Hey forum,

So far in my game with the Umbral Choir, I have managed to figure out most of the basics. However, there is something bugging me about the new faction, and that is developing a network of sleepers to the point of being able to leech.

I have not been able to maintain a population of sleepers above five long enough for it to be worth the investment, and the constant repetition of the task is rather boring. I'm finding that the AI is incredibly on point in elimnating my sleepers, even before I reach five on an empire. Maintaining a number of sleepers > 5 is even more difficult, and this is for just one foreign power. I have not found a way of developing a sleeper network capable of leeching more than one empire.

This is on serious difficulty, which is my personal 'ez' as I learn new mechanics and move higher from there. Overall, I like the ideas and the faction, but this mechanic so far has not been fun or interesting, because I'm constantly working against, what feels to be, a very strict and invisible timer that has me investing a lot of hacking potential and pop growth in maintaining a sleeper network in one empire, rather than expanding it even further.

Have I missed something? What have other people's experiences been like? Thoughts are welcome!

Well, what I'm doing is create various sanctuaries and from them turn pop into sleepers. For that you need very high food output. You can also focus in a system with various sanctuaries an put the link there, so your pop will be sent.

This is a bit annoying sometimes, because, yes, this is like a race to put slerpers quick than computer can get rid of them.

Generally you'll want to put Sanctuaries on planets you think your opponents are going to colonize, this will allow you to immediately begin putting Sleepers on them by sacrificing population (which isn't doing much for you anyway). Failing that, hack twice and then create a Sanctuary and rely on sacrificing population for Sleepers. 

As Umbral Choir you're going to have a lot more success getting Sanctuaries everywhere that you can and using them to embed Sleepers rather than hacking to embed Sleepers. 

It is because the AI always checks the fidsi output of its systems which makes it quite easy to detect a sudden drop.  Human players are usually lazy to check the tooltip to detect any kind of leeching, especially if they own more than 7-8 systems.  It is a little frustrating, I agree but that's the price of clandestine works.  Once I drop below 5 sleepers I sometimes try and injure an enemy hero, create unrest or even overthrow enemy gov't. When it works the satisfaction level is huge :)

be aggressive. 

I invaded a big system on each of my three opponents, i purged their worlds (installing 4 or 5 sanctuaries on the now empty system, which filled to 100% in one turn because UC is crazy with high food). They came and recolonized, but now i already had a system with more than 20 sleepers and could tap them for 20% for the rest of the game. Just pop by all your systems and top up your sleepers every few turns

If your sanctuary are detected, how to make it invisible again?

My advice is to ignore sleepers unless you are about to invade and want to abduct them after the invasion.

Otherwise, the micromanagement is far too fiddly and the rewards minimal.

Slashman wrote:

Or just move the Nexus elsewhere.

By the way...where do you see the bonuses from your transmigration beacons. These are supposed to give bonuses on the special nodes they occupy right? But I have not seen any indication that they are doing this.

All bonuses from Transmigration Beacons are added to the FIDSI output of the Nexus. If you go to the Nexus system and hover over the FIDSI ouput of the system, you'll see something like this:

This will list your bonuses from each node you have a beacon on. 

Ah thanks!

Valadeus wrote:

nuyu wrote:

If your sanctuary are detected, how to make it invisible again?

The only way to make it "invisible" again is to add another Sanctuary to the system and hope it passes the enemy level of cloaking detection. 

Cloaking level caps at 3 for fleets, Sanctuaries and the Nexus. 

The cloaking level of fleets is determined by your progress in the military research tree (there are researches that raise your cloaking level). 

The cloaking level of the Nexus is determined by the system development level. 

The cloaking level of Sanctuaries is determined by the number of Sanctuaries in the system. 

So if a level 1 detector finds your Sanctuary in a system, hack to add another Sanctuary to increase the cloaking level of that Sanctuary system to 2 and it will be hidden again. 

Theoretically. 

I don't know if you can actually hide Sanctuaries once they've been detected, I know you can re-cloak the Nexus. 

I wil ltest it today.