Question of Threat

[Geckomeister]

Hey Guys,

I am new to the game so bare with me
Whats the deal with threat?
Is it purely a number of ships about t b sent in a wave against you?
Whats the relation between threat and the number of ships I see building up on the Galaxy screen?

Also on the Galaxy screen the worm hole lines change colour? What does it mean?

Many Thanks

[Arc-3N-4B]

Threat is the number of ships that are waiting to attack you. A threat of, say, 100 means that there are 100 ships en-route to attacking you, or waiting to attack. When threat in a system builds up to the point where the AI thinks it'll beat your defenses, it attacks. I think.

The number of incoming ships in a wave or cross-planet attack is the "Wave" display on the UI.

The wormhole lines change color based on adjacent planets. If memory serves, green is between planets you control, yellow is adjacent to a hostile planet that cannot send waves, and red is adjacent to a planet that can send waves. I could be wrong, of course. My memory on this is a bit fuzzy, and the fact that I've been watching Amnesia: The Dark Descent videos at night with headphones on probably isn't helping.

[Tridus]

One useful thing is that there's a threat display in the galaxy map (IIRC in the first dropdown on the bottom). If you have scouts on nearby planets (or full visibility enabled) you can tell it to show you where on the map the threat ships are.

IF the threat number gets high, that's a good indication of where the AI is gathering to attack.

[Geckomeister]

Okay thanks guys.

So in the Galaxy map when I have a cout at the planet it shows a number in red/pink and then another number in brackets.
What does that mean? Is the bracketted number reinforcements?

Cheers

[Arc-3N-4B]

If memory serves, the first number is the number of enemy ships on the planet, and the number in brackets is the number of enemy ships stored in a barracks or carrier.

[Tridus]

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. If they're in carriers and the planet is attacked, they'll reinforce the local ships. If they're in a barracks, they'll just sit in the barracks unless you destroy the barracks or the command station.

[Geckomeister]

ah okay, thanks!

The game is slowly making sense!

[keith.lamothe]

The game is slowly making sense!

Uh oh, I'd better go make it more complicated!

Welcome

[Martyn van Buren]

One more thing about threat --- it's all ships that you've already seen in a wave or when you invaded an AI world. Normally, AI ships you havent fought are waiting at guard posts (or patrolling as special forces/doing a few other jobs), but when you invade they get freed to fight you. Unless its a very small skermish, they usually remain free and are then allowed to go wandering around the galaxy, and will attack your planets if the AI sees an opportunity. Unlike waves, threat ships don't need a warp gate to attack you, so they can come from directions that are normally safe.  Threat is just a count of these ships.

When you attack a world and you're winning, AI ships will try to run away (becoming threat ships), and ships from waves also start off in threat mode, and will try to run away if they're outnumbered after a certain amount of time (I think 30 seconds).

Finally, ships you haven't met can become threat at one time: when the AI declares a cross-planet attack. What happens in a CPA is simply that a large number of ships get freed all at once, almost always enough that they will start attacking you right away.