Encountering Alien species

[Atlantia (OP)]

Well, I just had an interesting situation.  I sent a ship through the jump point to Alpha Centauri with transponder and active scanner on.  I soon encountered 8 ships with various make that were neutral.  Deciding to back off, I ordered the ship to go back to the jumppoint, but they opened fire and destroyed it.

And then they invaded Sol.  Right now they're bombarding helpless Mars.

So, a few alien-related questions:

1.  Across 3 different games I've encountered 4 different species of aliens, all hostile.  I assume this is coincidence, or are they by default hostile?

2.  They're always more advanced militarily than I am.  Ok, this didn't really turn out to be a question.  I've also encountered them usually in the next system over or in the system after the next one.

3.  To what degree is it necessary to have a diplomatic team when trying to initiate contact?

4.  I'm sick of losing ships to hostiles in systems into which I jump.  How could I reduce my rate of attrition on my ships?

My two Interstellar Survey designs:

Code: [Select]

Dulalas-B class Gravitational Survey Vessel    2,200 tons     208 Crew     360 BP      TCS 44  TH 50  EM 0
1136 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-15     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.8 Years     MSP 102    AFR 38%    IFR 0.5%    1YR 19    5YR 283    Max Repair 100 MSP

J2250(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 2250 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Nuclear Thermal Engine E8M (2)    Power 25    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 51.1 billion km   (520 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR10-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 10.0m km    Resolution 100
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Code: [Select]

Naraithsol-B class Geological Survey Vessel    2,550 tons     243 Crew     415.5 BP      TCS 51  TH 50  EM 0
980 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-16     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.33 Years     MSP 204    AFR 26%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 17    5YR 262    Max Repair 100 MSP

J3000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Nuclear Thermal Engine E8M (2)    Power 25    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 44.1 billion km   (520 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR10-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 10.0m km    Resolution 100
Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Thanks in advance!

[Tarran]

1: There are 3 races of special aliens that are automatically hostile. There's a chance you've hit one or more of them four times. One of said races is somewhat randomly generated, so that may explain the "different" races.

2: Could be 2 of the special aliens I mentioned. They're fairly advanced.

If you want, I could just spoil the obvious one almost everyone has heard of. Or even every special alien if you want. Though revealing more could send this thread into the Spoilers sub-forum.

[boggo2300]

NPR's tend to be a little touchy about being scanned with active sensors.....It's a good idea to kill the actives, actually most of the time unless you are expecting a fight

Matt

[Atlantia (OP)]

1: There are 3 races of special aliens that are automatically hostile. There's a chance you've hit one or more of them four times. One of said races is somewhat randomly generated, so that may explain the "different" races.

2: Could be 2 of the special aliens I mentioned. They're fairly advanced.

If you want, I could just spoil the obvious one almost everyone has heard of. Or even every special alien if you want. Though revealing more could send this thread into the Spoilers sub-forum.

Ah, no, I've heard of these aliens. I'm just curious as to how they're labeled in the diplomacy screen. Do they get assigned the specific name, these special aliens? Because the aliens I've encountered have been called "[instert system name] # [random number]".

NPR's tend to be a little touchy about being scanned with active sensors.....It's a good idea to kill the actives, actually most of the time unless you are expecting a fight

Good to know, thanks!

[Beersatron]

2. If they are NPRs then they are using the same starting requirements as you. Are you using your starting 'Build Points' to spawn your starting navy? i.e. use your research points to design the military components and then design yourself a couple of destroyer types and then use the OOB screen to spawn some of the ships to form your pewpew enablers.

[Atlantia (OP)]

2. If they are NPRs then they are using the same starting requirements as you. Are you using your starting 'Build Points' to spawn your starting navy? i.e. use your research points to design the military components and then design yourself a couple of destroyer types and then use the OOB screen to spawn some of the ships to form your pewpew enablers.

I have been starting with 3 Cruisers as the "Designing Beam Ships" tutorial describes, but these got destroyed without putting up a fight by thermal and nuclear missiles. Is this a spoiler race?

[Tarran]

Ah, no, I've heard of these aliens. I'm just curious as to how they're labeled in the diplomacy screen. Do they get assigned the specific name, these special aliens? Because the aliens I've encountered have been called "[instert system name] # [random number]".

Nope. They're just assigned generic names.

But two of them, the more spoiler ones, always have the same image for their race. So you can use that to identify them.

[Charlie Beeler]

This is just my opinion, but...

Without a solid grasp of how the game functions, starting a race with beams as a races primary combat system is a bad idea.

[Atlantia (OP)]

Without a solid grasp of how the game functions, starting a race with beams as a races primary combat system is a bad idea.

Oh really? What makes you say that?

I mean, I used their slaughter of me as a learning experience, albeit a small one. I looked up combat, realised that they don't fire automatically until I tell them to, etc.

[Charlie Beeler]

Oh really? What makes you say that?

I mean, I used their slaughter of me as a learning experience, albeit a small one. I looked up combat, realised that they don't fire automatically until I tell them to, etc.

The short answer is experience.

The single largest hurdle is knowing how to build a beam based fleet that can survive in a missile heavy environment.  It's not easy and the tech is biased against beam only approaches.

[Atlantia (OP)]

Interesting. I suppose I'll have to learn out to deal with missiles a bit better then. Seems like the tutorial's point defence beams could do a sufficient job of destroying missiles midflight, I thought.

[Charlie Beeler]

There are a host of topics, both here in the academy and in ship design, that discuss missile defense.  Beam and missile based.

[Atlantia (OP)]

I'll do some reading on it, thanks!