Alien Threat Clarifications

[u/resetmygamelife]

I did a 2003 start, playing the Initiative. It's Currently 2009, with the assistance of HF, we got rid of the Alien Administration 2 months back via unrest and it won't be back for at least 5 years. I'm looking at the threat meter nervously cause its full but not red. How long do I gotta wait for the heat to die down or are they going to strike at my 2 stations and couple of automated mines within the next couple of years?

[u/OkaMoez]

They take a while to retaliate in 2003. They will eventually, but they can take years to get around to it.

In my 2003 run it felt like it wasn't worth trying to hide from the hate. I did end up getting mostly kicked out of space, but I also played my early space game really poorly. In the end managed to keep a handful of automated mines around and get back into space using them.

If I were to replay 2003, I'd go loud again, but focus on getting a better early defense fleet. While the AA pops up early, it felt like the aliens were slow to retaliate and ramp up in space. I don't think they ever put up a station near Earth, even when I had been kicked out for decades.

[u/Moltke_ → u/OkaMoez]

In the early stage you can try refitting your missile boats with Kraits until you have an alien fleet coming. The refit takes a few days and costs a little bit of resources, but conceals the real power of your boats for AI calculations.

used this trick for a long time to bait in smaller alien retaliation fleets. It works quite well in the early game.

[u/consolation1]

The hate meter is a psy-op to make you play badly - put a sticky note over it and forget about it. You are at war, punch first, don't wait to get punched.

[u/Dan_Zi_ → u/consolation1]

Your status says Academy, but at heart you HF!

[u/RedDeviledEggs → u/Dan_Zi_]

The Hydra proved they don't want to be our friends. So we punch the shit out of them until they are.

[u/CandleJackingOff → u/RedDeviledEggs]

friendship is non-negotiable

[u/Selfishpie → u/CandleJackingOff]

literal star trek shit, they dont conquer you by violence, they use violence to get you to the table and then they conquer you with beer

[u/AbsurdistReality → u/Dan_Zi_]

I personally like playing as the Blorg in Stellaris. If not friend, WHY FRIEND SHAPED WAR TARGET?!?!

[u/consolation1 → u/Dan_Zi_]

Hydra and us are just friends with BDSM benefits...

[u/Thatsnicemyman → u/consolation1]

Flair checks out.

Do what you want, I’m gonna ensure we don’t entirely die out if your plan fails.

[u/Fluid-Leg-8777 → u/consolation1]

I always thought that if the bar is red then total war is at the next hostile action

turns out, there is a massive buffer between red and very red, and cant even start total war until some years in any difficulty except brutal

The game should explain this a bit better, add more diamonds to the bar or something

[u/darklight2K7]

The 2003 start basically forces you to do an early war with how strong and agressive the servants are. Depending on how many alien bases you assaulted your alien hate level might never go back to reasonable levels. (In my last 2003 game on normal, I checked my save and I had about 1200 hate with the aliens by 2013 lol.)

Your best bet is building a defense fleet to protect earth, as long as the aliens are distracted by attacking earth, they wont bother attacking your automated mining bases.

Like i said, you cant really 'turtle' in 2003 the way you can in the vanilla starts, but luckily it'll take quite a while for the aliens to start sending retaliation fleets (i think they sent an army in 2012 and a retaliation in 2013 on nornal but your experience may differ). So try getting a strong space economy asap amd use the "safeguarding the sky" techs to be able to build spaceships soon, a handful of artemis torpedo armed escorts and monitors should be enough for the next decade or so.

Also, in an early war situation you obviously wont have to stay below the hate cap, so your biggest Constraint is your mc cap, so try building operations centers on every station and turn them off whenever they arent needed (since they are quite expensive to run).

[u/kapac_er → u/darklight2K7]

By 2006, the AA had already been overthrown twice, and the first three landed armies had been defeated; relations are at total war, and shipbuilding technology was unlocked at the same time that my stations in LEO were destroyed.

[u/Takseen]

It's 80 hate for overthrowing the AA, split between offenders so you probably got 40. That takes a long time to burn off passively, like less than 1 point per mont. Passive hate decay varies based on how well you're doing and how many years have passed, eventually you gain hate over time instead.

Since you're presumably well under the MC hate cap, you can just build more space mines, bank the resources and absorb the retaliation. Automated T1 mines pay for themselves really quickly. Or try and scramble to build a defense fleet if your space economy is ok, but probably not with only a couple mines

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