So I could be in the wrong here - and by all means correct me if I am - but creating sanctuaries via hacking (I forget if it's possible to do through warfare) on systems that are already colonized and doesn't contain any pre-existing sanctuaries that you own, is really difficult or at the very least time-consuming. 

You have to have a long enough route through which to do the hack so you don't get traced (can be tricky at times, I find), and you have to do this 3 times minimum, hoping all the while that the one you're hacking doesn't start removing the scant few sleepers that you need to set up the first sanctuary, or hope that they don't trace you, or that they don't remove the backdoor that you're hacking from -if and when you're hacking from one. And after that you still have to hack the same system up to 4 more times just to set up the last few sanctuaries.

There's no realiable way to ensure that a backdoor or your sleepers are gonna remain for very long, and if they have any sort of protection on the system you want to "colonize" it's very likely going to take 5 or more turns to hack successfully on normal speed (not to mention not having a good indicator of what sort of anti-hacking measures they might be using). It also takes 5 turns to remove 1 sleeper, and so even if you're able to hack them faster than they can remove them, it's still gonna take forever to "settle". This leads to you having to try a different system or wait, but it seems like the AI likes to do a whole sweep across the empire whenever they start removing sleepers, forcing you to wait up to 10 turns (normal speed) or direct your colonization efforts elsewhere. This is assuming you weren't caught in the act in the first place, also forcing you to wait 10 turns.

Now correct me if I'm wrong (again), but I believe you get penalized when your sanctuaries are on a colonized system, even when allied with the owner. This on top of your pops not having particularly good stats, your sanctuaries not being able to get a lot of the same bonuses from improvements that you would normally get on a regularly colonized system, as well as there now being serious restrictions to how many systems with sanctuaries you can actively have... 

It's rough. I mean you still have a strong home system that'll ideally be filled with exclusively Umbral Shadow pops at some point, but even that's going to take a while, especially if you don't intend to go to war. Your only option then is hacking someone's home system to abduct sleepers little by little from the few systems you've managed to "settle". All this while doing your normal hacks. Consider that the UC only gets 1 additional hack to use at a time over other major factions, as well as a few minor bonuses to hacking - mainly bandwidth - over the course of a game. I believe you get a considerable hacking speed boost from one of the main quest rewards, but that's only if you go down that path. You still want to do normal hacking, as well as any hacking required by the main questline which sometimes requires you to hack your way half across the map.

So I want to offer some ideas to make things a little bit easier for the UC. Keep in mind I'm just spitballing here:

• Additional OR better hacking speed bonuses. Consider this: Hacking has been designed to use long routes to ensure the target doesn't trace you back, and the most reliable way to make a long route like that is by sending your hack through multiple systems before it reaches its target. But if every system is colonized, such as it might be in a big empire, you're only ever going to be able to scratch the surface of that empire. Greater hacking speed bonuses could help the UC avoid getting traced in those situations, but having said that I honestly don't like that idea. Might be too OP.
• Options for slowing down a trace. It's in the same vein as the above idea, but it would be more interesting I think.
• The ability to hack safely through backdoors or systems that contain sanctuaries that you own. If you don't want to make it a passive bonus, you could make it an attack/defense program that you place on the system that contains the previously mentioned backdoors/sanctuaries. I would love this.
• Lower/change requirements for the initial sanctuary, or otherwise find a way to help ensure that sleepers aren't removed while trying to setup the initial sanctuary.
• Remove hostile traces coming from systems containing sanctuaries that you own, or let the UC ignore most (maybe just basic) defense programs. This could be done while adding anti-sanctuary countermeasures to regular empires. I mean as far as I know, right now the major faction AI's don't even use anti-stealth modules.
• Remove/lower penalties and defensive measures targeting the UC if the other empire and the UC is at peace or are allies. Of course it becomes a bit weird when the UC then starts abducting their friend's pops, but uhh...

Now I'm not 100% on everything I've said. I haven't played enough to be that certain, and I'm definitely not a skilled or even efficient player ^^ I play casually on normal, so please feel free to weigh in and correct me if you think I'm wrong about anything. Hell, weigh in even if you think the UC/hacking is fine but would still like to see some changes.

Adding a poll, why not.

I love the hacking system after the changes they hotfixed in. There is a method of changing the direction of your hacks to all focus on the same target turn by turn to more securly obtain that sweet sancturary.

However as much as I do like the tug of war I have with my enemies, this is indeed a big challange. An idea I would have would be that sleepers on system boost the hacking of that individual node. I like the idea of things still being difficult, but I would like to feel that if an enemy empire is activley purging sleepers and is aware of my plans, that I didn't lose all of my progress of multiple actions because of their one.

I don't feel that any more changes to the hacking vs tracing system is required. Umbral Choir already get a solid bonus vs other factions when it comes to recovering from a trace, by having a massive amount of Bandwidth!

One thing that does make me a little sad about sancturaries is their stealth. If a system has only two planets then the max stealth rank you can get is two, and when you are starting your later game shenanigans it is very obvious when you get your first sancturary on a system if they have any patrol. Perhaps we can add a fleet action to impose the fleets' stealth level unto the sancturaries in the system? You would still reach the cap of three and enemies can still find you, but more options are always nice!

Hmm, I should've added an "Other" option to the poll.

XuJoo wrote:

One thing that does make me a little sad about sancturaries is their stealth. If a system has only two planets then the max stealth rank you can get is two, and when you are starting your later game shenanigans it is very obvious when you get your first sancturary on a system if they have any patrol. Perhaps we can add a fleet action to impose the fleets' stealth level unto the sancturaries in the system? You would still reach the cap of three and enemies can still find you, but more options are always nice!

Yeah I agree, but that seems like a bit of an imposition, and if you make just one ship to sit and provide a high level of stealth on the system it carries the risk of just getting pushed off or destroyed by any other fleet with a high enough level of stealth detection. You could make the fleet stronger but that seems like a waste. You could also make the fleet invulnderable while doing this, but unable to do anything else for the duration. Or maybe consume it entirely, but then I think we're just overcomplicating something that's already a silly issue. 

Instead I think I would prefer that they make the stealth level of your sanctuaries grow over time, and by that I mean once you place the initial sanctuary a timer will start that over time will increase the level of stealth of sanctuaries on that system. To make it a bit more fair in the late-game you could add bonuses that lowers the time it takes or raises the base level of stealth on sanctuaries. You could also just forego the bonuses and tie the base level of stealth of new sanctuaries to the level of stealth that your home system has.

As far as I remember my conversations with the designers, we did not tie Sanctuary cloak level to the home system development because that would leave all Umbral Choir Systems at the same cloaking level, which would be a potentially very frustrating experience for players: If the Choir rushed their system development, all of their empire would be hidden until their enemies discovered high level detection technology, and that would not be much fun to play against.

Also, Sanctuaries on Colonized systems should not receive penalties. I believe there used to be a bug with that, but it should be fixed now.

The cloaking level of your Sanctuary Systems is tied to the number of planets you have Sanctuaries on in that system. So they start out at a cloaking level of 1. But like other cloaking, they cap out at level 3.

ColHathi wrote:

Hmm, I should've added an "Other" option to the poll.

XuJoo wrote:

One thing that does make me a little sad about sancturaries is their stealth. If a system has only two planets then the max stealth rank you can get is two, and when you are starting your later game shenanigans it is very obvious when you get your first sancturary on a system if they have any patrol. Perhaps we can add a fleet action to impose the fleets' stealth level unto the sancturaries in the system? You would still reach the cap of three and enemies can still find you, but more options are always nice!

Yeah I agree, but that seems like a bit of an imposition, and if you make just one ship to sit and provide a high level of stealth on the system it carries the risk of just getting pushed off or destroyed by any other fleet with a high enough level of stealth detection.

The idea would be that you have to further invest your resources to make a particular system a little more stealthy, not so much have a ship planted on every system purely for stealth. If a fleet has high enough detection to detect your fleet, then they should also see the sancturary. This keeps your enemies still having options such as hiring a UC hero for their detection, or going for military tech. After all no one likes to play against an enemy they have no options against!

I would just like the option to stay stealthy to those who have not made such investments. Mid game most people should have low level detection, and they can easily see your first sanctuary on a system. A counter to that would be nice, and a counter for that counter is even better! Counter the counter that counters the counter for countering that counter's counter!

I think the biggest problem with Sanctuary creation only happens when trying to create one in a colonized system because, just as OP said, it's hard to have 2 sleepers and then hack it if they're killing your sleepers.

 I think a simple way of solving this would be to allow more than one hack to target the same system, that way you wouldn't need to time your Diverts to have consecutive hacks on a system an create a Sanctuary before the target has a chance to kill your sleepers, and to balance it out a bit, you could have a Operation be necessary for each aditional Hack and maybe faster Tracing for the target when using that Operation.

NoTLucas wrote:

 I think a simple way of solving this would be to allow more than one hack to target the same system, that way you wouldn't need to time your Diverts to have consecutive hacks on a system an create a Sanctuary before the target has a chance to kill your sleepers, and to balance it out a bit, you could have a Operation be necessary for each aditional Hack and maybe faster Tracing for the target when using that Operation.

Sounds similar what the offensive program allows, when redirecting hack target (forgot it's name).

Groo wrote:

Sounds similar what the offensive program allows, when redirecting hack target (forgot it's name).

That would be the Diverts that NoTLucas mentioned.

It's pretty easy to do with Divert if you set things up properly. Three hacks land in 3 turns, boom free sanctuary.

The one thing that may be worth looking at is interactions with allied defensive programs. Because the UC are actually amazing if you cooperate with someone and use accelerators on their systems. With humans you can negotiate for them to turn off the defenses (you put your own on the needed nodes via sanctuaries, selling cybersecurity is actually worthwhile if you're working with a wide empire). With AI that's trickier. Maybe there should be a diplomatic treaty for "don't interrupt hacks that aren't targeting your nodes", with the caveat that you can't Divert toward their nodes while this is active.

SpacesuitSpiff wrote:

It's pretty easy to do with Divert if you set things up properly. Three hacks land in 3 turns, boom free sanctuary.

The one thing that may be worth looking at is interactions with allied defensive programs. Because the UC are actually amazing if you cooperate with someone and use accelerators on their systems. With humans you can negotiate for them to turn off the defenses (you put your own on the needed nodes via sanctuaries, selling cybersecurity is actually worthwhile if you're working with a wide empire). With AI that's trickier. Maybe there should be a diplomatic treaty for "don't interrupt hacks that aren't targeting your nodes", with the caveat that you can't Divert toward their nodes while this is active.

I like it.

I think it's well balanced as it is, BUT...

I would like to get more hacking offensive programs.

Also, it could be great if there was an option check saying "redo the same hack after this one", with same hacking offensive programs.