AI War:Hacking

Credit for this is shared with forum member tadrinth, who originally posted these ideas here.

What is Hacking?

As you scout, capture planets, and otherwise progress, you accumulate AI Progress (AIP), which in brief is a measure of how annoyed the AI is with you. The more exposure you get to the AI, the more familiar you'll become with the AI's capabilities and vulnerabilities, which means you'll learn various exploits you can use against it. Your ability to execute these exploits manifests as hacking points (HaP), which you accumulate at the same time and at the same rate as AIP. If you never spend any HaP, your HaP at the end of the game will end up greater than or equal to your AIP. These HaP can be spent on a variety of different hacking types; you can go negative on HaP but the AI response is very aggressive. Hacking gives you a number of ways to mitigate unfortunate random galaxy generation combinations, and functions as a sort of anti-RNG.

As of core game version 8.xx, almost all hacking gets done through the Hacker unit, which places immobile hacking devices in AI systems.

The cost of hacks increases by 50% per hack per type.

Hack Type	Initial HaP Cost	Description
Fabricator	30	Permanently allows you to build whatever unit is provided by the Fabricator, without the need to capture the system or defend the Fabricator. Requires an unhacked AI-controlled Fabricator in System. All fabs in system will be hacked. Works on Core Turret Controllers.
Design Download	50	This type of hack lets you steal a ship design that you can then unlock through the normal Mk I/II/III tiered structure. There is a design backup for every ship type the AI has unlocked, but a given backup can only be downloaded or corrupted, not both. Requires a Design Backup in system.
Design corruption	30	Prevents the AI from building MkI - MkIV versions of a particular ship for the rest of the game. Same reqs as Design Download.
Knowledge	30 for 3000 knowledge	Allows gathering of Knowledge on AI controlled planets.
Superterminal	1 per tick	Lower AIP by 1 per tick, raises AIP floor by .2 per tick. This hack is triggered when the SuperTerminal system is captured and can only be stopped by destroying the SuperTerminal.
Advanced Factory	100	Allows building MkIV ships from regular space docks (provided the MkIII versions are unlocked) for the rest of the game.
Advanced Starship Constructor	100	Allows building MkIV starships from regular starship constructors (provided the MkIII versions are unlocked) for the rest of the game.
Sabotage	10	Destroy the closest major enemy structure. Sabotaged structures do not raise AIP on death. Targets include Forcefields, Fortresses, Raid Engines, Eyes, etc.
Advanced Research Station	35	Allows the player to select between 3 ship types when capturing the station, rather than just being given a single ship type.
Sensor	10	After a short warm-up period, grants all player controlled ships in the system Stealth as per the standard ship ability and disables all AI Tachyon sources. Firing will still decloak ships as normal.

One player's opinion about the value of various hacks:

• Fab hacks are very popular, since hacking a fab means you don't have the capture the planet AND you don't have to defend the fab. They're also super reasonably priced.
• Factory and ASC hacks are pretty expensive, but potentially worth it if they're in particularly indefensible spots.
• Design Download hacks are solid gold, if there's a very strong ship type available and you have the K to unlock higher marks, as they get you an entirely new ship type. They're not cheap, though.
• Design Corruption hacks are nice if there are any ships that you just don't want to deal with. Most useful against ships that are a threat in waves; the hack will not stop Mark V versions from showing up on the *AI homeworlds. Eyebots are a good example, as a wave of eyebots is a pain in the butt.
• Sabotage hacks are nice for getting past otherwise unwinnable defensive combos. Guard post that wrecks bombers under a FF? Sabotage the FF. It's also great for AI Eyes, since the hack response will up the number of ships in system, and the eye itself is a valid target.
• Haven't found much use for Sensor hacks yet.
• K(nowledge) hacking is a great place to spend spare HaP, you can always use more K.
• ARS hacks can let you change a mediocre ARS unlock into an awesome ARS unlock, but they don't give you more ships. Very situation based on the unlocks. Bring a Science II vessel to the system to see what's available; the leftmost ship in the ARS tab is what you'll get if you don't hack.

What Happens During a Hack?

Hacking, in general, will lead to the AI deploying forces in or around the system where the hack is taking place to stop it. The strength of the AI response is affected by the following:

• Each hack increases the response
• Past 100 HaP, having excess HaP reduces the response, but not below a minimum that increases with each hack
• Hacking at negative HaP causes the response to scale dramatically with how far in the red you are.

Some of the AI's options include:

• Spawning a set of Raid Starships with an Exo-Wave style goal (Hitting some key-component of your infrastructure).
• Spawning ships at the command station or randomly at the edge of the gravity well.
• Spawning on a connected AI World and attacking via a wormhole.
• Spawning Guardians.
• Firing a Tachyon Pulse to show all cloakers.
• Launching waves at the planet or adjacent planets.

The list of possibilities here is large, and will probably grow with time as more options are included. Many options aren't listed or described in detail here simply because part of the 'fun' of hacking is to be forced to react to the new environment. You always have the option of digging around to find all the options if that's your choice.

Most hacks also accumulate strength for a final pulse when the hack completes. The hacking response alert warns you how much strength to expect; be careful not to write a check you can't cash! Warheads may be called for.