Termites
Termites
The scourge of the universe, termites are despised by all station builders. Originally created to eliminate low investment stations (as they have been reported to cause lag), it is not uncommon for termites to formidably assault higher-leveled stations. Their armies, spawned from a simple termite mound, wreak havoc on entire star systems. Many a station has fallen to these insatiably hungry pests. Most termites belong on team Grubbies.
Every galaxy in Wild Space excluding Fractured Galaxies that has any stations/drone deployed in it will eventually become the target of Termites. Termites are hostile forces that lay siege upon galaxies requiring you to properly defend your stations. The offer no experience, items, or credits. However, ignoring or improperly defending against them can cause the loss of stations, owned galaxies (if the Command & Control Station Kit is destroyed or Fusion Cells production chain is impeded), and various investments placed on stations such as built extractors, gear, items, and credits. Termites provide the PvE risk part in the phrase "High-Risk, High-Reward" as owned galaxies cannot be attacked by players anymore.
Termite Infestation
Once a galaxy has a termite mound spawns, a message will be displayed in team chat, and at the end of the team message seen whenever logging in. The termites will first send solo scouts, and later after a week has passed, the termites will enter siege mode where stronger variants of termites are sent in groups for a period of 3 hours. Waves come every 15 minutes during sieges. Approximately every 30 minutes the termites change their target (but may select the same one again). Once the siege is done, the mound and termites lose interest and despawn.
Termite mounds are near indestructable, and because they offer no reward to clearing, nor does clearing a mound prohibit future termite spawns, it is inadvisable to attempt at clearing one.
Termites will always focus a random target (station or permanent drone) when scouting/sieging and send attacks until either an amount of time has passed and they change targets, or the target dies (stations that are destroyed will lose 1% of their inventory and become abandoned after a week).
Termites are easiest in common galaxies, but quickly become more dangerous in uncommon, rare, and exotic galaxy tiers. The higher the tier, the better your defenses need be. However, a station setup/loadout that works at one tier is highly likely to work on all others of that tier and below. Finding the optimal setup that balances cost and strength is a challenge for station builders.
Termite Frequency
Termites are inevitable, albeit at a random interval, roughly one spawn per three weeks. The interval is adjusted in an additive fashion based on events in the galaxy.
Termites will have much shorter intervals when:
- The galaxy becomes unowned
- Any station enters destroyed or abandoned state during the scout phase (i.e. before full termite waves are being sent)
- On at least two occasions a station enters destroyed or abandoned state after the scout stage is concluded.
- (Minor effect) a station entered a destroyed or abandoned state on exactly one occasion and it was after the scout stage was concluded
Termites will have longer intervals (but not longer than the default rate) if an entire infestation concludes without any of the above events.
Suggested Defenses
Stations should be strong enough to ward off termites independently in each planet-moon cluster. There are no healing station kits (HPS) anymore. The minimum recommended base tech level is 14-16 in Common galaxies in order to survive Termite attacks.
This involves:
- High enough station kit tech level (for enough augmenter slots)
- High enough station kit tier at a given tech level (for enough station resistance and unlocking higher tier gear/augmenters)
- Sufficient strength Base Gear
- Sufficient strength Base Items
- Sufficient station skills such as Station Tweaking, Imperial Tweaking, Station Research.
- Correct Trade Skills choice and level (e.g. a MFM character should never hold a kit)
- A helping of permanent drones (e.g. Industrial <Tier> Defenders are a popular healing choice, built into most stations) that will all but surely slowly die off from termites
Additionally, all Command & Control Station Kit have the ability to build termite bait that purposely spawns a single wave of termites (30 minutes or until all dead). This can be a valuable testing ground in order to vet setups. Joining a team with building focus is another route to learn station setups that have been vetted against real termites.
Since termites have specific resist holes (but no invulnerability), a variety of weapons is suggested with emphasis on pulse guns due to their high damage output:
| Termite Suffix | Vulnerability |
|---|---|
| En | Energy |
| He | Heat |
| Mi | Mining |
| Pi | Physical |
| Su | Surgical |
| Ga | Any |
