General alien mechanics

The aliens frequently operate under different game mechanics than the human player. Many mechanics are alien-specific, and are listed on this site under their individual pages.

The game mechanics below describe systems affecting aliens in general.

Resource management

Aliens do not need to acquire or spend currency.

They do not need to acquire, manage, transport or sell ore. They do mine ore, and this does have the effect of depleting it from the asteroid, but the game does not track how much ore has been mined. Some buildings and processes, like missile construction, require a mine and/or ore storage facility, but these are unaffected by how much ore is in the asteroid.

Aliens cannot acquire blueprints, nor can they otherwise research or acquire new tech, although they can start with tech that is considered a blueprint to the player (for example, all aliens possess a direct counterpart to the Screen Generator).

Aliens do not have an equivalent to the player’s Intel system. No alien builds a Satellite Silo.

Buildings

The majority of alien buildings are more or less equivalents to Terran buildings, and take up the same “slot” in the alien building list as their Terran counterparts. They vary considerably in size, appearance, functionality and other attributes.

Aliens do not have an equivalent to the CPU. That building exists to bootstrap a colony and allow players to place their own buildings. All aliens start their colony by placing a fixed cluster of four buildings necessary for a colony’s survival.

Aliens construct new buildings from one of eight sets, which are alien-specific. Each colony makes new buildings on a fixed cycle, usually every 60 days, although this is 70 days for the Tylarans and 50 days for the Swixarans. Aliens select the set randomly, unless there is a pressing need such as a resource deficiency; what counts as a pressing need and which sets they build in response varies by alien.

Aliens only need one of each power, air, food and water building to meet demand for the entire asteroid. A single power plant is sufficient to power any number of buildings. Multiple resource buildings have no purpose beyond redundancy.

The selection of buildings varies by alien. Only two aliens have an equivalent to Asteroid Engines, for example. Some aliens have unique special buildings, such as the Ax’Zilanth’s asteroid teleporter. Turrets deal different amounts depending which alien builds it.

No alien has a Repair Facility. No aliens build Protected buildings of any sort.

Colonization

Each alien has its own rules for when it colonizes.

In general, each colony attempts to send out a scout ship on a fixed cycle of days, ranging from 30 (Ore Eater) to 130 (Ax’Zilanth).

On a separate cycle, ranging from 30 to 200 days, and which for some aliens requires a Command Centre type building to proceed, the alien considers sending a Transporter to start a new colony. The circumstances under which it does send a Transporter vary by alien. For example, the Kll-Kp-Qua always send a Transporter, while the Ore Eaters send one 5% of the time, unless their asteroid is nearly empty of ore, in which case the chance becomes 50%.

The alien starting colony is always fixed in its selection of buildings and ships, although the starting loadout varies between aliens.

Alien transporters actually carry colonists. The game doesn’t always subtract those colonists from the origin colony (perhaps to avoid reducing the colony to zero), although the Kll’Kp’Qua uniquely store surplus colonists in the Hibernation Hive and all colony ships draw population from there.

The initial alien colony does not become active until 80 days from game start. Becoming active means that it can place buildings beyond the initial group, construct ships, fire missiles, send scouts, and so on. New colonies become active 40 days after they are initially established.

Survival

Each alien has its own rules for what buildings it needs to survive, what happens when each of those buildings are gone, how fast its population grows if all needs are met, and how radiation affects its population.

Aliens are generally more resistant to radiation than Terran colonists. Some suffer no ill-effects from radiation, while others are highly tolerant.

Ships

All aliens possess eight classes of ship, and each class has a fixed loadout. Some additionally have an Orbital Space Dock or equivalent. Some ships appear to be dummied out.

All aliens have one Scoutship with low Armour and one ship cannon as its hardpoint; one Transporter; and one six-hardpoint battleship. The other five ship loadouts can vary considerably by alien.

Alien ships have three classes of cannon like Terran ships, but which deal different damage, usually higher, and some species use only two cannons. None have shields; instead, they have fixed Armour values, although at least one has a Deflector which effectively doubles that. Various aliens have unique ship hardpoints.

The circumstances under which aliens build ships vary by alien. Each time the aliens build a ship, the ship they build is random. There is a random percentage chance to build each class of ship, and each has its own build time. Orbital Space Docks are not randomly built, and some species have one ship dummied out so that they never build it randomly.

Fleets

Aliens always arrange ships in fleets, except for scout ships and transporters. They don’t send individual ships to attack your colonies, since it would unfair to prevent your fleets from intercepting them. Of course, the player can send individual ships without fear of interception.

Each alien has its own logic for how fleets are formed and used. They generally have a minimum fleet size, and are based around a certain asteroid where the ships were built. They generally select their targets at random from the list of our asteroids known to the enemy.

Missiles

Each alien has a selection of as many as nine different missiles, with the exception of the Tylarans, who never build or fire any missiles.

Most alien missiles are functionally identical to their Terran counterparts, but all missile-using aliens possess a number of unique missiles which replace the standard missile in their slot.

Each asteroid builds one missile every 25-35 days depending on alien. Building a missile requires that alien’s equivalent of Powerplant, Weapons Factory and Missile Silo. A percentile table like in a tabletop roleplaying game determines which missile will be built, and varies by alien.

Up to 5 of each type of missile may be built. If the colony “rolls” a missile which has already hit the maximum, no missile is built. No ore is required to build missiles.

Aliens usually select their missile targets randomly from the Terran colonies known to them. The timing and circumstances under which missiles are fired varies by alien. Many aliens will intentionally fire a Mega missile against an incoming terran asteroid to prevent a collision.

The selection of missiles varies. Some will fire a random selection of missiles, while other aliens have specific sets of missiles which are fired in certain circumstances. It is often the case that aliens will launch missile strikes in retaliation as soon as they detect your missiles on their radar.