Meet the Grox or get to the center of the galaxy without antagonizing anybody

spore

The Grox are remarkably unpleasant, and will hound you on your way to the galactic core and back, and then possibly go into a nearly-infinite war with you, being extremely hard to eradicate at 2400 planets. I would like to meet them. I also would like to not have to drop whatever I'm doing to defend a colony against a Grox attack every 5 minutes afterward.

Can I balance my relationship with the Grox so that they will never attack me, but without allying with them and making the rest of the galaxy attack me or having to travel all the way back to the center of the galaxy again and again to shine my happy ray on them? Failing that, can I reach the galactic core without them becoming aware of my existence, eliminating the problem in an unsatisfying way?

Best Answer

Short answer: No, it won't be possible without having a fight with the Grox or with every single other race. They will also be aware of your existence, but there is a little workaround.

It is actually possible to get there without a fight, but it's considered 'cheating' by a large playerbase. This is how it works:

The p button pauses the game and allows you to plot a course without having to rush or panic. You can actually hit pause when you are almost at the target planet, and then select an other planet. When you get to the Grox, continue along, but, continually press the p key to pause the game so that you never actually land on a star system before moving to the next. This might result in the Grox never hitting you.

If you don't want to do it like this, then it's strongly recommended that you not start out at war with anyone when you begin your quest to locate the Galactic Core. If you are not at war with anyone, whenever you get attacked, it will only be by generic pirates. Pirates cannot capture your system or destroy your colonies, but will only steal a stockpile of resources.

After that, rush through space on your way to the center. If you get low, stop at a planet, and drop Mega Bomb's. Finally, once the system is yours, plant a colony, which (after it unpacks) forces the Grox out of the system, and allows you to repair.

Do so a few times and you'll have a guideline from the center back out again. Do note that once you get to the center, every single planet there will be under heavy attack. A tip someone gave, was:

Once I'd reached the center and was working my way back out, I stopped at each colony I created; repaired and refuelled then destroyed it.

Then you won't have those annoying messages anymore of the Grox attacking those planets.

EDIT: Something else I've found:

There is a trick here, but it might be harder than the regular approach. There is a single wormhole in one of the galactic arms near the Sol system that leads very near the center of the galaxy. It's probably easier to approach the Core and then take this wormhole OUT when trying to find Sol (instead of finding Sol and using the wormhole to reach the center by taking the wormhole IN), but either way works.

And a little extra:

When you finally reach the Galactic Core, zoom in as far as you can (like you're landing on a planet) to open an end-game cutscene.