Does anyone know how/when the alien movement is calculated? It seems like they move a fixed light year distance relative to the percent complete to earth. Is this correct? Does it continue to calculate distance traveled during a mission, etc.?
Not really sure if this is what you're asking...but as far as I've seen from multiple playthroughs the alien mothership jumps once for every time you jump. The aliens always jump towards earth and can only make short distance jumps (if there are only long distance jumps directly in front of it the mothership may move up or down for a jump or two before heading to the right towards earth again; if you have upgraded ships you can make longer jumps and get even further ahead of it). The alien ship starts 5-6 planets behind you so provided you generally jump in the direction of earth with out too much up and down or backwards movement, there's no danger of being caught before reaching earth.
Yes pretty much what I was asking. Thank you. I was trying to ensure that while I'm at a jump/mission I can take my sweet time and not be in a rush when planning moves/completing missions.
You can take all the time you want in missions the mothership won't catch you 🙂 (on the off chance you get the cut scene with the mothership destroying earth during a mission this simply means your ship has been destroyed as can happen when fighting a pirate ship.. but the mothership wasn't actually making progress while you were in mission)
One tip is to try and have the mothership at least 4-5 jumps behind you when you get to earth, as this makes it easier to meet it when you have to face it at the end without the danger of it getting past you.
If you want to check how far it's behind you during the game just click on it and it'll say the number of jumps it's behind you
