Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Zeebie on October 10, 2012, 08:13:57 PM
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Early on I encountered a ship in Sirius which blew my scout to pieces. The game labeled them as "Sirius Aliens" and I assigned a diplomacy team to them. The team decided that communication was impossible and I fought a handful of skirmishes in Sirius over the next few years. I finally got the upper hand and wiped out the enemy ships. So for the first time I got to look carefully around the Sirius system and found...nothing. No population, no suggestion that there was a civilization there. These are the first (and only) aliens I've encountered so I'm not sure what's going on. Is there something special I have to do to detect a population? Is their homeworld elsewhere and they just happened to leave a fleet in Sirius for six years? Were they Precursors (does the game tell you when you meet those)? Any thoughts?
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Early on I encountered a ship in Sirius which blew my scout to pieces. The game labeled them as "Sirius Aliens" and I assigned a diplomacy team to them. The team decided that communication was impossible and I fought a handful of skirmishes in Sirius over the next few years. I finally got the upper hand and wiped out the enemy ships. So for the first time I got to look carefully around the Sirius system and found...nothing. No population, no suggestion that there was a civilization there. These are the first (and only) aliens I've encountered so I'm not sure what's going on. Is there something special I have to do to detect a population? Is their homeworld elsewhere and they just happened to leave a fleet in Sirius for six years? Were they Precursors (does the game tell you when you meet those)? Any thoughts?
Most likely Precursors.
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Where there escape pods? If not you probably ran across one of the spoiler races Precursors, The Swarm, and Invaders all do not leave life pods, and Swarm doesn't even leave wrecks.
If there were escape pods, then you likely just had a fight with a normal NPR, they sometimes do leave fleets in place for years at a time, especially if skirmishing is happening regularly, and yes if you meet them outside their home system the game assigned name will not reflect their true home system even if you later discover it.
If I had to guess I would say you have a spoiler race though, especially if they significantly out-teched you.
To answer your other question there is nothing special you need to detect populations, they generate EM and Thermal signatures that are easy enough to pick up if you survey the system at all. Assuming you have EM and/or Thermal sensors.
It is possible to miss small bases though, a single DSTS and missile stockpile that is commonly left by one of the spoiler races only has a Thermal Signature of like 5, I often miss those until the geo survey ships come in.
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Thanks folks. No escape pods, and I was definitely out-teched, so sounds like Precursors (does that need to be under spoilers?). That actually makes me feel much better about how hard I had to work to take them out :)
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Another telltale sign is that their ships don't stream atmosphere when their hulls are pierced
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Surprise! I found a "Population TH 15" on an asteroid in Sirius. Could it still be Precursors? How can I find out what is actually on that colony (eg, are there colonists, installations, etc.)?
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Surprise! I found a "Population TH 15" on an asteroid in Sirius. Could it still be Precursors? How can I find out what is actually on that colony (eg, are there colonists, installations, etc.)?
Thermal signatures are usually indicating the presence of industrial machinery e.g. mines, industrial facilities or missile storages, etc.
EM signatures indicate the presence of life. :)
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Surprise! I found a "Population TH 15" on an asteroid in Sirius. Could it still be Precursors? How can I find out what is actually on that colony (eg, are there colonists, installations, etc.)?
I'd guess maybe industrial ruins? Or maybe some other race did come around there.
Spoilers from what I noticed seem to have a much higher thermal signature from any other race that you may encounter and because of that they tend to completely miss your ships.
When I got blown up by them it was only because my early tech geo-grav-survey ship wasn't equipped with any sensors and literally got next to them to scan a planet. Than they blew it to bits.
As for the matter of should you cover it up or not... I don't know, I'm new here as well and from what I've seen it's kinda like Dwarf Fortress, cotton candy and clowns in a circus. Most people know what's up but it's considered common courtesy to not name things for what they are.
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So how do I see what is actually there? I've already done a geological survey.
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Drop some troops and take their base away from them, then inspect what you got :)
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Drop some troops and take their base away from them, then inspect what you got :)
Really? There's no way to tell what's on the surface without an invasion?
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My hunch is it's a passive listening post. Probably has a minimal (but non-zero) number of defenders. You should be able to take it fairly easily, and grab yourself a new listening post in Sirius. But be careful- I've had Precursors return and completely destroy a colony of theres that I've conquered on one or two occasions.
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No way to know what is there without dropping troops, the Thermal signature is quite low so I wouldn't expect much probably a tracking station with a missile stockpile, even odds that it is defended at all.
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Turned out to be 3 DSTS. Thanks for your help, folks.