expect to find them in?

3.  Do precursor ships ever have jump drives?

[Ziusudra]

1. In my current game they told me, I actually succeeded in establishing communications with them. I haven't a whole lot of experience, but in past games I've identified them by the fact that they hang out at planets without any populations.

2. I have no idea on percentages, but I haven't had even a short game without meeting some.

3. I have found evidence jump drives from salvaging their wrecks in my current game. I've never seen any jump, though.

[James Patten]

Precursors have jumped after me on occasion.  My current game has a precursor ship with a jump engine.

[SakSak]

Early on they have impossibly advanced tech - for example their ships seem to have equal thermal signature, equal tonnage but move two, three times faster than you do.

Battle reports also often reveal this fact, naming the whateveralienrace as precursors.

Planets with no populations are a fairly definitive sign.

In over a dozen games, Precursors have rarely displayed jump capability or even willingness to leave the system they're found in - it does happen every now and then though and once a single Precursor frigate eliminated all my shipping lane vessels before I could scramble a sufficient fleet to take it out.

[jocan2003]

Also i realised one of the class always go at EXACTLY 5000 kms in my games anyway.

[welchbloke]

Also i realised one of the class always go at EXACTLY 5000 kms in my games anyway.

The Precurosr designs are auto-generated for each game.  In my current game, the Precursor fleet speed is 9124 km/s.  Another good inidcator for Precursors is that they don't release life pods when destroyed.

[Shadow]

Another good inidcator for Precursors is that they don't release life pods when destroyed.

Ah, that's true.

Precursor ships in my game have a general speed of 8211 km/s.

[Rastaman]

I have just destroyed what looks like a precursor colony ship in orbit around a ruined outpost. 109000 tons or so. 4000 m/s