Question from a Newbie: (hopefully) non-spoiling version

[KnightlyKestrel]

The question is this: if I, the player, let the galaxy idle by itself, will it die/be overtaken by hostile factions?

additionally, if a faction got wiped out, can it re spawn/rebuild (perhaps with help?)

Thanks in advance!

[Venerable_Sin]

The answer is not really. Every game start is different. The devs hard coded factions to have a specific number of items. Those items may or may not involve other items that can supply those items. That's where you the player come in, find the opportunity and profit from this in the way that suits your goals. Also, You cannot make a faction go extinct for the stated above reasons. This could change when they work on diplomacy, but I doubt it.

[KnightlyKestrel]

Originally posted by Venerable_Sin:

The answer is not really. Every game start is different. The dev's hard coded factions to have a specific number of items. Those items may or may not involve other items that can supply those items. That's where you the player come in, find the opportunity and profit from this in the way that suits your goals. Also, You cannot make a faction go extinct for the stated above reasons. This could change when they work on diplomacy, but I doubt it.

Thanks for the response.

so, the galaxy will do just fine without my intervention - that's both relieving and disappointing.

relieving in that I don't need to concern myself with 'saving the galaxy' or some such

disappointing in that, well, whats the point of the 2 permanently hostile factions that the galaxy seems to be concerned about? is that concern just for lore?

as for the faction going extinct - that is quite the relief, since I won't have to worry about not being able to pira- i mean legally purchasing their ships, through the proper diplomatic channels and licences.

[Venerable_Sin]

The galaxy will continue to produce opportunities for the player to profit from and influence the major direction of npc factions. They will support each other, they will fight each other and they will give each other a break. It's meant for your action to be influential. You may not be able to extinct a faction, but you can make them virtually extinct or exert as little influence on the galaxy as possible but that will take a long time to do. You'll get all the pleasure you want from this game before that happens. Enjoy what this game has to offer until you reach end game material. Until then you have quite a lot of exploring, learning and entertainment ahead of you.

[Geist]

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

disappointing in that, well, whats the point of the 2 permanently hostile factions that the galaxy seems to be concerned about? is that concern just for lore?

Someone has to destroy Ships and stations so the economy can work. From Ore to Gases all the way up the production chain everything is used to build ships and stations. At some point this market would be saturated, if there is nothing destroying ships and stations.

And while the galaxy will be fine without your intervention it will of course develop very differently from a playthrough where you would for example wage a war or become a main producer of weapons.
Egosoft tried to balance everything so the universe will be a sandbox to play in what you want to play. In the beginning you dont have much of an impact but you can impact everything in the long term if you so wish. As everything is connected and every ship that you shoot, every station that you build and every bit of ore that you mine and sell will impact the simulation in some way, even if it may be only a very small impact.
Thats also one of the big selling points of the game. It is an actual simulation, everything in it does exist all the time (except for some random mission stuff) if you see it or not, if you discovered the part of the universe or not doesn't matter. If there is a station producing energy cells in a sector far away that you have not yet seen, this station will still be there and produce energy cells, and sell it to ships and impact the overall simulation or it could also be destroyed before you ever see it.
Its not like in other games where everything just exists if the player is near and everything is based around the player.

[PeaceMaker]

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

so, the galaxy will do just fine without my intervention - that's both relieving and disappointing.

Well you asked.

I don't get this `tell me everything before I even play` mentality, cos that's like reading the end of a book, then getting disappointed when you know what happens.

Just run the game and discover stuff... The fun is not knowing and the JOURNEY, but too late now.

[Doom]

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

The question is this: if I, the player, let the galaxy idle by itself, will it die/be overtaken by hostile factions?

additionally, if a faction got wiped out, can it re spawn/rebuild (perhaps with help?)

Thanks in advance!

Generally, no. But some sectors might change ownership.

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

so, the galaxy will do just fine without my intervention - that's both relieving and disappointing.

I believe the idea is that the player is not intended to be a hero or a savior, though player abilities are quite extreme, and player can grow very powerful.

Several people also mentioned that running SETA for prolonged periods of time is likely to cause more significant changes in the world.

[KnightlyKestrel]

Originally posted by PeaceMaker:

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

so, the galaxy will do just fine without my intervention - that's both relieving and disappointing.

Well you asked.

I don't get this `tell me everything before I even play` mentality, cos that's like reading the end of a book, then getting disappointed when you know what happens.

Just run the game and discover stuff... The fun is not knowing and the JOURNEY, but too late now.

for me the fun is the journey - however their is certain things i would rather know about in my multi-hundred hour long sandbox-y games (specifically some kind of timer, like the galaxy being slowly taken over). that kind of thing *can* cause issues for me, the best example i can give is that I stopped playing terraria because of the hard-mode V's, and how much of a chore it is to contain them *before* you loose entire biome's to them (though I will probably try again, since the jungle no longer gets permanently destroyed).

hope that helps you understand why I asked, if not: things getting permanently destroyed in my multi-hundred-hour long sandbox worlds unless i do certain things well and fast can cause me unpleasant amounts of anxiety.

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

The question is this: if I, the player, let the galaxy idle by itself, will it die/be overtaken by hostile factions?

additionally, if a faction got wiped out, can it re spawn/rebuild (perhaps with help?)

Thanks in advance!

Generally, no. But some sectors might change ownership.

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

so, the galaxy will do just fine without my intervention - that's both relieving and disappointing.

I believe the idea is that the player is not intended to be a hero or a savior, though player abilities are quite extreme, and player can grow very powerful.

Several people also mentioned that running SETA for prolonged periods of time is likely to cause more significant changes in the world.

Originally posted by Venerable_Sin:

The galaxy will continue to produce opportunities for the player to profit from and influence the major direction of npc factions. They will support each other, they will fight each other and they will give each other a break. It's meant for your action to be influential. You may not be able to extinct a faction, but you can make them virtually extinct or exert as little influence on the galaxy as possible but that will take a long time to do. You'll get all the pleasure you want from this game before that happens. Enjoy what this game has to offer until you reach end game material. Until then you have quite a lot of exploring, learning and entertainment ahead of you.

Originally posted by Geist:

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

disappointing in that, well, whats the point of the 2 permanently hostile factions that the galaxy seems to be concerned about? is that concern just for lore?

Someone has to destroy Ships and stations so the economy can work. From Ore to Gases all the way up the production chain everything is used to build ships and stations. At some point this market would be saturated, if there is nothing destroying ships and stations.

And while the galaxy will be fine without your intervention it will of course develop very differently from a playthrough where you would for example wage a war or become a main producer of weapons.

So, I seem to have somewhat miss-understood what was originally said - thanks for clarifying

If I now understand correctly - the factions will stand on their own 2 feet, but will do faction-y stuff like wage wars over territory.

and i'm guessing the xenon/kha'ahk will follow that same idea - in that they will *attempt* to, and maybe occasionally take territory. - that's actually ideal for me, I was disappointing because i thought they would just remain in their own systems.

Thanks everyone for the explanations and clarifications!

[Venerable_Sin]

For a large part yes. Factions lack supply chains initially or will eventually lack supply in a contested area. If you don't help them out then they will be over run in certain sectors. Xenon is the initial threat to jump start logistics/economies and create demand. You can check the encyclopedia to see what faction is at war with what faction. There are also quest chains that will allow you to set faction against faction. As far as I know the kha'ak are just a nuisance for mining as pirates are a nuisance for transports. I've never seen them take over a sector. All other factions do take over sectors but some pirate factions are kind of set to be severely weakened and another one likes to stay in it's space and will try to retake it if they lose control of it. I've never seen them actively take another npc faction's space but I've only played a few seeds so I'm not sure if this is common or not. They certainly didn't like me clearing their space and they promptly took it back over when I left. There are also quest chains that will allow you to "extinct" or severely weaken certain pirates.

[Geist]

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

If I now understand correctly - the factions will stand on their own 2 feet, but will do faction-y stuff like wage wars over territory.

and i'm guessing the xenon/kha'ahk will follow that same idea - in that they will *attempt* to, and maybe occasionally take territory. - that's actually ideal for me, I was disappointing because i thought they would just remain in their own systems.

Thanks everyone for the explanations and clarifications!

The factions all have their own ways. The Teladi are peaceful traders. The Holy Order of the Pontifex is at war with the heretics of the Paranid God Realm. (and the Argon Federation.) The Paranid Godrealm is at war with the heretics of the Holy Order of the Pontifex.
The Split are fighting the Argons, and like to make Sushi out of Borons, The Borons don't like fighting at all and stay in their sectors most of the time and the Terrans are only fighting the Xenon because it is their fault that these machines exist and they are on a crusade against them.
But everyone also fights the Xenon and the Kha'ak are usually only a threat to mining operations because they don't like others to mine their asteroids but they will attack everything else if is near them.
So you will see conflict and some sectors taken over here and there by one faction or another, but nothing is permanent and as soon as the defender can get enough materials for a new fleet and stations it can change again. The universe is designed to be as stable as possible while still encouraging all these conflicts. Considering how many things can happen in such a big sandbox Egosoft did a pretty great job at it imho

[daemonworks]

The one catch: the Xenon have a very simple production chain, and may scale better than the other friendly AI factions if you're not doing anything to influence what's going on. It's a (mostly) real economy and the AI does try to expand, fight it's enemies, change political positions, etc.

The random starting distribution of stations and the like means that you can get a start where everything's very stable, or one that's a total hot mess. Usually it's a bit more mixed between the two, so there's some change over time, but it's fairly balanced.

Usually.

My very first game, only a couple hours in, the Xenon decided to send a pair of their largest ships (plus fighter support) into terran space and just started wrecking face, casually destroying the first defence platform they encountered. The Terrans were just getting mauled. From what I understand it's pretty rare to get something like that early on, but if things fall out just right, you /can/ get a significantly wilder universe.

There's nothing coded in the game to force things to go to hell, but there's also nothing that specifically prevents it. YMMV, void where prohibited, etc.