Can't build a criminal network?

[adamsolo]

I have both a pirate base and a pirate fortress on a planet but I'm not allowed to build a criminal network (facility icon is not clickable). I have 100% control of the planet, both pirate and fortress bases and no research is required to unlock the criminal network (says the galactopedia).

So, what am I missing here? Why can't I build the criminal network facility? Something to do with the planet's population number? Or the fact that they are unfriendly, or an independent colony perhaps? Thanks.

[Erik Rutins]

You may not have enough credits - a Criminal Network is quite expensive. Starts at about 200k off the top of my head.

[adamsolo]

That would explain it But,... it should allow you to click the build icon in any case, and inside tell you that you need X money, no? I think that's how it works for the base and fortress. Let me see..

[adamsolo]

I have 800K and still can't build it.

[Breet]

In some of the preview build streams I saw (Das24680) the only way to get a criminal network was to wait for the advisory to popup the message for it, Even when over the 200k price mark. (also pirate base and fortress showup in the option, you just cannot click it unless you have the 30/100 k)

[Erik Rutins]

Hmm... it should work just like the bases and fortresses, at least it did. Adam, do you have a save file for this? If so please upload it and we will investigate. If the button is not working, turning on advisors could be a workaround as the above poster suggests.

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: Breet

In some of the preview build streams I saw (Das24680) the only way to get a criminal network was to wait for the advisory to popup the message for it, Even when over the 200k price mark. (also pirate base and fortress showup in the option, you just cannot click it unless you have the 30/100 k)

After I turned on the "suggest colony facilities" advisor (was set to manual before) I got the pop up to build the criminal network, and was allowed to build it (it did cost around 200K). However, you should be allowed to do it in "manual" as well, just like the pirate base and fortress.

On the subject of "advisors" vs "manual", I want to point out an odd diplomacy issue. I had "suggest diplomacy deals" ON while playing with a regular empire, and I was offered the possibility via advisor pop up to request the lift of a trade embargo for a third party empire. However, I couldn't do the same thing manually, i.e. by talking directly to the empire in question and asking them to lift the embargo on the third party. That and now this facility only buildable through the advisor? You should look at other possible things only possible through advisors, because I suspect many people like to go full (or almost full) "manual".

Erik, the save is 20MB, the upload function says is too large. How do I upload it?

\Edit: I ended up sending you the save by email.

[adamsolo]

By the way, both the pirate base and fortress took me many many years to build. The independent colony population was around 1500-2000M. And, I'm playing with the mercenaries which should build pirate bases 25% faster. And, to make things worse, every now and then a rogue pirate ship slipped through the defenses (and they were a lot of defenses!!) and if they dropped a single troop I immediately lost all progress on the bases and had to start all over again, This happened way too many times.

Am I doing something wrong here? How do I defend my colonies better to protect my pirate bases under construction? No matter what I do, built a space port, a defense base, 2 big fleets patrolling, and rogue pirate ships still managed to drop troops and destroy my pirate base's progress. Any tips on how to speedup the pirate base's building process and on how to defend them from rogue raiders better?

Oh, and by the way, if you raid your own controlled planet building a pirate base there you also destroy your pirate base progress. Is this bug or feature? I incidentally hit raid more than once and lost all progress on my pirate bases. I think something should be done about this. It seems like your ships are too passive and allow a single rogue ship to destroy years of work on the pirate bases.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: adamsolo
After I turned on the "suggest colony facilities" advisor (was set to manual before) I got the pop up to build the criminal network, and was allowed to build it (it did cost around 200K). However, you should be allowed to do it in "manual" as well, just like the pirate base and fortress.

Completely agree and it did work that way, but if it's not now then we broke it somewhere before release.

On the subject of "advisors" vs "manual", I want to point out an odd diplomacy issue. I had "suggest diplomacy deals" ON while playing with a regular empire, and I was offered the possibility via advisor pop up to request the lift of a trade embargo for a third party empire. However, I couldn't do the same thing manually, i.e. by talking directly to the empire in question and asking them to lift the embargo on the third party. That and now this facility only buildable through the advisor? You should look at other possible things only possible through advisors, because I suspect many people like to go full (or almost full) "manual".

I don't think there are any other instances like that, but thank you for the heads up. The intention of the design is that anything that can be done automatically can also be done manually.

Erik, the save is 20MB, the upload function says is too large. How do I upload it?

Please upload here:

tm.asp?m=2415085

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

By the way, both the pirate base and fortress took me many many years to build. The independent colony population was around 1500-2000M. And, I'm playing with the mercenaries which should build pirate bases 25% faster. And, to make things worse, every now and then a rogue pirate ship slipped through the defenses (and they were a lot of defenses!!) and if they dropped a single troop I immediately lost all progress on the bases and had to start all over again, This happened way too many times.

Am I doing something wrong here? How do I defend my colonies better to protect my pirate bases under construction? No matter what I do, built a space port, a defense base, 2 big fleets patrolling, and rogue pirate ships still managed to drop troops and destroy my pirate base's progress. Any tips on how to speedup the pirate base's building process and on how to defend them from rogue raiders better?

Oh, and by the way, if you raid your own controlled planet building a pirate base there you also destroy your pirate base progress. Is this bug or feature? I incidentally hit raid more than once and lost all progress on my pirate bases. I think something should be done about this. It seems like your ships are too passive and allow a single rogue ship to destroy years of work on the pirate bases.

Three builds before release, we made a tweak to make bases under construction more vulnerable and make bases a bit easier to destroy. We're still investigating, but it appears that this broke a few things and we didn't catch it before release. Expect an update to make pirate bases more resilient.

Regards,

- Erik

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

By the way, both the pirate base and fortress took me many many years to build. The independent colony population was around 1500-2000M. And, I'm playing with the mercenaries which should build pirate bases 25% faster. And, to make things worse, every now and then a rogue pirate ship slipped through the defenses (and they were a lot of defenses!!) and if they dropped a single troop I immediately lost all progress on the bases and had to start all over again, This happened way too many times.

Am I doing something wrong here? How do I defend my colonies better to protect my pirate bases under construction? No matter what I do, built a space port, a defense base, 2 big fleets patrolling, and rogue pirate ships still managed to drop troops and destroy my pirate base's progress. Any tips on how to speedup the pirate base's building process and on how to defend them from rogue raiders better?

Oh, and by the way, if you raid your own controlled planet building a pirate base there you also destroy your pirate base progress. Is this bug or feature? I incidentally hit raid more than once and lost all progress on my pirate bases. I think something should be done about this. It seems like your ships are too passive and allow a single rogue ship to destroy years of work on the pirate bases.

Three builds before release, we made a tweak to make bases under construction more vulnerable and make bases a bit easier to destroy. We're still investigating, but it appears that this broke a few things and we didn't catch it before release. Expect an update to make pirate bases more resilient.

Regards,

- Erik

Yes, pirate bases shouldn't be so easily destroyed. After all, they're hidden bases right?

I understand that this is a balance issue. I only experienced the building side, not the attacker side yet. I suppose you will want to cripple your pirate adversaries pirate base's progress fast, if you're the attacker. But, from my feeling playing the game so far, on the building side, I agree that pirate bases shouldn't be so easily destroyed. You would need more troops/raiders than a single pod to destroy all progress (at the moment, a supersonic escort with a single boarding pod is all it takes).

At maximum you could disrupt the construction with a few raiders, say, drop progress from 85% to 65% or something, and only destroy full progress if you bring many raiders with you. Add to this that the bases take years to build and are still quite expensive (and that money is a scarce resource for pirates), and one must agree that this mechanic isn't that fun at the moment, at least from the builder's perspective. And in my opinion, of course.

[Erik Rutins]

It's not working as intended right now - we're working to get it back to where we would like it to be. Right now they are very good to have, but way too fragile.

[Raap]

One thing that I noticed when trying to protect my own on-planet pirate bases was that I would have 'peace treaties' with other pirate empires. That, of course, prevented my ships and defenses from attacking them automatically. Since the planet is not technically 'yours' they will be coming to raid even with the treaties. So basically, they go through your defenses unharmed.

My solution was to break all treaties and not accept new ones. After that point, I stopped having that problem as any raiders were chased away before they got close enough to drop raid pods.

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: Raap

One thing that I noticed when trying to protect my own on-planet pirate bases was that I would have 'peace treaties' with other pirate empires. That, of course, prevented my ships and defenses from attacking them automatically. Since the planet is not technically 'yours' they will be coming to raid even with the treaties. So basically, they go through your defenses unharmed.

My solution was to break all treaties and not accept new ones. After that point, I stopped having that problem as any raiders were chased away before they got close enough to drop raid pods.

Same here. If you have a truce agreement, the pirates will raid the planet's you're trying so badly to build pirate bases on, at will.

Breaking all truce treaties and not accepting new ones, just that your ships may fire at the raiders, is not an acceptable workaround in my opinion. That cripples pirate's diplomacy gameplay.

Manual control over all pirate fleets is not an option either. Besides, one-ship raiders are so fast that they'll raid, destroy years of work on bases faster than your escorts can turn to see what's going on. The only way to stop their constant kamikaze raids is to manual oversee base progress and put combat to 0.25x so that you have time to destroy the raiders one by one. I'm talking about huge defense fleets here, required to take them out. And a starbase, and a spaceport.

I think the game needs a "protect planet from raid" option. Or, some option that instructs patrolling ships to fire at raiding pirates (even ones with truce agreements). Or, truce agreements should stop pirates from raiding the planets you currently control in the first place. If you know who is in control of a planet, then the AI should know as well. Or, you should be allowed to drop your own pirate raiders/troopers to defend the pirate base construction.

Either way, the pirate base construction should just be harder to destroy. And, ones already built should be Very hard to destroy. Right now, this part of the gameplay is not fun. Moreover, all types of pirate styles depend on pirate base building one way or another to achieve victory, therefore the critical importance of this feature. CodeForce/Matrix seems to be on top of this though.

[invaderzim]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Three builds before release, we made a tweak to make bases under construction more vulnerable and make bases a bit easier to destroy. We're still investigating, but it appears that this broke a few things and we didn't catch it before release. Expect an update to make pirate bases more resilient.

Is the patch to fix the Criminal Network coming soon? I only get the option to build Pirate Bases and Pirate Fortresses but not the Network. I was able to get the advisor prompt for the Network to appear once, but it won't popup again after I reloaded the save.

[peddroelm]

This is the place in the UI I would assume you can build criminal networks from (never played as a pirate) ..

As as an empire that is where you can build planetary facilities , see the ones built/in construction and order attacks to destroy "secret" pirate bases

[adamsolo]

I'm pretty sure you couldn't build the criminal network using the UI place you describe above either peddroelm (so, not via the quick action button nor through the facilities tab). That was with 1.9.0.1. I didn't try after 1.9.0.2 though, where it was supposedly fixed.

[adamsolo]

I report that it's now possible to build a criminal network manually via the build action buttons. However, the cost was not subtracted from my treasury. The 250K were not subtracted. I have a save point in case you need it.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

I report that it's now possible to build a criminal network manually via the build action buttons. However, the cost was not subtracted from my treasury. The 250K were not subtracted. I have a save point in case you need it.

What version did you see that with? I'll have a play with pirate mode again and see if I get the same thing.

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

I report that it's now possible to build a criminal network manually via the build action buttons. However, the cost was not subtracted from my treasury. The 250K were not subtracted. I have a save point in case you need it.

What version did you see that with? I'll have a play with pirate mode again and see if I get the same thing.

The last one, 1.9.0.4

\Edit: I also report that pirate bases are now much harder to destroy, but they can be destroyed. But, as I see, only when the raid is 100% successful.

\Edit2: By the way, I can reproduce the manual-build-criminal-network-costs-no-money issue. I have a save point for that.