Business as usual. But with hacking.
Hacking, as introduced and thorougly explained in this official Amplitude tutorial video, is your means of expansion as UC, and otherwise a usable feature if not UC.

You can:

• hack whatever game allows you to, enemy systems, pirate lairs, minor factions
  
• have 1+ hacks at the same moment dicacted by technologies.
  
• originate hack from your systems and your backdoors.
  
• UC can also hack empty systems and nodes for sanctuaries/beacons

UC:
Hacking an empty system results in a sanctuary, else you would not be able to hack it, you can also discover an enemy sanctuary and opt to destroy it.
Hacking nodes enables you to create beacons (in video linked above).

Hacking a home system enables you to do some good stuff:

• UC can create a sanctuary (with +2 sleepers on system) - your primary way of growing without pew pew as UC
  
• put a sleeper on the system
  
• cause anarchy - woohoo and select next gov
  
• recruit revolutionaires to spawn a pirate fleet from pop on the system + blocks communications, blocking communication results in enemy using a "stampede -50% deploymenet" as defensive strategy, this is nice, but sux if you are already sieging - if you want to jam comms, hack not home
  
• steal technologies - really any the opponent has, pick the most expensive, or one you want + creates a BACKDOOR
  
• lockdown flight for 3 turns - mkay, can wreck
  
• abduct sleepers - abducts about 1-2, meh UC

Kinda like home, but results are weaker, most of them not worth using

• sanctuary UC - same rules apply as for home systems
  
• backdoor
  
• destroy uc sanctuary - if any
  
• +1 sleeper
  
• influence politics - kinda meh
  
• injure hero - meh
  
• jam commands - stampede as home, but no pirates, applies to all systems, sometimes stampede can actually slow down your invasion as your enemy mostly use less MP than available, but prevents drafting
  
• abduct sleepeR - just one, unlike home

YAAAR, meh, unless you need a backdoor or have nothing better, don't hack pirates.

• backdoor
  
• sabotage next fleet and delay
  
• improve relationship (pirate relationship is like superfluid vs AI)
  
• reduce action costs
  
• steal resources - can roll some lux/strats + dust

Is what you will do in most of your opening games, unless you are UC, then you'll have better stuff to hack

• backdoor
  
• relationship++
  
• befriended faction relationship--
  
• action cost -- (does not apply to assimilation, so meh)
  
• more gains - actually strong in the early, when that minor produces more than your empire ^_^

Range from "SPAM THIS!" to "Meh".
I'll highlight the ones you should use the most, others are mostly situational, but are under no means useless, but are also selfexplanatory.
Using ANY defensive program on a node removes backdoors on it.

So No. 1 favourite is "Encrypt". Encrypt makes you slow enemy hacking on the node by 50%,
It serves as defensive measure against enemy hacking, and can be turned off anytime if you run out of bandwith, so basically "SPAM THIS!" especially on border nodes. As UC endgame, it's pretty basic to have ALL your systems encrypted just to spite people and use up that BW that generates influence for you. OR leave it open for MP.

No. 2 is "Accellerator"
Is good when hacking enemy and through enemy nodes. Spam this too, if you can.

Honorable mention goes to "Divert" which enables you to redirect your ongoing hack somewhere else along the way, this can sometimes be beneficial.

Other programs mostly interact with bandwith cost of programs, which can serve to fully nerf enemy ability to place any if they are not UC. If they are UC then they are mostly useless as UC has tons of bandwith from pop mid to end game and can completely ignore this.
And there are couple defensives which do specific stuff you'll want to use per situation basis.Tracing something? Place "backdoor prevention" etc...

Dictates how many programs can you spam
Unless UC, your bandwith is kinda low and increases with available programs through research
As UC you also get more per pop and flat +10 from hero.

In order to hack while you hack, while you hack, while you hack.........
you should research more hacking op slots!
Also you start with one extra slot as UC and get one in one ending of UC questline, meaning as UC you can have up to 5! woohoo!

If hacking through owned system (not by (only) you) you get traced, trace is faster than hacking, but can be slowed down through pinging the hack behind multiple nodes - using a PROXY.

Trace starts once the owned node is reached by the hack, so you can for instance hack for 20 turns, then reach the node that starts the trace and then finish your hack in 5 more turns, while the trace has to follow your original path to the source, which buys you time to finish it.

Use accelerator on enemy systems to make it go faster. (if you are hacking for enemy system, like backdoor or sanctuary, you can use accelerator on starting node too, to make it extra faster! WHOA!)

That's about all you can do about it AFAIK.


On sucessfully tracing someone, one can select:

• blackout! - originating system of the hack is uninteractible for 3
  
• nothing! - nothing!
  
• blackmail - following this you can force enemy to stop hacking in your direction for 5

this can also happen to you when you hack.

Here have an example of a semi-confident proxy hack - more proxies more safety in your hacking success vs time spent
You should almost always use a proxy to hack, if you can, only exception being when hack takes one turn, then it's like done right there and whatever... you can still get drawbacks but it always suceeds.
ALSO DONT USE ENCRYPTION TO SLOW TRACE, IT DOES NOT WORK wording is amiss and it makes me sad.
However, they added the slower trace to interrogate i believe, browse and check and use that.

neutrals like pirates can hack you which results in some drawbacks like forced max content, +50% law cost, something something...
Otherwise opponents inflict the same things upon you as you can, with the increasing amounts of sleepers, you will have an action available on your system management interface to use, which deletes a sleeper once every 3 turns for -15 approval, so yeeey religious govs!

Well you can injure heroes via hacking, that we already know, there is also the UC hero tree that gets exclusive bonuses to hacking being +10 bw and +10% speed/system - bw cost/senate

if you can, spam hacking and programs.
It does not hurt and can help.
Early game hacking minors can enable faster assimilation, hacking opponents can provide vital intel through sleepers, hacking homes can steal techs etc... it's nice to have, does not hurt, use it.

ofc if you are UC hacking is your game and you should always spam it, unless you know you'll have better targets available next turn by for instance researching a colonization on that system nexdoor.