Colony threats
A player colony will face various colony threats at times, depending on factors including its location, industries, and use of AI Cores. Some of these also affect NPC colonies.
In Starsector 0.95 and later, most threats do not appear till the colony reaches size 4.
Colony Crises
- Main article: Colony Crises
The Colony Crises intel item is the major colony threat system in version 0.97, providing hostile activity from almost all factions in the Sector with story-based resolutions.
Pirate Activity
| There have been signs that pirates are targeting shipping and colonies in this system - from port inspectors being pressured to turn a blind eye, to inconsistencies in cargo manifests, to other increased criminal activity.
The pirates most likely have a base somewhere relatively nearby. |
||
–In-Game Description | ||
Pirates will often prey on trade convoys to and from colonies. This affects the stability and accessibility of the colony temporarily whenever it occurs, and varies in severity based on the amount of convoys interdicted. These attacks are launched from Pirate Bases that are established throughout the sector, typically nearby to the targeted colony. A prompt in Intel will show that this is the case.
Pirate bases are not automatically revealed, and must be located by the player. If unable to be located manually, the player can visit the dockside bar of any colony under the impact of pirate disruption, where they will find a 'grizzled spacer'. Talking to them will reveal the system in which the pirate base is located.
Pirate bases are typically the lowest level of orbital station, though may occasionally spawn as more powerful stations with deadlier defenders. They may also be docked at and traded with, assuming the player has the necessary reputation or their transponder is off. Destroying a pirate base is the same as attacking any other station, and will immediately restore the lost stability and accessibility to any affected colonies.
Pirate bases will continue to spawn regardless of the state of the Pirate faction in the sector. Even if all pirate bases and colonies are eradicated (including those in the Core Worlds), more will continue to spawn endlessly.
Reputation with the pirate faction has no effect on pirate activity.
Luddic Path Cells
The Luddic Path will install cells on colonies whose activities offend their religion such as certain industries, use of items and AI cores with particular anger at the use of Alpha Cores as administrators. All activities weigh a certain amount of interest that if concentrated enough on any particular planet will no longer allow them to turn a blind eye. In numerical terms a planet can bare at most an interest of 6 before Cells are installed. For interest break down, see table below.
Luddic Path Cells begin their existence as Sleeper Cells, indicating the intention of the Luddic Path to disrupt operations at the colony, but exhibiting no immediate effects on the colony or its industries.
After an undetermined period of time, the Cells will awaken and attempt to put together the manpower to sabotage the target of their ire on the colony. For this, they require smugglers to bring in supplies from a nearby Luddic Path base. Once they receive enough support, they will attempt to perform an act of terrorism within the colony to disrupt operations. A colony with high stability will often be able to fend these attacks off, however a successful attack will disrupt an industry or cause a temporary stability penalty.
- Due to a bug in Starsector 0.9.1, sabotage attempts will always fail if the colony's stability is 2 or higher.
The cells receive support from Pather Bases. These stations will send out smuggler convoys to the target colony, attempting to supply the cells with the materials they need to carry out their mission. The player can interrupt this operation by intercepting the smugglers, though the survival of the base will cause the continued attempts of these convoys.
As with pirates, the method to end Pather activity is to destroy the Pather Base. Unlike Pirate bases, Pather Bases can often end up a large distance away from their target colonies, potentially on the complete opposite side on the sector, meaning locating the base can often be nigh-impossible. Fortunately, a single base will often attempt to supply cells on multiple colonies which can reveal their location on the Intel screen. In the case that the bases' location is _not_ known, the player can travel to the dockside bar of a colony under threat from the Path, and speak to the Pather at the bar. For the cost of 10 000 credits, the system that contains the Pather Base will be revealed.
Alternatively, if you detect smugglers near the colony then you can mouse over their fleet to see their flight plan or manually tail them back to the base. This is considerably more difficult if there is significant unrelated smuggler activity.
Pather bases are stronger than pirate ones, starting at a complete orbital station and upgrading to a battlestation. They may also be docked at and traded with, assuming the player has the necessary reputation or their transponder is off. Destroying a Pather base is the same as attacking any other station, and will immediately restore the lost stability to any affected colonies. If all Pather bases are destroyed consistently for an extended period of time, cells on colonies will begin to fade out and disappear.
Pather bases will continue to spawn regardless of the state of the Luddic Path in the sector. Even if all Pather bases and Luddic Path colonies are eradicated (including those in the Core Worlds), more will continue to spawn endlessly.
| A successful sabotage operation requires a smuggler to go from the Pather base to the target colony, and you could actually stop the event if you attack the smuggler (and locate the base if you tail them back). But neither is exactly easy to pull off. | ||
–Alex | ||
Pather Interests
Hegemony AI Inspection
- See also: Colony Crises#Hegemony
If your colony is notorious for AI core usage, the Hegemony will deploy a special-purpose expedition to the player's colony; an AI Inspection Fleet. Unlike typical expeditions, player colonies will concede to these inspection fleets by default.
A successful inspection will remove all AI cores on the colony's industries and the AI administrator if present, and apply a reputation penalty.[1]
The fleets sent in the inspection event increase with the number of inspections that have previously been defeated militarily, with three levels. The first level will consist of a single fleet, while the third can have six fleets with multiple capitals each.
The strength of the fleet(s) does not depend on number or type of AI Cores used.
- 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[1], 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 expedition. 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 150,000c ×
1.5^(number of past inspections), capped at 500,000c.- 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 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.
Territorial expeditions
If you set up a colony in a star system where another faction has a presence, they will disapprove of this and send expeditions to destroy the colony in a saturation bombardment. A warning is displayed on the colony creation screen if the star system is claimed by another faction, but this is easy to miss amid the boilerplate text.
Territorial expeditions can be averted or fought off in the same way as other, "normal" expeditions. They will also stop if the colony reaches size 5.
The player can avoid territorial expeditions by having a commission with the faction that claims the system; this is the non-player faction owning the largest colony in the system with a Military Base/High Command, or the largest colony period if no such base exists.
In previous versions
Expeditions
- Expeditions of this kind were removed in Starsector 0.97
If the player's colony upsets another faction's interests, they may send out an Expedition to the offending colonies. These will attempt to raid the target colony to disrupt the disputed operation. Expeditions will be sent even by friendly factions, but not if the player has a commission with that faction. A colony having the Free Port status, trading in high amounts of often illegal goods (Recreational Drugs and Harvested Organs), or holding a large market share of particular goods may cause expeditions to be triggered. Expeditions start at a modest size but get larger as the faction involved sends more expeditions at the player.
These expeditions can be solved in three ways:
- Simply fight off the invading fleet. The player can either wait for the expedition to reach their system, intercept them on the hyperspace journey, or take the fight to their staging system (revealed in the Intel). All three methods receive the same reputation penalty.
- Pay bribes to disrupt the expedition before it sets off. This does not lower your reputation with that faction. The bribe costs a small amount of credits (starting at 10,000 credits and doubling for each expedition the faction has previously sent, to a maximum of 100,000) and 1 SP 0% XP.
- Use your reputation with the faction to disrupt the expedition. This always costs 20 reputation and requires a relationship level of at least Welcoming (25/100) with the aggressor.
Once the expedition fleet(s) have been launched, any event causing the expedition to fail results in the player losing 5 reputation with the faction (this includes fighting off the expedition, but also events completely unrelated to the player, such as the source colony decivilizing while the fleet is trying to assemble). Other than this, fighting the expedition fleet(s) does not incur any direct reputation penalty.
References
