Aliens don't mess around now.

[Dr. Electrocutioner]

Started my first game in 0.4 last weekend and it is a very different experience than what I remember from 0.3.

I managed to get America, China and Russia before the aliens put boots on the ground In June 2024. I can nuke that one since it landed in Libya, but the next assault ship is due in about 3 weeks.

[CaptainSpacetime]

Originally posted by Dr. Electrocutioner:

I just looked it up in TiMissionTemplates.json

It's an alien councilor mission where the attack stat is espionage and defense stat command.

So I suppose the defense is the average command of your councillors and will guess that the ship in orbit provides a bonus similar to the way human faction interface stations provide bonuses.

According to some redditor the councilor contribution seems minimal. You really want to be preventing the surveillance ships from completing their missions.

The alien councilors basically do nothing in comparison (if the post is correct).

https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/15zf240/a_guide_about_abductions_spoiler_warning_about/

Abductions are a region-specific modifier that is very important, but the game does not a great job explaining the importance of it to new players. The vast majority of them are created by the “earth surveillance mission” and a small amount is also added my agents doing abduction missions. The Abduction counter gives the aliens bonuses to missions in the nations where they happened, and also increases their Army and Megafauna Combat power.



Adding abductions:

Each completion of earth surveillance adds 196.2 abductions on average (multiplied by each ship with an earth surveillance module in the fleet).

An agent mission adds 1 abduction to a region (2 if critical success).


Tech levels:

Megafauna tech level 2 + 0.01 per global abduction (max 6).

Alien army tech level: 6.75 + 0.0002 per global abduction (max 9).


Missions:

The aliens also get a bonus to all their missions on the ground from abductions (capped at +60). The bonus is:

(Total abductions in the nation) * difficulty / (amount of regions in that nation).

*1 for easy.

*2 for normal.

*3.5 for veteran.

*5 for brutal.

So if there have been 36 abductions on normal in China (12 regions), the aliens get a +6 to all their missions.

If the same happens on brutal, it's +15 for all missions. All difficulties have the same final cap, but brutal gets faster than normal

[Dr. Electrocutioner]

Thanks, that's good intel.

I did not know about the other effects beyond enthralling CPs.

[wei270]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Many new players fall into this trap as they assume for some reason the turtling is safer disregarding space for far, far too long - it's a huge mistake that might be very difficult to overcome.

actively trading with alien is a very difficult thing, and not many people can pull it off, is there a middle option between turtleing and constant active attrition warfare with the alien?

[Blaarg]

Originally posted by wei270:

is there a middle option between turtleing and constant active attrition warfare with the alien?

Blow up every surveillance ship you see, and then take the alien response on the chin to bleed off the hate? It's better than turtleing.

In-game, it doesn't really warn people enough about stopping those missions.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by wei270:

actively trading with alien is a very difficult thing, and not many people can pull it off

It is actually quite easy and safe when you know how and acquire some experience in doing so. They don't have to rediscover a wheel as I provide the methodology of it in my examples.

Edit: of course, "discovering a wheel" is exciting on its own so I recommend to take from my examples only the knowledge that there is a way.

[Dr. Electrocutioner]

Micromanaging the hate level is an important part of the game but you need a deep understanding of the mechanics to do it.

I am an experienced player and wasn"t even sure it would work this game since it is my first run on Brutal.

They can at least theoretically declare Total War on day 1 and I was expecting that blowing the cap would lead to irrevocable Total War, but it did not, they trashed up my stuff on Ceres and the meter dropped back down to 4 pips.

[Vox]

I'm having the opposite problem. I went out and started attacking the aliens with cheap ships as soon as I could, rushed industrializing space and took jupiter early, and the aliens have done nothing. its late 2036 and I haven't seen even a troop transport or surveilance ship in at least 3 years. and Aside from some early fleets to try and take jupiter they haven't put up any real fight.

I want to know if i should just restart or if the aliens get their act together eventually. I checked save files and they have a ton of resources stockpiled but aren't making fleets despite me being way over maxed hate.

[Blaarg]

Originally posted by Vox:

I'm having the opposite problem. I went out and started attacking the aliens with cheap ships as soon as I could, rushed industrializing space and took jupiter early, and the aliens have done nothing. its late 2036 and I haven't seen even a troop transport or surveilance ship in at least 3 years. and Aside from some early fleets to try and take jupiter they haven't put up any real fight.

I want to know if i should just restart or if the aliens get their act together eventually. I checked save files and they have a ton of resources stockpiled but aren't making fleets despite me being way over maxed hate.

The OP was playing a weird game where all the custom speed sliders were maxed out. So, 4x alien progression & 5x mining, among others. There is not much point in comparing to that game.

[DaveDash]

Originally posted by Blaarg:

Originally posted by wei270:

is there a middle option between turtleing and constant active attrition warfare with the alien?

Blow up every surveillance ship you see, and then take the alien response on the chin to bleed off the hate? It's better than turtleing.

In-game, it doesn't really warn people enough about stopping those missions.

I'm playing on experimental and this becomes quite challenging to do.

The aliens are much more aggressive at sending multiple surveillance ships into Earth's orbit, and even waiting until the last possible moment to blow them up, you will go over the hate cap very easily.

Now when going over the hate cap, the aliens are not so stupid anymore either and will go for your fleets and critical infrastructure, and it seems hate bleeds off much more slowly. Killing a tier 2 station only takes off 2 hate, so they'll wipe out like 5-10 of your stations now and won't go for 'bait' stations anymore, which can be quite crippling to your space economy.

You simply can't stop them on all fronts now, you can only slow them down a bit.

I've also noticed when carriers enter Earth's orbit they pretty much land straight away (although they still give you 30 days to get ready on Earth), they're harder to intercept. Not that you can easily intercept them, because the aliens will build a station in Earth's outer orbit now and park a huge fleet there. So yeah, good luck controlling the space around Earth.

Not sure if I like these mechanics to be honest, especially with how much slower research is now, but this is what's coming down the pipe in terms of patches. The old strategies don't work like they used to.