Is anyone else not liking the AI?

[von Runstedt]

So I've been playing the game on normal and hard so far and the AI has seemed to be very simplistic and lacking pretty much any depth. For instance, the extent of my diplomatic relations with the AI in all mt games so far has been them demanding tribute from me or demanding that I give them planets and then declaring war on me when I refuse. Mind you this happens even with races that are supposedly "peaceful" in personality and even with races whose opinion of me is "respectful" or "friendly". I personally like to play a peaceful opening to my games where I focus on colonizing un-colonized planets, researching advanced technology and overall building up my empire before pushing out so its annoying that no matter what I try to do the Ai is automatically naturally aggressive towards me. Not that I complaining about the difficulty of the Ai itself because the AI is really stupid when it comes to fighting battles. They basically just spam corvettes and fighters at me when I have developed the techs for destroyers and frigates. All I do to defend against this is build 8 planetary defense platforms with some supporting destroyers, frigates and corvettes in a tight formation with some expendable fighters to act as a screen to detect their incoming fighters. The extent of the Ai's plans to get through this is to send everyone directly into the front of my formation and hope that some of their ships survive the storm of fire long enough to even get some hits in. They don't try to use their larger numbers of ships to try and attack my formation from the flanks or rear and they dont even know how to properly launch a full frontal assault since their widely spread out start formation ensures that their corvettes reach me one to a handful of them at a time and get wiped out without even getting a scratch on me. For instance, in one battle the AI attacked me with 40 corvettes and 500 fighters and I just had 8 platforms, 50 fighters 8 corvettes and 3 frigates. The end of the battle saw 30 enemy corvettes and all of their fighters destroyed while I just lost my fighters and 2 corvettes. Of these, only the enemy fighters actually managed to destroy anything because they were actually able to properly zerg my front line. I assume this is why the auto-resolve function for battles doesn't really work either because of all the times I've tried to auto-resolve battles I've only won once and that was with a 9-1 advantage over the enemy. Even when I have a better than 50% chance of winning according to the battle screen my forces pretty much always lose on auto-resolve. At first I thought this was just a mechanic that the Devs put in to discourage players from auto-resolving and force them to play out the battles but now I'm pretty sure its just because the ai in control over my fleet is just as thick headed as it is for me when I oppose it in battles.

On an unrelated note, I don't quite understand the unrest system. In my most recent playthrough one of my planets revolted because they were upset about being unprotected from attack despite being well away from any other alien power that could possibly attack them.

[Rosseau]

Haven't gotten very far, but this is not good news for a game without multiplayer. Not that I'd play MP anyway.

The reason there is no MP in the new Napoleon game is so they could concentrate on the AI, says the Dev. I wonder what Polaris' excuse may be?

There is the "external threat" and pirates, but I'd hate to invest so many hours of a allegedly dumb AI to beat a boss race.

[Mojamaguena]

So I've been playing the game on normal and hard so far and the AI has seemed to be very simplistic and lacking pretty much any depth. For instance, the extent of my diplomatic relations with the AI in all mt games so far has been them demanding tribute from me or demanding that I give them planets and then declaring war on me when I refuse. Mind you this happens even with races that are supposedly "peaceful" in personality and even with races whose opinion of me is "respectful" or "friendly". I personally like to play a peaceful opening to my games where I focus on colonizing un-colonized planets, researching advanced technology and overall building up my empire before pushing out so its annoying that no matter what I try to do the Ai is automatically naturally aggressive towards me. Not that I complaining about the difficulty of the Ai itself because the AI is really stupid when it comes to fighting battles. They basically just spam corvettes and fighters at me when I have developed the techs for destroyers and frigates. All I do to defend against this is build 8 planetary defense platforms with some supporting destroyers, frigates and corvettes in a tight formation with some expendable fighters to act as a screen to detect their incoming fighters. The extent of the Ai's plans to get through this is to send everyone directly into the front of my formation and hope that some of their ships survive the storm of fire long enough to even get some hits in. They don't try to use their larger numbers of ships to try and attack my formation from the flanks or rear and they dont even know how to properly launch a full frontal assault since their widely spread out start formation ensures that their corvettes reach me one to a handful of them at a time and get wiped out without even getting a scratch on me. For instance, in one battle the AI attacked me with 40 corvettes and 500 fighters and I just had 8 platforms, 50 fighters 8 corvettes and 3 frigates. The end of the battle saw 30 enemy corvettes and all of their fighters destroyed while I just lost my fighters and 2 corvettes. Of these, only the enemy fighters actually managed to destroy anything because they were actually able to properly zerg my front line. I assume this is why the auto-resolve function for battles doesn't really work either because of all the times I've tried to auto-resolve battles I've only won once and that was with a 9-1 advantage over the enemy. Even when I have a better than 50% chance of winning according to the battle screen my forces pretty much always lose on auto-resolve. At first I thought this was just a mechanic that the Devs put in to discourage players from auto-resolving and force them to play out the battles but now I'm pretty sure its just because the ai in control over my fleet is just as thick headed as it is for me when I oppose it in battles.

On an unrelated note, I don't quite understand the unrest system. In my most recent playthrough one of my planets revolted because they were upset about being unprotected from attack despite being well away from any other alien power that could possibly attack them.

We seem to be playing different games, for me the AI it's performing really really well.


In regards to diplomacy it's really amazing how the AI reacts sometimes, the Logans are like plague they always come in rude terms if they are over you in tech, and they will be most likely every time so they are naturally Bad guys, in my game they started to bully everyone except those that where more on less on pair with them and started a war with the Magellans with have been in touch with me for some time and since our relations were good the logans picked them as the weaker of empires as enemyes and declared war on them.

No longer than a year before the Magellans call my ambassador to offer a deal of open borders and research coop which I signed inmediatly, and in a matter of months an sneak attack and ocupattion of an oceanic world at the border of Logan space and my own by the Logans which brough me at war with them and and insta offer of Magellans to joing their alliance with Sharatar which both are fighting another plague that are those darn Urgans but I was dumb coz while they are at the arms of the galaxy I'm in the bloody center and being raided constantly by them.

Fear not coz my allies are people to be trust and relay, they offer me really nice tech exchanges which put me on the combat scene again and I'm start to be able to fight them back in my own terms, + all the info we are exchanging it's completing my intel of what the enemy it's planning.

The diplomacy it's AWESOME and depends a lot on reputation for what I can see, although the AI checks your overall power and compare it whit them in order to make decissions, while you play you build a rep, and that rep weights a lot in diplomacy which IMO it's really good mechanic.

In combat, only experience by now against pirates and Logans so far, the pirates will avoid any confrontation with your superior fleet and try destroy your shipyards (pretty smart move to prevent steamrolling from the start, love it) but can be easy take down with fast fighters on carriers (HIC) its advised.

The logans are very dngerous, they have carriers with 30 fighters and will be on top of you in tech regards at least during early game, they always find your blind spot so you better have your borders well protected with a fast reaction fleet somewhere near the border, they lunch diversion attacks to sneak attack you where it hurts, they took one very well protected world doing that, they made my mainfleet go for them on a 4 stars jump for put my fleet out of his wormhole jump, where an ocupattion fleet with a lot of invassion forces took the planet which by the way was unprotected by ground forces 2 starts at opssite direction of where my fleet were heading (maybe wasn't intended but my face went white seeing it and I don't know if they knew that that planet wasn't unprotected because if that was the case they played blind chiken with me) I will be able to take back that planet in no less that 14years with a big invassion force of my own they have there 4000 marines more than 100 tanks and 25 of each kind of fighters bombers (I can do it faster if I bring more troops I guess)

But yeah they also test your defenses swarming it with their worst ships and then they build better ships to fight said enemy (Im sure of this), and in the combat mode they AI will play fool you and flank with bombers, try angle you in that way where you bring less guns to the fight really having a blast playing space battles.


In terms of unrest what you are experiencing there it's most likely that the AI you are at war against it's spying on you and conducting subversive missions on your planets, I'll recomend you to build defenses or send there an counter spy ship which it's basically a Spy ship

[von Runstedt]

It does indeed seem like we are playing different games

Lets start off with the people who like me in the game Im currently playing. I'm playing as humanity and I am allied with the Gravakian (or whatever they are called) and the Magellans and have research and economic agreements with them. Despite this, though, the Magellans are cautious of me while the Gravakians are neutral, this despite an alliance with both of them that is now hundreds of years old during which time I only declared war on the Logan's whom the Magellans were at war with. True, despite this they are still willing to make trades with me but they make really idiotic trades with me. For instance, the Magellans are at war with the logans and in exchange for joining their war I demanded that they give me some of their technology which they agreed to despite the fact that I am on the opposite side of the map from the Logans and have no direct contact with them. Ever since I have just lollygagged around and done nothing to help the Magellans which doesnt seem to have mattered since, from what I can tell, neither of them are even actually fighting eachother since I don't think either side has captured planets from the other. In another later deal with the magellans I offered them a trade of resources. I offered them 20 metal (of which I am producing some 230 units) for 10 units of plutonium, and that's of monthly production, not just a fixed sum. They still made this deal despite the fact that they clearly didnt need the metal and despite the fact that I was actually producing more than twice as much plutonium as they were already and the amount of monthly plutonium production I asked for was more than twice that of what they were producing.

Now lets talk about my enemies. Now first of all when my enemies declare war on me, 5 times out of 10 I won't even have to fight them. literally the moment they declare war I keep the game paused, go to the diplomacy window and ask them for peace. Before any battles are fought or territories exchanged and without even asking me for anything in return they will make peace with me! It makes me question the whole reason why they bothered declaring war on me in the first place! the other 5 times out of 10 when fighting does occur its very simple. There are only 5 routes into my empire 3 of which connect to my allies and the other 2 with each of my 2 enemies the Urgans and the Koala bears which means I only have 2 entrances to defend and park a bunch of defense platforms and supporting ships to defend them. These things quite literally massacre whole fleets of their war ships, which at the time only consisted of corvettes and fighters, for minimal losses because I was fielding destroyers, frigates and heavily armed platforms and had already phased out my corvettes. I have yet to lose a single planet in this current playthrough and I've only had an enemy sabotage my planets twice, both in a war long past. I literally was able to just follow the method I described in my strategy post and I didnt have to maintain much of a fleet at all to maintain my security. I also haven't had to use the wormholes at all and quite frankly have never seen the AI use them either because all the AI spy ships Ive seen entering my space have come by way of the borders into my territory.

Now lets talk Macro. In my current playthrough Its been about 1,000ish years and I have colonized some 146 planets about 5 of which I recently conquered from the Koalas. I have the 2nd largest population behind the Gravakian and nearly 3 times as many systems occupied as my closest competitors. Taking a look at my lit up allies territory I still see them fielding lots of corvettes with a sprinkling of frigates while I have a fleet of frigates and destroyers, with cruisers coming down the research pipeline. Pretty much so long as I can keep my allies happy and defend my few frontier points I don't see the AI being able to stop me from doing whatever I want. Also in my recent war with the Koalas they either realized their fleets were to small and/or too far behind to face my new fleet because they high tailed it out of every system that I approached. I didnt lose a single ship and apart from a few planetary defenses which took out some of my forces on their descent their planets were pretty much undefended and fell rapidly to me. I probably could have just kept steamrolling over them but I made the choice to stop at a natural chokepoint and consolidate both to assimilate the populations I had conquered and to colonize numerous valuable planets that the Koalas for whatever the reason decided not to colonize.

[Mojamaguena]

Yes indeed the game plays very different each time that's good news for me at least.

I'm having a hard time with this Logan race, they are pretty bad people they are swarmng me in every chance they have and their invasion of my beautful frozen planet it's being costly for me because they drop there such a strong force that In order to take it back had to focus my best Megafactory planet on producing a bigger invasion force of 6k Marines 3k police 200 tanks 100 fighters and bombers this it's what remains in the battle and it's on it's 9th year of war but that it's helping a lot to keep my population in balance as I had to bring people to my Megafactory planet in order to mass produce more invasion forces.

This is a medium dificulty setting btw wonder which prowesses are the AI capable off in hard setting.

In regards of diplomacy I found that the Magellans are very kind dealing with humans (for what I saw) and they tend to offer you deals at the very same proportion as you did with them whereas the Sharatar are more introverted and distant but will accept fair deals also if you gift them stuff first withouth asking them for nothing, later you will have better chance of get good deals with them.

When I signed alliance with Sharatars and Magellans the Urgans declared war on my and was bad cos I'm in the center cluster of an spiral galaxy and both enemys are neighbors of me so decided to try make peace with the Urgans instantly in the hopes of avoid a 2 fronts war but they answered me; (can't recall exactly) The Urgan empire refusses your terms and have decided your total aniquilation!, so that means bad stuff it's going to happen soon.
I'm pretty sure that they decided that because by then they were ahead of me in both research and general development Index.

So far what I saw of your experience comparing with mine it's that depends the starting possition and race the game can behave very different which gives to the game very high replay value which now days it's pretty good.

[von Runstedt]

Would it be possible to see a map of the game you are playing? I'm curious to see what your political situation looks like.

[Rosseau]

I've tried to attach a file that gives some information on race and AI behavior. But good luck posting any files to these forums

There are a few other detailed files as well. I've modded some simple stuff with success.

And with more mod capabilities coming (not sure what they are), but we should be able to significantly alter race/AI behavior to the way we want it to run.

There's a link in the mod section to download the rt files - sorry, can't remember if it was posted on Steam or here. Probably better waiting, but the future of the game looks good and the detailed AARs you guys have posted are very helpful to helping me understand some things. Thanks.

[Mojamaguena]

Would it be possible to see a map of the game you are playing? I'm curious to see what your political situation looks like.

Here you got a pick of my recent advancements, a lot have happened in like 200 years I'm not sure but the Magellans are mostly destroyed same with Saratars and both of them expeled me of their alliance because "I wasn't bringing peace to the galaxy" but it's remarkable that just after droping alliance they made peace with the Urgans which are growing stronger in 2 sectors of space.


I'm light violet color, so far my wormhole exploration was a succes found a direct jump to an inhabitated part of the galaxy which have 2 earhtlikes and one oceanic world in the extension of 5 star systems plus some frozen ones with really nice minerals to mine, and it's free of Logans!
Sadly just found aswell that the Urgans are there too :/ luckly me my combat fleet was ready to go through the wormhole just in time the Urgans started to dare aproching my borders.

Another thing that I guess that I can confirm it's that they AI it's using wormholes as you can see in the pick there is a Urgan freighter that just apear there out of thin air, it's possible that it's a spy ship however when you discover an enemy in your territory that was spying you get and alert report which I didn't recive any, furthermore I was paying attention because in the very same system an Erian ship pop out too, like 40 years before.

In regards of spy ships here we have a couple of BIG problems;

1) Freighters without weapons meet in battle and if you autoresolve because the AI refuses to retreat (40mnts) warp time and you will always have this

2) Enemy spy ships don't triger combat when you don't have combat fleets in that system and even having them sometimes neither, So an enemy spy ship that was conducting subversion and destrucction mission in my central sector (deep inside my territory) can cross revealed my entire territory without being intercepted by fighters/interceptors returning to their territory and back again into action (of course once revealed he have enough fuel to cross my territory with its more than 20k h.u (wonder if the AI cheats on fuel) if so I don't think that's fair at all.

In regards to warmhole was testing mostly black ones encircled with blue ring, those seem to be able to conect you with 3 fixed parts of space randomly but it resets in a certaing amount of time, which it's useful to go where you want, I need to know how many time that's it, and then will move to red ones and see how they work.

[von Runstedt]

I can understand the allure of habitable planets but why would you colonize systems so far away from your own territory. Not only do you now have more space you have to defend but but it also needlessly puts you into conflict with the Urgans. Also keep an eye on your resources as building more ships may lead to shortages at this stage, especially with regards to gravitonium and plutonium, unless you colonize more resource planets. Otherwise the rest of your empire looks about as defensible as your territorial position permits. I would say just hold back the Logans and, unless you are really good friends with them, go after the drills, their territory seems to be the best suited for conquering into. Also how did the Drills and Urgans end up so spread out? I looks like they just have lots of independent sections that are barely connected to one another.

[Mojamaguena]

Well the main problem for my starting position was the lack of temperate planets and Earthlike so far in my main center territory I only have 3 earthlikes and 3 ocean worlds and one Gaia as mayor planets, then in the expand of 100 years I made contact with the Logans who were hostile and started to bully me since the beginning even try to be at good terms with them, I never satisfy their demands, Drills and Logan rushed to capture the best worlds aswell so they took those earthlikes and what not that were at my reach by then.

Then as the Logan whent against Magellans who are marked in the pick as green (now they are wiped out, same as sharatars in the red circle) and got the offer to joing them which by the time looked right to me becouse we shared common enemy but then Sharatars when to war with Urgans and for extension our alliance joined so now I'm alone fighting them both, the problem of resources was only to be tackle colonzing new worlds, and my exploration of wormholes gave me the chance of taking that well suited part of the space which is rich in earthlike, good froozen planets with research points and 2 oceanics, was worth the expedition as you can see im expanding that arm and trying to link it with my northen main territory, that are not conected but prolly easy to comunicate through wormholes or stargates.

Although my empire seems to be spread, actually it's not because it's just at one wormhole jump, and since I know how black wormhole mechanics works I can use them at my advantage and that part of the galaxy it's easy defendible aswell.
I'm sending through the wormhole everything that it's needed to develop faster my empire in that region, while I'm at the same time fighting the Logans and taking them out planet by planet, plus I'm at 2 pieces of completing 2 of the keys hulls and boosting my research as much as I can.



The Urgans seems to be doing really good as I guess that they have all the marked region of space and they are actively taking more but thank good they are behind me in tech for now.

The Drills seems to be more scattered thant the others but they have been actively avoiding any confrontaion with me, and atm I guess it's going to be a bad Idea to open a 3rd front.

The problem is that I'm isolated at the north no way to expand in that direction because the nature of the galaxy and center starting possition seems more difficult start than in one lonely exterior arm (which tbh I would have prefered to start) but got this way and wanted to play as It comes.

[zakblood]

some map shapes are harder than others, but that doesn't mean the AI is lacking or is any different, just the design of the map and starting planets are, for a better word for it, harder on some shapes and easier on others, i've won and won very well on all shapes and all sizes from 2 to all races active on all difficulty levels, and i'm useless at games but have put the hours in to know how it plays, sometimes it pure luck, while others it's a bad or poor start that makes it not worth playing till end game in some shapes, so i start again, as for me if you don't get a fair shake of not a nice layout, start again until you do, that's how i do it, then it's not so random and while a bit unfair for others, it suits me, try, try then start again and try another one

[Mojamaguena]

some map shapes are harder than others, but that doesn't mean the AI is lacking or is any different, just the design of the map and starting planets are, for a better word for it, harder on some shapes and easier on others, i've won and won very well on all shapes and all sizes from 2 to all races active on all difficulty levels, and i'm useless at games but have put the hours in to know how it plays, sometimes it pure luck, while others it's a bad or poor start that makes it not worth playing till end game in some shapes, so i start again, as for me if you don't get a fair shake of not a nice layout, start again until you do, that's how i do it, then it's not so random and while a bit unfair for others, it suits me, try, try then start again and try another one

Yeah, that's what makes this game fun, every game will be different, I'm having a blast playing this match because I have to really plan well what I'm doing observe my enemyes and adapt to them, the war with the Logans have show me what the AI it's capable of, we are really engaged in a blodbath now for more than 400 years they hate the guts out of me and I feel the same of them to such extend that I'm prolly not going to play as them NEVER lol, I don't like them a lil bit and their ships are ugly xD.

The fact that I could have expand my empire to a very free of Logans space makes me even more eager to play this match.

[zakblood]

as soon as you bomb any race into the ground, the game alters anyway as who likes you before that will never take to you again lol, seems mass extinction is a no no even in the future

[Mojamaguena]

as soon as you bomb any race into the ground, the game alters anyway as who likes you before that will never take to you again lol, seems mass extinction is a no no even in the future

Now, you see? I never bombed them while they are bombing me, furthermore they have build stealth bombers and are trying to infiltrate inside my best production planets but I have a very good early warning net and they are detected very easy now, yet some kind of bug prevents to trigger battles on stealth ships once they are detected and I have to watch those criminals returnng back to their space unharmed, even being deep inside my territory not to mention that they have enough fuel to travel back their space even being sometimes at more than 20k h.u (please fix this).

[zakblood]

it's easy to set up refuellers up or even add in tech to extend way past that, or just use tech to warp in without lanes again, naughty but not uncommon either, 2 stealth ships and portals to make gates and there in, jump in and a few months later gates closed and sealed behind them, in stealth mode unless your there you don't even see it

[Qwixt]

So my initial game is going like this. Expand to some stars. Some stars are too far away so I need to build special colony ships. Pirates show up. Deal with them. Purple ladies show up and we exchange embassies. The Drill show up. Go to planet, then say give it them. Declare war when I say no. I spend years chasing their one ship around my colonies but it endlessly flees and never seems to run out. Now that last part seems silly and is an annoyance that makes me want to skip playing until something is done about it.

Now to get to original topic, the AI personalities seem to be bit-wise oriented, and endless ship chasing is not fun. I know there is a later tech to prevent jumps, but even the AI should run out of fuel eventually.

[zakblood]

learn how the AI and races plays, as for ages now i haven't chased a single ship anywhere, not needed and tbh it's not how it was designed to be played either, fuel and space eg distance needs to be sorted and already has been by tech, if it's not working for you then your not at the point where you need to go so far, it's that simple, while i expand i develop and try not to leave a given sphere behind and try and bring the whole lot up together, tech plus food plus pop plus resources equals game end for most maps, early games can be boxed as long as you find them before they find you approach, speed is key, make friends with only the races who like you, as some like you more than others, while some will never like you, but will join you if needed late game to end game etc, as it's better than being wiped out etc etc.

fuel isn't the issue, speed is, food isn't a problem as long as you stop your race from out growing your resources to quick, with tech that's easy.

ships and fuel, build one type and then mod it alot as new tech comes out, i end game with up to 10 freighters types or more, as it's quicker to alter one than build one from scratch, so imo it's speed plus fuel first, then anything else only after that, speed gets you out of trouble quicker as if they can't catch you, they can't hit you, if you fly so far you can't defend it, then you over reached your supply and control, so pull back and build, then take over others hard work and spend time developing and changing there work and worlds, add police and if doesn't suffer for to long, leave fighters in orbit to hold and make them feel better for longer / quicker etc

[von Runstedt]

@Mojamaguena, I didn't mean in terms of the distance from your own space, per say, I meant in terms of you are creating more entrances into your territory which means more places that you have to defend with limited resources, especially since you are surrounded by aggressive opponents like the drills, Logans and now the Urgans.

Also if the war has been going on with the Logans for so long then they are probably ready to make peace with you. Peace and consolidation are valuable tools in this game as you never know when or where a new threat might appear from. In my game I didnt actually seek war until about 1,000 years in because I had enough internal matters to focus on that I could ignore the outside world outside of making sure my borders were guarded. Now that I've entered the expansive phase in my empire's development, my reserves of resources are large enough that I am able to field fleets of hundreds of ships on 3 different fronts at once and so far the wars I've fought have been on my terms with my opponents running for their lives and barely putting up a fight.

That's in part why I recommend you focus on the drills rather than the logans. the frontage there is far narrower and makes concentrating your ships there easier while the Drills appear to be operating far from their home base an so will put up less of a fight than the Logans will.

As for freighters, I have freighters that can go 39k h.u. that don't have refuelers and have only starting techs in them, so seeing freighters like that is not outside the realm of possibility

[Qwixt]

learn how the AI and races plays, as for ages now i haven't chased a single ship anywhere, not needed and tbh it's not how it was designed to be played either, fuel and space eg distance needs to be sorted and already has been by tech

fuel isn't the issue, speed is, food isn't a problem as long as you stop your race from out growing your resources to quick, with tech that's easy.

Not sure I understand the speed thing. No matter how much speed I have, the ship will always escape battles until that one tech that prevents it. At war with the Drill, and there is one drill ship I can do nothing about in my territory...and it bugs me

[Mojamaguena]

@Mojamaguena, I didn't mean in terms of the distance from your own space, per say, I meant in terms of you are creating more entrances into your territory which means more places that you have to defend with limited resources, especially since you are surrounded by aggressive opponents like the drills, Logans and now the Urgans.

Also if the war has been going on with the Logans for so long then they are probably ready to make peace with you. Peace and consolidation are valuable tools in this game as you never know when or where a new threat might appear from. In my game I didnt actually seek war until about 1,000 years in because I had enough internal matters to focus on that I could ignore the outside world outside of making sure my borders were guarded. Now that I've entered the expansive phase in my empire's development, my reserves of resources are large enough that I am able to field fleets of hundreds of ships on 3 different fronts at once and so far the wars I've fought have been on my terms with my opponents running for their lives and barely putting up a fight.

That's in part why I recommend you focus on the drills rather than the logans. the frontage there is far narrower and makes concentrating your ships there easier while the Drills appear to be operating far from their home base an so will put up less of a fight than the Logans will.

As for freighters, I have freighters that can go 39k h.u. that don't have refuelers and have only starting techs in them, so seeing freighters like that is not outside the realm of possibility

In that new sector I have alone more rich planets than in my starting sector it's the only way to go without going full war against Drills if I want the 2 most scarce resources, not only that I rather take what I can and easy defend than let it for Urgans to take it and grow stronger, which was about to happen since I destroyed their colonization ship just at the wormhole jump.
The Logans want to exterminate me no diploacy will turn them back (already send offers to both them and Urgans) both empires are DOOOMED! Went full rampage against Logans and Im erasing them of the galaxy for good, and those insectoids/lizards are coming behind , but since Im busy with the Logans I will let the insectoids alone fighting the Drills for a while.


Do you have a Spy ship that can move 39k h.u. without refuel systems? How many stealth modules does it have? I mean I have freighters that can fly forever but not with initial tech :/