Experimenters

[EricF]

playing FreeOrion_2016-08-16.6a394b5_Test_Win32_Setup.exe

150 Stars 5 AI's

This is the first time I have encountered the Experimenters.
I encountered seven Black Kraken on turn 210.
I have searched the forum and read a little bit, but is this normal?
Normally played past turn 250 and never seen them before.
They are leaving me alone and trashing the AI's so no big deal.

[MatGB]

The start turn is determined by a variety of factors including size of galaxy, AI aggression setting (the closest we have to "difficulty") and planet density (it's in the Experimentor Outpost building file if you want to read the details).

In addition, they don't always turn up on smaller maps as they can only be placed in systems enough jumps away from any empire homeworld that they're not immediately a problem, so on high starlane or high AI player number games and on small maps they're less common, it may simply be that there wasn't a valid position to place them in previous games.

The plan is at some point to have them placed either first, and then have homeworlds places away from them, or have them placed at the same time (and in the same way) as AI/player homeworlds but that requires a code rewrite that's way beyond me and isn't a high priority.

[MatGB]

Oh: they are currently leaving you alone.

I do, strongly, advise you get stuck in and deal with them before the actually scary monsters start appearing

[defaultuser]

Mat's right (no surprise). The Black Krakens are just the beginning. The AIs tend to let the spawn run wild until the area is infested. You'll have to deal with the situation sooner or later.

I usually play 150 system/4 AI/cluster. The emergence point is highly variable. I had two games in a row where they showed up at around turn 202. Some have been well out past turn 300, but now that I'm playing with Starlane Bore the wait time can be shortened. The last five games I haven't seen them.

[Ruldra]

Sounds like OP is about to have a really bad time Black Krakens are a big threat and spawn almost every other turn. During my games I make a big point to have a huge fleet ready to strike the experimentors as soon as the lanes open. And even my deathfleets take several turns to take down the outpost.

I already thought Black Krakens were scary but there are MORE monsters after them?

[defaultuser]

Yes, there are more. Of course these days you don't have to wait for the lanes to open. You can do it yourself when you're ready to roll.

[EricF]

Black Krakens are a big threat and spawn almost every other turn

The Black Krakens weren't an issue. I had a fleet of about 50 Titans ready to stomp them.
It was when I hit the Psionic Snowflakes that all Hell broke loose.
After encountering two (2) I only had about a dozen ships left and they had to RUN AWAY!
I had to rebuild my entire fleet from scratch with Exobot crews.
That was a serious issue.
I was only saved by a Gateway to the Void and the fact that most of the Experimentor Monsters went after the AI.
I had no idea Psionic Snowflakes were that powerful and that they don't even have to be in the same system as you.
They can be in an adjacent system and still take over your ships.

BTW, is there any way of luring the Monsters in some way?
To try to get them to move in a particular direction.
That would be very useful. Maybe some Bio Tech core slot device that attracts them?
My Gateway to the Void was not in an ideal spot, but it was the best I could do.

[defaultuser]

It's important to find out exactly how Psionic Snowflakes work. I don't recall if the details are in Pedia description (as I've now known for a long time) but I think so. You don't need to lose ships to them.

[EricF]

Bump

BTW, is there any way of luring the Monsters in some way?
To try to get them to move in a particular direction.
That would be very useful. Maybe some Bio Tech core slot device that attracts them?

[defaultuser]

Not that I've heard of. But I think you're going wrong path anyway. Either strategically place Gateways (remember that they can build at outposts), or look into getting ships that are not vulnerable to the Snowflakes.

[MatGB]

Not yet, no, I suggested it awhile back but I haven't even opened an Issue yet.

For what it's worth, some of the Experimentor monsters do target specific types of location. In theory.

[EricF]

Not that I've heard of. But I think you're going wrong path anyway. Either strategically place Gateways (remember that they can build at outposts), or look into getting ships that are not vulnerable to the Snowflakes.

Placing Gateways was impossible in my situation. I always play with no minor races so using Exobots was my only option.
It does mention their ability to control biological species, but since it was my first time ever encountering the Experimentors I had no idea that I would need a fleet of ships with Exobot pilots laying around. And since Exobots make lousy pilots I usually go out of my way to make sure I have none. I also had a fleet of FIFTY ships. Who could know that TWO snowflakes could be so devastating. And there is no mention that they can use their control ability even from adjacent systems.

Because it was impossible for me to place Gateways in ideal places is exactly what prompted my desire to find some way to lure them.

You make it sound like I made some kind of obvious errors. I have learned, but having some way of luring Monsters still seems like a good idea to me. It would give me a reason to research more of the Bio techs dealing with Biological hulls. As it is now I never research that branch as I never use those hulls. When I build a ship I want to use it NOW. Not wait fifty turns for it to mature. To offer a helpful suggestion to solve that problem, might it be advantageous that if you keep a Bio hull ship around a planet with a Bio incubator, and as long as it doesn't move or engage in combat, that it mature faster? Maybe at twice or even triple the current rate?

[MatGB]

You make it sound like I made some kind of obvious errors.

You didn't, I'd forgotten the snowflakes can take a lot of ships at once and that needs to be changed, one ship per turn per snowflake is fine, but a %age chance of each ship falling to each snowflake isn't good.

[defaultuser]

You make it sound like I made some kind of obvious errors.

You are free to think that was my intent, but you would be wrong.

[EricF]

Have the Psionic Snowflakes been nerfed? I didn't see anything specific about it in the changelog.
I fought one this time with 38 ships and it turned only four. As opposed to the last time I fought two with about 50 ships and almost 40 of them turned. Only about 10% turned this time with prox 75% before.