The aliens know exactly where planets are?

[kriskamm27]

I was using a few strike fighters as sentries watching deep space when It dawned on me. In too separate areas the aliens are sending colony ships on a B line right at planets that they should not know exist. So the unseen game mechanic is that they automatically know all planet locations or they have a much wider view of space for the ai to decide on what to do?

[Cory Trese]

Moving this over to the 4X section of the forum.

[anrdaemon]

Aug 27, 2015 9:35:42 GMT -5 kriskamm27 said:

I was using a few strike fighters as sentries watching deep space when It dawned on me. In too separate areas the aliens are sending colony ships on a B line right at planets that they should not know exist. So the unseen game mechanic is that they automatically know all planet locations or they have a much wider view of space for the ai to decide on what to do?

How do you know they don't know? They were there before you. Long before.

[CdrPlatypus]

The Xenos can smell them (Yes, through space without any atmosphere. We don't know how yet, but they can.)

[Cory Trese]

The Xeno AI establishes early scouting, and builds all Ships with the Scan ability.

The Xeno AI will aggressively scan the area when it has enough resources to colonize.

Just as you see Xeno moving towards objectives, you will find threads on here that describe what happens when the Xeno cannot find planets to colonize ... they wander around, looking.

They don't forget Worlds they've spotted, and will send Xeno Colony ships quickly when the AI routines decide it is time.

[johndramey]

kriskamm27, first off welcome to the forums! Hang around for a while, we're all (relatively) decent people.


It may appear that the xeno know exactly where you, colonizable planets, etc are, but that really isn't the case. They scout around and find stuff just like you or I, only they do things a bit more efficiently in some respects. In my most recent game (just wiped out all the xeno and achieved victory, woohoo!) two different xeno had made contact with me relatively early in the game on two different fronts. I focused on simply maintaining one front against the xeno while I worked on eliminating the other xeno. After oh, I don't know, maybe 300 turns, I managed to totally wipe out the first threat. While the other xeno had been throwing masses of ships against my lines, I had managed to totally encircle their space with colonies. Since they weren't engaged in active scouting they never even know my planets where there, and actually had two or three unoccupied planets deep behind their lines that they hadn't found.

Long story short, it may seem that they are omniscient but they are not. They just make better use of their abilities and are much more aggressive with their scouting. You and I care a lot if we make contact with the xeno and try to avoid it as much as possible, the xeno actually wants to make contact with us. As a result, they are much more likely to just blast scout ships around while you and I maintain lines and try to keep our forces from being too spread out.

[kriskamm27]

My ideal tactic would be upgrading a planet to the point where it becomes mobile and can take the fight around the map. Until that happens I'm stuck holding my invaders in reserve, letting the main enemy assault die on my walls and then sending everything in hot at the nearest world. Im curious though why it costs fuel to keep going in the same direction. seems like you would only burn fuel starting and stopping. unless the reactor had to burn fuel at a set rate to keep functioning, regardless of whether you were using the energy or not you would need to keep the reactor burning fuel to have energy available?

[johndramey]

I always imagined that the water-fuel usage was less about engines and more about shielding the ship from interstellar radiation, powering all the systems, supplying the crew, etc.