First Contact Protocol Question

[Warspawn]

Hey again! New here...wanted some clarification about something

Setting up my first contact protocol with this first game, I have two choices: Cautious or Aggressive .

Cautious has a difficulty modifier of +2, but this is in "green". While aggressive has no modifiers, just the note that it allows attacks against neutrals.

So...taking the 'aggressive' first contact protocol would actually decrease the difficulty? I don't intend to attack anyone at this point, but if that's the case, maybe it would be worth it to take this initially?

Thanks!

o7

~War~

[Warspawn]

Well...quick update. I switched to 'aggressive' and the contact difficulty did not go down at all with the two races I found. Does it only affect new ones you meet? Didn't find much when I searched online for answers...

o7

~War~

[Elitewrecker PT]

It probably makes it harder for the other side to finish the contact first.

[alangriffith]

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Policies#:~:text=First%20Contact%20Protocol%20dictates%20an,for%20at%20least%2010%20years.

I'm pretty sure that Neutral does make your own first contact more difficult, as "+2 First Contact Target Difficulty" is it's own seperate entry to "Other empires will find it harder to establish communications. Which makes sense, being cautious is keeping at a distance and passing up chances to learn stuff for fear of the aliens (for example, if they are proactive and send you language codes, you still might ignore them or take much longer to analyse them ass you are worried it contains secret hacking software... which it might, because one of the event options for Cautious is to hack the other side's systems).

Aggressive doesn't 'decrease' difficulty, just has no penalty (though you might get bonus speed if you take and succeed on the new hostile actions you are offered, but that has a diplomatic penalty later).

While Proactive does make first contact quicker/easier for both you and the other empire ( "Other empires will find it easier to establish communications" and "+10% First Contact Discovery Speed" for you). Which again makes sense, you're getting close and exchanging communications data.

[Warspawn]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

It probably makes it harder for the other side to finish the contact first.

That might make more sense. I thought 'aggressive' by removing the +2 difficulty modifier that 'cautious' has applied, that it would make the difficulty that's listed on the first contact screen (first number...as you're going through the stages of first contacts, one of mine is a "normal" 5 and the other is a "Hell" 9 above the skill bonus and insights). Those did not change after I switched to 'aggressive' to remove the +2 difficulty of 'cautious'.

Thanks!

o7

~War~

[AurumHawke]

Your side of the first-contact mostly only tells you about their empire.
A Cautious (+2 Policy) Gestalt (+2 Encryption) starts the game with a first-phase (5 Base) target difficulty of 9.
The separate listing of "Other empires will find it more difficult" refers to the negative progress events ("they're actively suppressing their comm chatter") being more likely to take place on their end.

Hostile policy opens up selections for special phases like Abduction which has a Base difficulty of 2 (and an auto-failure case for losing track of their ship).
Cautious' third benefit is meant to act against Hostile abductions and hacking results.

[CaptainChaos]

Yes, aggressive lets you abduct them and dissect them :) Serious. I have done it before.

https://www.facebook.com/ComedyCentral/videos/cartman-gets-an-anal-probe-south-park/3063755140366299/

haha.

[Duuvian]

With aggressive you can also drive off their survey and construction ships with your starting corvettes if you follow your survey ships with them. I often forget to do that much when it's set to aggressive, but you could even divide the 3 starter corvettes into one ship fleets since even one would drive off survey and construction ships. The other empire will be hostile until contact is established by either side and probably will have a temporary penalty to opinion or something after contact I would guess. I don't know if they will ever send their corvettes to intercept yours to protect their expansion before contact is established.

I usually do either aggressive or the one that tries to establish contact. Of the two I like the establish contact one more because it gives an influence payout every time your empire is the one establishing contact. For things like non player fleets like mining drones it adds up to a few extra sector claims when expanding usually.

[CaptainChaos]

Wow, I never thought to do that (chase away their civilian ships). Good strategy!