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So I may have killed every alien I came across, and invaded every servant nation I could find and repelled every invasion with extreme prejudice.

The end result is I'm in the 2050s aliens blast me every time I so much as step a toe in space. I tried waiting them out but after 2 years, they were still out to get me.

I tried building a super fortress using ring core and it worked for a time but I just couldn't build a fleet fast enough and ended up crushed under the growing alien waves.

Not ready to give up this save yet, but I don't see a way to win at this point.

Can anyone help me?

Welcome to the Long War.

You annoyed the aliens good and proper, and they responded by parking a fleet in Earth orbit and eliminating everything you have.

What is the Alien Threat Meter at ? The more stuff you have in space (ie the more MC used), the higher the 'floor' for Alien Hate is. As you do things that piss off Aliens, the threat meter rises above that floor. As time passes, the Aliens relax a bit, and the threat meter falls to that floor.

The next step is probably the Aliens thinking about invading Earth again. They will probably do this, and you'll need to fight them on Earth for a bit.

The good news is the hate floor is currently on zero stars, as you have nothing left in Space.

Eventually, they'll go 'Job Done', the hate meter will fall back to four stars, and start heading lower, and you can re-expand into space - hopefully more cautiously this time.

But yeah, you're at war, and you lost round 1 in space.

Yeah, the problem is the alien aggression meter has not refreshed since 2045 and we're in 2052 ATM. How long will that grudge last?

What was your highest used MC ? That establishes the old floor.

I suspect you'd got up to ten or fifteen 'stars', and it *has* updated, it's just still exceeding the five stars on the meter

Note that you're still producing on Earth, yeah ? Research is still happening, MC is still being built, stuff like that ?

The ayys lose some hate every time they kill one of your habs. Try stopping you attacks on their agents on earth and using boost to fill LEO with T1 stations. The ayys will destroy them, and each time you will lose a little hate. (This may not work if they have already declared "total war", not sure exactly what triggers that though.)

You can force an update of the threat meter by detaining an alien agent, but that also adds 1-2 pips of threat itself.

If you play on difficulty normal and trigger an alien response after year 2042, you are in total war mode. The aliens will always attack your stuff.
I Don't know if its possible at this point to sneak out to space somehow. Maybe try an space dock at a lagrange point.

Ultrinox wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:27 am If you play on difficulty normal and trigger an alien response after year 2042, you are in total war mode. The aliens will always attack your stuff.
I Don't know if its possible at this point to sneak out to space somehow. Maybe try an space dock at a lagrange point.

In that case, his current game is probably fucked.

@sovereign
For future playthroughs, make sure to put a couple LDAs on all your useful stations, and make 2-5 throwaway LEO habs with nothing but hydroponics and solar. The ayys prefer to kill your least defended habs first, and lose hate for every hab killed. Whenever you accidentally hit 5 pips before 2042 (or the equivalent dates on higher difficulties), the ayys will wipe out your sacrificial habs and drop back down to acceptable levels of hate.

anonusername wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:23 pm

Ultrinox wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:27 am If you play on difficulty normal and trigger an alien response after year 2042, you are in total war mode. The aliens will always attack your stuff.
I Don't know if its possible at this point to sneak out to space somehow. Maybe try an space dock at a lagrange point.

In that case, his current game is probably fucked.

@sovereign
For future playthroughs, make sure to put a couple LDAs on all your useful stations, and make 2-5 throwaway LEO habs with nothing but hydroponics and solar. The ayys prefer to kill your least defended habs first, and lose hate for every hab killed. Whenever you accidentally hit 5 pips before 2042 (or the equivalent dates on higher difficulties), the ayys will wipe out your sacrificial habs and drop back down to acceptable levels of hate.

Whilst I absolutely agree about the LDA's (even better would be Battlestations) there is a hidden 'gotcha' here and that is Battlestations/LDA/PDA all add a combat rating to the hab or orbital and that in turn ramps up the hate, and additionally at first will be no use for anything much more than zapping orbital debris so I would recommend building them but immediately powering them down until you are ready for the inevitable onslaught, which (in theory) will catch them by total surprise. Power up only when they enter the requisite orbit and not until, and when they go - power them down again.

neilwilkes wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:17 am Whilst I absolutely agree about the LDA's (even better would be Battlestations) there is a hidden 'gotcha' here and that is Battlestations/LDA/PDA all add a combat rating to the hab or orbital and that in turn ramps up the hate, and additionally at first will be no use for anything much more than zapping orbital debris so I would recommend building them but immediately powering them down until you are ready for the inevitable onslaught, which (in theory) will catch them by total surprise. Power up only when they enter the requisite orbit and not until, and when they go - power them down again.

Are you sure about this hidden hate mechanic? I had over 200 MC, every station with two tier 3 defense modules, and the hate was based entirely on MC I had. I had all hate reducing techs and difficulty was normal so I was still below their response level.

I'm still trying to eke out a presence, tried putting automated thingys everywhere, worked for a while but it's really only effective on mercury and eventually just got blown off.

I don't mind losing the game but it's frustrating to be at a point I'm not losing but I can't win. The game should incorporate a loss condition or have technologies to sneak back into space. I have at least 4k of everything but I can't get a lasting presence.

My last attempt will be building a bunch of decoys in the asteroid belt and timing it with a battlestation around Mars with a balance of shipworks and battlestations. If after that I fail, time to scrap this game.

neilwilkes wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:17 am

anonusername wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:23 pm

Ultrinox wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:27 am If you play on difficulty normal and trigger an alien response after year 2042, you are in total war mode. The aliens will always attack your stuff.
I Don't know if its possible at this point to sneak out to space somehow. Maybe try an space dock at a lagrange point.

In that case, his current game is probably fucked.

@sovereign
For future playthroughs, make sure to put a couple LDAs on all your useful stations, and make 2-5 throwaway LEO habs with nothing but hydroponics and solar. The ayys prefer to kill your least defended habs first, and lose hate for every hab killed. Whenever you accidentally hit 5 pips before 2042 (or the equivalent dates on higher difficulties), the ayys will wipe out your sacrificial habs and drop back down to acceptable levels of hate.

Whilst I absolutely agree about the LDA's (even better would be Battlestations) there is a hidden 'gotcha' here and that is Battlestations/LDA/PDA all add a combat rating to the hab or orbital and that in turn ramps up the hate, and additionally at first will be no use for anything much more than zapping orbital debris so I would recommend building them but immediately powering them down until you are ready for the inevitable onslaught, which (in theory) will catch them by total surprise. Power up only when they enter the requisite orbit and not until, and when they go - power them down again.

Combat rating has no effect on hate. It is purely a MC based calculation, at least in the stable branch.

roman566 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:40 am

neilwilkes wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:17 am Whilst I absolutely agree about the LDA's (even better would be Battlestations) there is a hidden 'gotcha' here and that is Battlestations/LDA/PDA all add a combat rating to the hab or orbital and that in turn ramps up the hate, and additionally at first will be no use for anything much more than zapping orbital debris so I would recommend building them but immediately powering them down until you are ready for the inevitable onslaught, which (in theory) will catch them by total surprise. Power up only when they enter the requisite orbit and not until, and when they go - power them down again.

Are you sure about this hidden hate mechanic? I had over 200 MC, every station with two tier 3 defense modules, and the hate was based entirely on MC I had. I had all hate reducing techs and difficulty was normal so I was still below their response level.

I have decompiled the stable branch and confirmed that it is exclusively MC, except for a separate floor for HF and Resistance. (Both HF and Resistance have a floor of 20 hate which does not stack with the MC floor.)

Really?
Then I stand corrected, and beg everyone's pardon for duff information.
I was 100% certain combat ratings on Orbitals attracted attention......but if you say not then based on how you got the info I was 100% wrong.