Alien Life Forms relentless

[Dark Bobity]

Seriously. The worlds infested. Near permanently have two councilors just sweeping the world of life, but less than two turns after a region is cleared new life spawns in.

It's a handy exp booster, but pointless otherwise to bother clearing given it's spawn rate. Does it matter??

[cswiger]

Sure. Xenoflora makes alien and pro-alien faction missions a little easier. And it will eventually spawn mega-fauna which mess up regions and damage or kill earth's armies.

If you are an anti-alien faction, you probably want to hunt down and assassinate the alien agents ASAP. Try to kill off enemy ships before they can crash-land reinforcements. (This will obviously make the aliens mad at you, so expect consequences.)

[gimmethegepgun]

Use armies and orbital bombardment to help your councilors with burning it out.

[Dark Bobity]

What about their respawn times? Typically I can expect the Bucharest region to have life signs again just two turns after apparently eradicating. And I've literally watched Alien Life Forms show up at the start of the turn after moments eliminating them. The councilor doesn't even leave to go somewhere else and they're already back to whacking weeds

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Did you actually destroy the xenoflora? Or did you simply attack it once and then leave it without verifying that it has been eradicated? A single action from a councillor is unlikely to destroy entrenched xenoflora.

All alien agents can seed xenoflora, their transports arriving will seed xenoflora and the Servants get an org that allows one of their councillors to seed xenoflora. Not sure about the existence of any others. Events can also seed xenoflora.

If you actually eliminate all alien agents and stop others from arriving then you will be able to prevent almost all xenoflora from existing by repeat actions from armies, councillors and gunships.

[gimmethegepgun]

Xenoflora also spreads from nearby high-density xenoflora. You need to actually devote the resources necessary to burn it all out. Half-measures like only using 2 councilors will see you doing that indefinitely, whereas a concerted effort will wipe it all out and you can be done with it.

[silburnl]

Yep, you need to focus on a continent or sub-continent and clear it from one end to the other. Start somewhere that is relatively isolated and work outwards. The icons give you a clue as to how dense the xenoflora has grown, so try and pick your starting spot where you've got a few relatively untouched regions that you will be able to clear quicker. Once you've cleared a region it might well come back but if you catch it as soon as you spot it reseeding, then it usually only needs a single action to knock it down again (I generally had my main guy working on the hard stuff and a backup guy helping out by jumping on any xenoflora that reseeds behind the main burn line).

Finally there's a bunch of technologies that will boost your effectiveness while clearing xenoflora, which means that you will focus down the really bad stuff to something more manageable in fewer order cycles.

My current game has gone very slowly (like *really* slow, like "it's the middle of the 2060s and I've only just started colonising the outer system" slow) but it does mean I've had plenty of time to grind the xenoflora down pretty much worldwide. The alien nation is still out there seeding ♥♥♥♥ in various places but I just re-task my designated exterminator guy to spend a few order cycles undoing all of their efforts once or twice a year (and my espionage/assassin guy to have a sniff around for any alien infiltrators who might be planting the stuff).

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by silburnl:

Once you've cleared a region it might well come back but if you catch it as soon as you spot it reseeding, then it usually only needs a single action to knock it down again

It's actually just... always one action. Even Failures and I think Critical Failures deal some damage, which if it's displaying 0.0 in the defensive stats means that it will always destroy it no matter what happens.

[Fasalrod]

Orbital bombardments with 4 corvettes with green arc laser cannon and battery should completely eradicate one regions' infection. If it's totally planet wide, you'll probably want 3 groups burning flora out. It will spawn megafauna which destroys armies, economy, population, and eventually boost and mission control. Megafauna regenerate quickly in xenoflora regions and retreat to them to recover. Orbital bombardment can target megafauna too, but it's not very effective and loses effectiveness the lower the megafauna health is, but it's a great way to help out armies in a region to keep them alive and force megafauna retreat.

[Dark Bobity]

I'm gathering from what people are saying is, gotta weep the whole place, not just clean the middle of the floor as it were. I think I shall give this a shot!

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Dark Bobity:

I'm gathering from what people are saying is, gotta weep the whole place, not just clean the middle of the floor as it were. I think I shall give this a shot!

Think of it like cockroaches: if you're infested by cockroaches, you can't fix the problem by just stomping on any you see. You need to call an exterminator to get rid of ALL of them.

[SirKnechtalot]

I borked my game since i have 6 unkillable agents around. I suck at the space game part and have to begin the game fresh.

[Mavrah]

Originally posted by Dark Bobity:

I'm gathering from what people are saying is, gotta weep the whole place, not just clean the middle of the floor as it were. I think I shall give this a shot!

And use bleach. Or fire.
Also, kill the raccoons and possums to keep them from tracking mud all over your floor as soon as you get it cleaned.
Research defoliants to make your missions more effective and build Xenoscience Research facilities in interface orbits to get better detection (I think).
Alien agents will have trouble crossing continents quickly without an alien administration, so cleaning one continent at a time should be effective at stalling them.