Hey all
So I'm about 15 years into a game where I've selected no random NPRs, 4 starting NPRs, swarms and precurssors.
After about 5 years of exploring I ran into what I think are a swarm - piles of 800 ton messon blaster FACs and a 60k ton mother ship with massive shields.
I've also run into another bunch of aliens with ships doing just shy of 6000 kms, size 6 missiles with a range of over 100m km, a speed of nearly 30k kms and strength 8 warheads and some nasty beam weapons as well. With the massive range difference in missiles to my own and anti missiles being pretty ineffective (chance to hit for me was 14. 5%!) my poor fleet of 8 8000 ton ships was decimated before I even got a shot off. The aliens do appear in the diplo tab (same as the swarm) but I've failed to be able to make contact with them although they have picked up survivors from the wrecks. The question is, have I just been useless in developing my tech compared to an NPR with the same sarting position or are these likely to be precussors and is there a set way to be able to tell?