Hacking – who, why, how?

[jag_publ]

I have kept this game «on ice» for a long time but decided to have a go during this covid era.
The first few test runs was a bit confusing, especially the hacking part. I disabled Penumbra and played without until I got a handle on the game as such. Then I activated the DLC again, but still i found hacking to be a horrible idea, confusing and without bringing more fun or challenge. But I might have misunderstood something fundamental. Can anyone that use the hacking activly say something about how you use the option in a constructive way? Another question is if you will have a real disadvantage against AI if you keep the DLC active but simply ignore the hacking?

[Evgenich]

with hacking you may:
injure enemy governor heroes - lower rival`s progress
steal tech from a rival capital sys - which is the most useful thing IMHO
put a bunch of sleepers and get recources from rivals (the best option potentially but veeery long to complete and hold)

when playing against AI - carefully watch your hacked systems - they tend to put sleepers often and steal your money. Do not forget to clear your systems from sleepers (cull or clean).

Generally hacking for common races is not so useful and helpful - just a feature to change odds in a limit of 10% effectivness. But for UC - this is a core functionality. You need to put sleepers everywhere and you can. You may hold your tech progression on the same level with any rival - you have this ability. UC hacking is much better than any other race have.

[utilityguy]

Adding on to what Evgenich said:

In the very early game Hacking is extremely useful in order to raise your relation levels with minor races without having to spend influence. Of course, when playing against high difficulty A.I, you are still going to be in a situation where there is a high likely-hood that you will still need to spend influence in order prevent another A.I player from stealing that one minor civ that's two systems away from your capital.

Also: Do not under-estimate the power of support revolutionaries, being an option from hacking an enemy capital system, as that can severely cripple wide empires in the early game.

[jag_publ]

Thank,s to both - I will try again.

[DMA64]

By hacking you can also get an advantage in ground battles, delay pirate fleets, see all fleets of an enemy empire. Took some time but I like it, it is all about choosing the right route for your hack - not to short, so the trace can`t stop it, not to long to not waste time. Note that you can hold Strg (or was it Alt?) + left click to force another route.

Make your hacks go at least through one of your other systems, your hack will pass that system without stopping while the trace will have to stop and hack it (At least as far as i remember? There is a defensive programm that definitly does that).
Use Piggyback (Offensive Hacking Program) as often as you can, once activated it reduces the cost of all your programs in the galaxy (the in game lore description of this programm is actually wrong).

As soon as hacking gets activated place defensive programs on all your systems, when your empire starts to grow and you can`t afford the costs to protect all your systems anymore, start to place the defensive programs on your outer systems - the idea is that that way they will get activated earlier by enemy hacks and by that their effect (like slowing down the hack) last longer and have a better chance of tracing the hack back.

Place a firewall on your home system.

Also note that this concept of hacking means that you never will be able to prevent all hacks, you are just trying to make it as hard as possible for your enemies and prevent the worst for you.

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

The key thing to know about hacking, which will make a massive difference, is that you DON'T want a simple direct route to hack something. That makes it easier to trace AND more likely to get caught. What you want to do instead is to make winding paths across the systems that will take much longer to accomplish, but that also means it takes longer to trace it. This is why making back-doors for other systems is useful.

Additionally, since you cannot protect all your system from being hacked, you want to prod the other player's systems until you find a defenseless opening, so it's best to think of it as a cold-war / infiltration mechanic.

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

This video did a good job explaining these things to me that the game doesn't do a good idea conveying to you: https://youtu.be/MJnV8gBPtDE

[hibbidy_jibbidy]

id play without the major expansions for the first few games..