NPR too weak

[Golem666 (OP)]

Hi, is there a way to boost NPR using spacemaster mode? I already set the basic difficulty to 160% but their fleets can do nothing to me (except for destroying survey ship), so I would like to give them more resources so that they can build bigger ship or something like that.
Thanks in advance for any advice

[Droll]

This wont help your already generated NPRs but bump up the difficulty to something like 1000% or as ridiculous as you want. 160% is just too easy for you evidently.

[Golem666 (OP)]

I wanted to do that but was worried if that wouldn't break the game, so is it safe to do up the difficulty to that high numbers?

[Kristover]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.  When I played default research setting, I was ramping up to super capable ships in no time and things like fleet doctrine/equipping meant little because if I had chosen wrong, I could research out an alternative tech and get it on ships in minimal time.  By playing at 10-15% research, your equipping and doctrine choices actually have real weight because you stay in low-tech for quite awhile and if you happen to have chosen wrong, then you are in for some trouble.  It also makes spoilers a lot more scary because they are going to out tech you for several decades at least - heck, standard NPRs will likely out tech you when you encounter them for the first time.  Mess with the difficulty all you want, the research speed has been the way to go for me.

[Droll]

I wanted to do that but was worried if that wouldn't break the game, so is it safe to do up the difficulty to that high numbers?

It honestly depends on the type of difficulty you want. The difficulty modifier determines their starting industry and ship amounts, so setting it high means the enemy has more stuff that is higher tech.

As was just pointed out above, it is also viable to mess with the research speed slider as a way of hampering yourself and making design decisions mean more. Alternatively you can use SM to gimp your racial stats.

[Jorgen_CAB]

It also is worth pointing out the the difficulty setting is only effecting NPR when they spawn... it will do nothing for an already existing NPR.

I also agree that low research setting will make most enemies much stronger as they still spawn with the same tech lead as normal and it will take you that much longer to catch up. If you also role-play and not min/max in the same way it gets even worse...

[Golem666 (OP)]

Ok, thanks to all of you, from what you said, I'll turn down my research speed and will hope that some spoiler race will show up soon so that my missile gondolas will hove some worthy targets

[TMaekler]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.

I thought that the research speed is global - meaning equal for you and NPRs... am I wrong here?

[Droll]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.

I thought that the research speed is global - meaning equal for you and NPRs... am I wrong here?

Well because of the way the game allocates initial starting NPR strength you can compensate with the difficulty value.

Alternatively you can instead change your race modifier for research instead - that one is specific to your race and isn't global.

[Kristover]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.

I thought that the research speed is global - meaning equal for you and NPRs... am I wrong here?

True but my experience has been that when the NPR gets generated and gets its initial tech allocation, it usually has you overmatched in at least one weapons category and if it is one that you’re vulnerable too, than it’s a problem.  Plus, I generally find that the NPRs I encounter tend to be 2-3K faster than my ships though that might be a ship design bias on my part.  That being said, with slow research speed from the start, you’re DEFINITELY going to be outmatched my spoilers you may encounter for a long while.

[Kylemmie]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.

I thought that the research speed is global - meaning equal for you and NPRs... am I wrong here?

True but my experience has been that when the NPR gets generated and gets its initial tech allocation, it usually has you overmatched in at least one weapons category and if it is one that you’re vulnerable too, than it’s a problem.  Plus, I generally find that the NPRs I encounter tend to be 2-3K faster than my ships though that might be a ship design bias on my part.  That being said, with slow research speed from the start, you’re DEFINITELY going to be outmatched my spoilers you may encounter for a long while.

Also one who also uses super slow research speed and I like the longer time spent in each stage as stated above. Starts always felt a lot harder and I recently read a post about how the Research Speed % doesn't effect the starting RP of NPR's, so they get a boost as mentioned which matches the how it feels more difficult at start.

[Kristover]

Interestingly, I find the best way to address a problem like this is to modify the research speed down to 10-15%.

I thought that the research speed is global - meaning equal for you and NPRs... am I wrong here?

True but my experience has been that when the NPR gets generated and gets its initial tech allocation, it usually has you overmatched in at least one weapons category and if it is one that you’re vulnerable too, than it’s a problem.  Plus, I generally find that the NPRs I encounter tend to be 2-3K faster than my ships though that might be a ship design bias on my part.  That being said, with slow research speed from the start, you’re DEFINITELY going to be outmatched my spoilers you may encounter for a long while.

Also one who also uses super slow research speed and I like the longer time spent in each stage as stated above. Starts always felt a lot harder and I recently read a post about how the Research Speed % doesn't effect the starting RP of NPR's, so they get a boost as mentioned which matches the how it feels more difficult at start.

One aspect I really like about slow research speeds and hanging out for several decades in the low technology era is that I feel like it makes Aurora more of a game of strategic choices.  I'll use a recent game as an example.  I had about 20 systems in my Federation and ran into an NPR who was initially peaceful - not terribly friendly but they didn't blow up my survey ships and I didn't blow up theirs.  I had a very small naval presence in the area but was ready to surge from Earth if needed.  I then ran into another race on the opposite side of the empire and this was was absolutely hostile from the first.  I ended up getting involved in a five year war with them with lots of back and forth.  I ended up committing like 80% of my naval and ground forces to that fight. In the middle of it when things started to go my way, that formerly quiet race in the course of like a couple of months went from sharp messages to shooting survey ships passing through to outright invading one of my key border systems.  I pulled that small squadron I had back to the key world in the system which did have heavy STO and watched them plink off all my CMCs and civilian ships who didn't get out of town. 

Now in a standard research speed game, I could have redeployed forces from one side of the empire in about a month or two.  However, in this low-tech game, it took me almost an ENTIRE YEAR to do so!  I had to think about a lot of things like could I maintain the same momentum in the real shooting war if half the forces were gone for two years?  Was there new technology and builds coming online in the meantime?  Was the force I redeployed even appropriate?  It sure was for the shooting war but the NPR ship configuration was completely different.  Bottom line, the tactical fights I had to fight were functionally no different than the high tech era except ranges for beams are greater - but all the strategy choices were completely different and much harder.