Aliens

The Aliens, or Hydra as they're sometimes referred after the first autopsy, are a non-playable faction. They have their own set of missions separate from human factions.

Aliens start on either Haumea or Makemake with a tier 3 Base and a tier 3 Habitat. They have 1 councilor on Earth and 5 more on Gunships that will crash and bring them on Earth regularly. They also start with a Destroyer that will arrive in early 2024. Aliens will expand from the edge towards the core of the solar system but will not attack human fleets or habs until the Alien Threat Level increases sufficiently.

Alien ships bringing councilors to Earth will create an UFO Crashdown Site visible to everyone. Other alien phenomena are created by alien councilor missions and have the be surveyed. Investigating an alien phenomena site will increase Xenology research by 1%.

SPOILERS INSIDE!

Aliens come from the Delta Pavonis system. In the past the Hydra were attacked and their homeworld destroyed by another alien race, the Salamanders. The surviving colonies managed to mind-control the Salamanders using their pherocytes. The Hydra decided that every other species has to be enslaved before it could become another threat. They have managed to conquer two other star systems: Zeta Tucanae and Alpha Mensae. One was the home of the Salamanders, the other was the home of the Griffins. Their plan is taking covert control of the human nations and using them to construct a network of orbital weapon platforms to keep them pacified. Then humanity can be used as a subservient race like the Salamanders.

Alien Threat Level

Alien Threat Level represents the degree to which the aliens regard a faction as a threat. Hostile actions against the aliens or their proxies on Earth, and/or a large visible space presence, increases their concern about a faction, which may expect the aliens to retaliate against their interests on Earth and in space should the alert monitor reach the maximum level. They may also lose interest if factions avoid opposing them or their proxies on Earth directly for a time.

Alien Threat Level becomes visible in the Intel panel once the Alien Operations council engineering project has been completed. The Servants and The Protectorate are never considered a threat.

Alien threat is scored from 0 upwards, with every 10 points increasing the threat level by 1. Alien Threat Level caps at 5 but the points can go above 50, making it harder to lower it.

SPOILERS INSIDE!

Factions (and aliens) get 1 hate per tier of each module you've destroyed. Aliens (and their proxy) get 40 hate if you destroy their landed UFO (whether by bombardment or by assault) Aliens (and their proxy) get 10 hate if you destroy their facility (whether by bombardment or by assault) Aliens get 80 hate if you destroy the alien nation. Also: Aliens gain an additional 1/8th of the hate the proxies get (or 1/4th if they can contact them) Proxies gain an additional 1/4th of the hate the aliens get (or 1/2th if they can contact them) Appeasers gain an additional 1/3th of the hate the aliens get if they can contact them These are all temporary values, and what I'm guessing most people care about is Mission Control. So: The first thing I noticed is that the Mission Control hate applies to ALL factions. The only caveat is that factions whose x axis is below -1 and factions whose x axis is above 1 have an additional minimum hate of 1. Meaning Resistance and Humanity First will always have 20 hate for Servants, Protectorate, and Aliens, and vice versa. The actual formula depends on the difficulty. Cinematic is 0.05 per MC, Normal is 0.4 per MC, Veteran is 0.6 per MC, and brutal is 1 per MC. It's reduced by 20% (multiplied by 0.8) by Strategic Deception, which is guaranteed to all factions but the Protectorate and the Servants, and another 0.8 by Operational Misdirection (guaranteed for Resistance) and Maskirovka (guaranteed for Initiative), though these are not guaranteed projects for anyone else (50%). Your councillors will start warning you once you surpass ~42 (50/1.2) hate from aliens (and others) by MC, by the way, which is equivalent to the base hate from 105 MC. The cap for 50 hate is 120.