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I'm working on my first game, a very large galaxy, as the Ackdarians. I've set most of the conditions to fairly benign levels, wanted to learn the game before making things too difficult. I've got by far the largest empire of any in the game, and am well out in front of the others in terms of Research as well.

Anyway, a while back I encountered and woke up The Hive assault carriers. Three of them, and from what I've seen in the forums, not particularly powerful compared to what some others have described. Each of the carriers rated about 12,500 in terms of combat power - which was still pretty intense, since my most powerful ship at the time was a light cruiser of less than 2,000.

I did some research on the forums, pulled my various smaller fleets together into one large one, upgraded it, and went in search of the Hive ships. But here's the interesting part - they had been traveling through my Empire, popping up occasionally in my systems to refuel. But they never attacked any of my ships, stations, or anything else. Seemed a little weird.

I sent my combined fleet after them, assuming they would be attacking at some point. Finally caught up with one of them last night. Normally, if you pop into a system with, say, some sort of space monster, either the monster attacks the fleet, of the fleet attacks the monster, even from across the system. But in this case, nothing. I even sent the fleet directly to the gas giant where the Hive carrier was refueling (although I did not order them specifically to attack), and they just sat there staring at each other from just a short distance away.

So rather obviously The Hive doesn't seem to be targeting my Empire, and I'm not automatically at war with it. I was just wondering if anyone else had encountered this situation before. I'm guessing that the AI is behaving the same way other empires do when confronting a vastly more powerful potential opponent, even if they're normally very aggressive. In other words, they won't start a fight if they don't think they can win. The Hive ships appear to be heading toward another empire, this one founded by Mortalens, where I can only assume that they'll start wreaking havoc.

My first impulse is to just let them go, and see what happens. Potential benefits for my empire, after all. But I was wondering - do the Hive ships grow and get stronger if they attack and defeat enemies, or do they remain at the same strength level as when first discovered? If they don't get any stronger, than leaving them alone seems like a worthwhile strategy here, but if they're going to consume Mortalen colonies / ships / stations and somehow grow stronger as a result, I should stop them now while they're still relatively small and vulnerable.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or questions?

Might want to post your pregame settings. If the galaxy is too peaceful, that may explain it....GP

I'll have to check the settings, but I do remember making the galaxy, if not totally peaceful, at least a bit more so than normal. I figured it was probably a combination of the lowered aggression settings (I seem to remember setting the pirate factions a notch below normal in terms of aggression as well) with the AI being reluctant to pick fights with someone a lot bigger and more powerful. Two of the empires I've made contact with are Mortalen and Boskaran, and they've both been very polite and friendly, even though they don't like me at all.

Mostly what I'm concerned with is whether the Hive ships upgrade over time. "Prepare to be assimilated" and all that sort of thing. If they stay at the same level they are now, leaving them alone is a viable option. If they're going to absorb bits of another empire and get bigger and stronger, then I should deal with them now while they're relatively weak.

Does anyone know if Hive ships get stronger over time, or do they remain at the level they were when they woke up?

RClive wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 9:53 pm Does anyone know if Hive ships get stronger over time, or do they remain at the level they were when they woke up?

I'm not sure about it, but the Hive Carrier wich I captured had 48.000 Strength

Chaos for me the three were 60,000 strength each but fairly easily overcome by two fleets of about 13k each ( luckily they didnt group up much ). Strength in numbers I guess. I boarded one and just sent it to repair

They were destroying my stations on the border of my empire fairly quickly, stopping to mine Caslon. I decided to take the leap and take them on when they reached one of my colonies, took out the space station and raided the colony itself.
All in all it worked out much better than I expected. Wasted my time pumping out as many ships as I could ASAP I think but I guess I can start to roll my neighbours now with the fleets I put together.

I suspect that the relatively low power of the three Hive carriers I activated was because of the initial game settings. Oddly, except for some skirmishing with the exploration ship that woke them up, they have not done any fighting at all that I can remember. Maybe one mining station, but even then I'm not sure. They've been moving through a good part of my empire, stopping occasionally to mine fuel at gas giants, which is how I find out where they are, but despite being in systems where I have various stations, or even colonies, they've not bothered or attacked anything. They were moving pretty consistently towards another empire, so we'll see if they do anything there.

Boarding them sounds like a very effective strategy, I"ll have to keep that in mind.

A new development.

Several game years after the original encounter with the three non-violent Hive carriers, I found another one - and this one wasn't so peaceful. The first time around, some shots were fired at the exploration ship that discovered them, but it had no problems getting away from them. But this second encounter was much more intense - lots of shooting, and the exploration ship was destroyed, although it sent out a distress signal before going. So now apparently I do have a hostile Hive assault carrier roaming out in the void.

This new one is a bit stronger than the original non-violent three. Those were each just over 12,000 in strength. This new aggressive one is a bit over 14,000 in strength, although my own ship capabilities have improved quite a bit since then as well. A single carrier doesn't promise to be a major problem, as I have two fleets in the vicinity, each with about 25,000 in strength.

It will be interesting to see if the original three passive Hive ships remain that way, or if they become aggressive now that this other one has woken up. I do hope I don't keep finding ever more and stronger Hive ships - that would be annoying, to say the least.