Colony Crises

From Starsector Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Colony Crises in the intel screen, with a major event pending
A crisis is virtually unavoidable at some point, and hostile fleets continually probe your defenses, but where there is danger, there is often opportunity.

–In-game description

Colony Crises (previously known as Hostile Activity) is a major event in Starsector. It begins when a colony is established by the player.

For more general threats against colonies, see Colony threats.

Overview

Every faction in the game, other than the Independent, may, under certain conditions, start harassing your colonies.

This applies an ongoing effect unique to the faction, mostly in the form of that faction's fleets harassing your colonies (possibly destroying trade convoys), and add points to the event, depending on how much your colonies annoy them.

Unless stated otherwise, all fleets involved in this event are "operating in a legal gray area", and fighting them with Transponder on will only cause a -5 relationship penalty.

Once the event reaches 500 points, one of the factions will be picked for a major attack on your colonies. If the progress is reduced to 475 points, the attack will be cancelled, potentially allowing a "reroll" of the faction. Once the event reaches 600 points, the chosen faction will start planning the attack, and the number of points will reset to 200. The planned attack will be visible in a separate intel, and it usually takes about 2-3 months for it to plan, launch, and reach your colony.

The attack will usually consist of multiple fleets and require player intervention to be defeated. It's not necessary to destroy all fleets - defeating the main fleet is sufficient, but defeating some of the side fleets may sometimes work as well. Successfully fighting off the raid will often, but not always, make their faction leave you alone from then on.

General Factors

Defensive Measures

Only the highest level structure/industry across the player faction is used, these progress reduction do not stack.

One-Time Factors

  • Hostile ships destroyed: one-time reduction based on the amount. Only battles involving the player fleet count. Any hostile ships killed will count (not just Pirates and Pathers); e.g. a punitive expedition defeated by the player will reduce hostile activity.
  • Pirate Base destroyed: 40-80 point reduction based on the base tier, but only if the base was affecting at least one player colony.
  • Luddic Path Base destroyed: 50 point reduction, plus 20 for every active cell on a player colony, to a maximum of 150. Only applies if Pather interest on player colonies is nonzero.

Blowback

Reducing progress through one-time reductions such as destroying hostile ships accumulates blowback at the same rate, which contributes 5% of its accumulated points per month to event progress. Thus one-time time factors will only postpone rather than prevent an event.

Hegemony

Hegemony inspection.png
Inspection info in the intel sceen

Trigger

The Hegemony becomes interested in your colonies if you are using AI Cores. The AI inspectors will attempt to stop illegal AI core use.

The Hegemony's contribution crisis meter is based on the total AI core usage on all player colonies of size 4 and up, with diminishing returns.

A Gamma Core is worth 1 point, a Beta Core 2 points, an Alpha Core 4 points, and an Alpha Core colony administrator 10 points.[1]

Joining the Persean League will suspend Hegemony contribution to Hostile Activity (but will not cancel AI inspections already in progress), however, leaving the Persean League will have it resume.

Ongoing Effect

Hegemony Technology Investigation Fleets will fly around your colony (mainly around the jump points), harassing neutral fleets, though they will also help fight Pirates or Luddic Path fleets.

They may intercept your fleet and demand to inspect your ships, causing damage to CR if you comply.

Refusing can cause them to attack you, but if the player has a big enough fleet, they will back off.

Major Attack

The Hegemony will send one or more inspection fleets to a selected colony with AI cores. The colony must be at least 180 days old and have 8 or more points of AI usage[2] (so sufficiently distributed AI usage, with no AI admins, will avoid inspections).

Player colonies will concede to these inspection by default (unless selected otherwise). A successful inspection will remove all AI cores on the colony's industries and the AI administrator if present, and apply a reputation penalty.[3]

The inspection fleets have 3 levels, with the level rising each time an inspection event is defeated (by fighting the fleets, or tactically bombarding their origin market before they depart). An inspection that successfully completes or is bribed does not raise the level.

  • Level 1: 150 fleet points[2]
  • Level 2: 600 fleet points
  • Level 3: 1,400 fleet points

The player has several options to deal with inspections, selectable through the Avert dialog in the inspection's Intel screen display:

  • Comply with the Inspection (default). If AI cores are discovered they will be immediately confiscated and the player's reputation with the Hegemony will decrease by 10.
    • If the AI inspection fleet finds less than 80% of the expected credit value in AI cores[3], as a result of the player removing AI cores after the inspection fleet has been announced, the fleet will disrupt all the colonies' industries, reduce the player's reputation with the Hegemony with 20, and penalize the colony's stability. The player can still safely replace high value cores for the equivalent in low value cores, to change which cores the fleet takes.
    • AI cores in Storage will be taken if they are found there after the inspection had expected them to be on industries.
  • Resist the Inspection, allowing player faction forces to attack the inspection fleet as though they were a typical threat. This will make the Hegemony immediately turn hostile when the fleet arrives in-system. Resisting is the default and only option if the player is already hostile to the Hegemony.
    • If the inspection fleet overcomes the colony's space defenses, it will seize the AI cores it finds and cause some instability. Each core has a chance to escape confiscation, depending on the ratio of the colony's ground defense strength to the fleet's strength.
  • Bribe the Inspectors, causing them to arrive and act as though no cores were present. This costs 1 SP 0% XP and 150,000¢ × 1.5^(number of past inspections), capped at 500,000¢.
    • A bribed inspection may still conduct its inspection if the Hegemony turns hostile midway through (changing the default response to resistance when the intel item is viewed in the GUI).

Regardless of the option selected, the player can also personally engage and destroy the inspection fleet(s) while having their Transponder off, resulting in only a slight reputation loss. This can even be done with the colony's station and patrols supporting the player, even if the 'comply' option was chosen. Other than bribery, this is the only way to maintain good relations with the Hegemony while keeping the AI cores and otherwise avoiding damage to the colony.

Resolution

Once the 3 levels of Inspection Fleets have been defeated, the Hegemony threat will cease. The player can speak to Baikal Daud on Chicomoztoc to 'discuss' the matter, which will earn 3 story points.

Persean League

Trigger

The Persean League becomes interested in your colonies when you have either at least 2 colonies of size 4, or 1 colony of size 5 or bigger.

Their goal is to make you join the Persean League.

Ongoing Effect

Persean League Enforcer fleets will "patrol" around your colony and harassing neutral fleets, though they will also engage Pirates & Luddic Path fleet.

They may intercept your fleet and demand to inspect your ships (under the guise of ensuring no illegal goods like Recreational Drugs or Harvested Organs are being carried), causing damage to CR if you comply.

Refusing may cause them to attack you, but if the player has a big enough fleet they will back off.

Major Attack

A massive blockade consisting of around 15 fleets will target your colony.

It will inflict -60% accessibility on the colonies in the system until the timer runs out (around a cycle), or the main fleet (denoted by the presence of S-mods) or both supply fleets (named appropriately) are defeated.

Once the Blockade is lifted, the League will stop attacking your colonies, and you will receive +30 relations with the independents and Hegemony.

Resolution

There are 3 ways to end the League threat:

  • Go to Kazeron in Thule to discuss joining the League with the Prime Demarchon, Reynard Hannan. You will be required to give up 20% of your colony gross income and get a Persean League commission. They will also protect you from Hegemony's AI inspections.
    • Presenting at least two "strong arguments" for joining the League will enable a "good deal" that reduces the fee to zero. The available strong arguments are:
      • Defeating the blockade
      • Paying a kickback to gens Hannan (5% of colony gross income)
      • Raiding for, and then offering to return, the Pristine Nanoforge on Kazeron.
  • Fight off their major attack (destroy either the two "Supply Fleets" or the command fleet named "Grand Armada").
  • Saturation bombardment of a League colony. This will prevent joining the League in the future, along with the added consequences of conducting such a bombardment.

After the blockade is defeated, you can still join the League. It is also possible to leave the League after joining, or to rescind the kickback to gens Hannan.

The player may later rejoin once, but only if a good deal was not secured. Leaving without a good deal will result in hostile action by the League.

Joining the Persean League will also prevent the Hegemony from being able to conduct AI Inspections.

Luddic Church

Luddic majority.png
Luddic majority unhappy.png

Trigger

Colonies that fit certain criteria may attract immigrants from the Luddic Church, creating the Luddic Majority market condition if the colony increases in size while being suitable:

The condition gives the colony: +1 stability, +1 unit of production for their preferred jobs, and +(5 * Colony Size) population growth.

If the requirements are not met, the Luddic Majority will lose its effects, and will be removed completely the next time the market grows in size.

However, it also draws the ire of the Knights of Ludd, ostensibly over potential spiritual dangers to them (though probing them over it indicates that missing labor quotas may be the real cause).

The monthly points contribution is the size of the offending colonies.

Ongoing Effect

Knights of Ludd fleets will fly around your colonies.

They are not hostile, but will harass neutral fleets in the system, but will also engage any Pirates fleet.

They might intercept you and demand a tribute of supplies; refusing may make the fleet attack you, but if the player has a big enough fleet, they will back off.

Major Attack

A large Knights of Ludd expedition (around 5 fleets) will fly to your colony and camp the planet. This event will cause 0-2 unrest on the target colony per month (depending on the strength of the expedition relative to the defenders), and if stability drops to 0, the Church will take over the colony.

Resolution

There are two ways to make peace with the Luddic Church:

  • Go to their colony and negotiate an immigration restriction agreement. The agreement will remove the effect of Luddic Majority.
  • Fight off their major attack. Doing so will also double the effect of Luddic Majority.

Tri-Tachyon

The Commerce Raiding event in the intel screen

Trigger

Tri-Tachyon becomes interested in your colonies when you are exporting at least 5 units of at least 2 different commodities, other than Food, Domestic Goods, Ore, and Metals (and also Crew & Marines).

Ongoing Effect

Independent fleets (identified by the name 'Commerce Raider') will harass your colony, attacking trade fleets in system and in hyperspace. These are quite powerful fleets, with S-modded ships.

Major Attack

A massive Mercenary raid will be sent to raid one of your systems, where they would raid every player colony in it, disrupting all industries.

The mercenaries can be bribed for 1,000,000¢ to raid Hybrasil instead, by talking to the Admiral of the Command fleet.

Regardless of outcome, Tri-Tachyon Commerce Raiding will commence.

Resolution

Ttcr event.png

Rayan Arroyo can give you some hints about resolving this after you meet him during Kallichore Archive, mainly explaining the nature of Tri-Tachyon Commerce Raiding. Basically, the player have to do enough damage to Tri-Tachyon interests / assets that continued aggression against the player will be considered unprofitable and aggression will cease.

Destroying or bribing the Mercenary fleets in the major attack is not enough to stop Tri-Tachyon by itself, but it will contribute towards finishing the commerce raiding event (80 points for defeating the fleets, or 100 for bribing them), and reduce Tri-Tachyon's contribution to the overall Colony Crises meter to 0.25× of normal.

To gain more points beyond that, the player can:

  • Destroy trade fleets and smugglers going to or from Tri-Tachyon colonies, regardless of fleet affiliation.
  • Disrupt Industries in any Tri-Tachyon colony.
  • Destroy the independent-flagged Commerce Raiders around player colonies.
Ttcr mercs2.png

At 150 points, Tri-Tachyon will hire mercenaries to eliminate the player, which will appear a few months after this point has been reached. Even if the player manages to resolves the situation before encountering the mercenaries, the contract will still hold regardless.

These mercenary fleets are based on archetypes / factions led by idiosyncratic officers, a non-exhaustive list of them are:

Ttcr success.png

When the maximum points of 300 is reached, Tri-Tachyon aggression will cease. After which, the player can talk with a Tri-Tachyon contact of High or Very High Importance (including Arroyo if he's developed) to make a deal.

Both the player & Tri-Tachyon colonies will gained increased accessibility by a percentage equal to the sum of the other faction's colony sizes.

This agreement will remain in place even if the player faction & Tri-Tachyon later on.

It can also be unilaterally terminated by the player from the Intel screen, but this will result in a -50 relation penalty with Tri-Tachyon, and such an agreement cannot be remade again.

Sindrian Diktat

Trigger

The Sindrian Diktat becomes interested in your colonies if you are producing at least 5 units of fuel.

Ongoing Effect

Sindrian Diktat Raiding fleets will patrol player systems & nearby hyperspace, attack relevant trade convoys.

If they spot the player's fleet, they will actively give pursuit against the player to attack them.

Major Attack

A Sindrian Diktat expedition consisting of several fleets will be sent to carry out a saturation bombardment of the colony hosting the offending Fuel Production.

Resolution

Their interest can be neutralized by raiding Sindria and taking their Synchrotron Core, or talking to an official on Sindria and accepting a deal that gives them 50% of your income from Fuel exports.

Defeating the major attack results in a 25% increase to income from Fuel exports.

Pirates

Event bad.png

Trigger

The Pirates will always attack your colonies, until their part of the event is resolved.

Monthly score is given based on the biggest colony's size and stability. If multiple colonies have the same size, one with the highest stability is used.

The rate is: 10 + size - stability.

Pirate Bases near your colonies will also contribute a varying amount, depending on the number of colonies within range.

Ongoing Effect

Pirate fleets will actively attack traders going in or out of your colony, causing shipping disruptions.

Major Attack

Pirates will organize a large raiding party from one of the colonies, targeting one of the player's systems.

If successful, they will inflict a large stability penalty to the targeted colony.

Resolution

Pirates will mostly stop attacking you (though nearby Pirate Bases will still be opportunistic) if you either defeat their major attack or obtain protection from Jorien Kanta, pirate warlord located in Kanta's Den in the Magec Star System.

Resolving the pirate crisis will grant all player colonies the Piracy Respite market condition, which grants 10% bonus accessibility.

The bonus is increased to 20% if the player has Kanta's Protection, regardless of whether it was obtained before or after defeating the major attack.

Jorien Kanta will demand a tribute in exchange for her protection. A list of acceptable tributes is:

The following can be offered, but will be rejected:

Do note that Kanta's Protection CANNOT be obtained if the player choses to space the Loke clone during the events of At The Gates, having earned her deep ire.

Luddic Path

Sleeper cells.png
Pather cells.png
For more information on Pather Cells, see Colony_threats#Luddic_Path_Cells.

Trigger

Technology and AI Core use create Luddic Path interest. Interest needs to be at least 7 for a Pather Cell to spawn. The Pather contribution to the Crisis meter is based on the total interest on all player colonies, with diminishing returns.

Source Interest
Gamma Core · Mining 1
Beta Core · Refining · Tech-Mining on Scattered Ruins 2
Alpha Core · Tech-Mining on Widespread Ruins · Corrupted Nanoforge · Pristine Nanoforge · Synchrotron Core · Orbital Fusion Lamp · Autonomous Mantle Bore · Catalytic Core · Soil Nanites · Biofactory Embryo · Fullerene Spool · Plasma Dynamo · Cryoarithmetic Engine · Combat Drone Replicators · Dealmaker Holosuite 4
Tech-Mining on Extensive Ruins 6
Hypershunt Tap · Tech-Mining on Vast Ruins 8
AI Core Administrator 10

Ongoing Effect

Pather fleets can be found raiding around systems containing the offending colony.

Major Attack

A large Pather expedition will attack your colony with the intent of saturation bombardment to destroy the source of their ire.

Defeating the expedition will disrupt all cells in the sector for one cycle, and permanently remove the Luddic Path contribution to the crisis meter.

However, Pather Cells will still persist, and needs to be addressed separately.

Resolution

If the player has colonies targeted by Luddic Path Cells, then they can offer a bigger counter "tithe" (scaling with the number of colonies, their sizes, and Pather Interest), which is usually around 200,000¢ to 800,000¢; this bribe will negate Pather activity in the player colonies for around 730 days.

A permanent agreement can be reached as a part of the Scythe of Orion quest.

Remnants

The Remnants will take an interest in any colony sharing a system with a Remnant Nexus. The only way to remove their threat is to destroy the nexus in question.

The Remnant crisis involves multiple Ordos being sent to conduct a saturation bombardment of their unwanted neighbor. Even if these fleets are defeated, more may be sent later.

References

  1. ↑ HegemonyAICoresActivityCause.java, Starsector API.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 HegemonyHostileActivityFactor.java, Starsector API.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 HIActionStage.java, Starsector API.

External links

Icon check.png
Up to date for latest version, 0.97a.
Retrieved from "https://starsector.wiki.gg/wiki/Colony_Crises?oldid=25666"