Should I Investigate Aliens?

[-BUIZ]

I can't seem to find anything about this but is there any benefit to investigating aliens in the beginning of the game? It seems it wouldn't be worth it because the delay on your research is 3 months.

[Silent]

Originally posted by Tanchyon:

Originally posted by lufia22:

Please, do us all a favor and spare us from your autistic outburst by never posting again.

He has a point and using people's disability as an insult is pretty low.

His point is moot. OP isn't letting people play the game for them. It's a basic question of weighing the cost and benefits of the mechanic. They couldn't find/understand a mechanic of the game, so they asked about it. It's not like OP said "choose what I do: Investigate or not investigate".

[Dray Prescot]

If it is another AI controlled Race that you found, then you can let them research contacting you, and save your own research points; they usually will do so.

[wizaerd]

Imagine if you will, there's no internet... However would people play games without being able to jump online as ask if something was worth it... Oh, I know how they did it... they played the damn game. Investigating the aliens or not is a choice the player makes in the game. In my day, we played games. We may have discussed different outcomes, but we made our own choices. But again, whatever... If you don;t truly want to make your own decisions, or try out different ways of playing yourself, why bother playing?

[Silent]

Originally posted by wizaerd:

Imagine if you will, there's no internet... However would people play games without being able to jump online as ask if something was worth it... Oh, I know how they did it... they played the damn game. Investigating the aliens or not is a choice the player makes in the game. In my day, we played games. We may have discussed different outcomes, but we made our own choices. But again, whatever... If you don;t truly want to make your own decisions, or try out different ways of playing yourself, why bother playing?

Because that's how some people play and learn game mechanics. Why do you even care? I play most games through trial and error and half of the stuff you decide to do doesn't really effect the game in the slightest. You don't see me giving this person a hard time because of their choice of playstyle do you? Before the internet there were also things that existed called magazines, instruction booklets, and strategy guides.

@OP Usually let them research you, but your call if you want to discover another Empire.

[PowerSworder]

Some people like to play in the most optimal way. Since the UI and tooltips dont always explain things clearly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking about the best way to play the game.

To answer the OP's original question, unless you're desperate to speak to a nearby race, I would skip the research. In the game I'm playing at the moment, I split my starting fleet, and sent them racing off around the galaxy. I flew through a dozen alien empires, and they eventually did the research themselves and contacted me. It meant I got colonisation research completed 36 months faster, which is a heck of a research saving, especially early game!

In other words, let them do the hard work! ;-)

[Oneeyed]

Absolutely not! Anyone who tells you otherwise has no clue how to play this game.

The reason is:

- not every alien you can research are aliens you can have diplamatic relations with. You can end up just researching space whales, or Amoeba or Crystals. In that case you wasted all your early social research for nothing. If you are eager to have contact with another race make sure you actually reaseach an unidentified empire. The best way to do this is to zoom at the ships you encounter and which triggered the alien research option.

- as long as you don't have communications with the alien races you can settle everywhere. Even if it is inside their borders because you don't know about it. After you have communications their territory appears on the map and than you can't settle or build fronier outposts in their territory anymore and in additon you can't survey their systems.

Originally posted by bui:

I can't seem to find anything about this but is there any benefit to investigating aliens in the beginning of the game? It seems it wouldn't be worth it because the delay on your research is 3 months.