Xenon Conquering the galaxy

[Xautos]

What are your experiences with the Xenon during the progression of gameplay?
Your stories can be unmodded and modded, but please let it be known if you are running vanilla or with mods to avoid confusion.

I run unmodified.

The other day i saw Hatikvah's Choice invaded and almost occupied by the Xenon until i came along with a Asgard to wipe them out, they had already extended themselves into other nearby sectors. After wiping out the majority of their forces and most of their stations, the Argon and Hatikvan's destroyed what else they could quickly.

I didn't realise how strongly they push.

Even before this on the same save a week earlier, they were trying to take the void but at this point i had a fleet of destroyers and a carrier, the station was wiped out before it was completed, you should have seen the initial wave of xenon ships pouring through. I let the Argon and Antigonians take care of the fleet and come in from behind to take the station.

[Wraith]

For me with my plenty of restart I did the Xenon are generally aggressive in certain fronts like hatikvah and the xenon from emperor pride pushing toward the split

Though Xenon are not always the one that aggressive I had seen Argon and Antigone both invade from frontiers edge to core Xenon territory

It was pretty awesome seeing them flood into the system

[Oddible]

I put two M miners mining silicon in Argon Prime, 2 in Grand Exchange, and 2 in Trinity Sanctum as early as I can. This is usually enough to jump start faction economies and have them build enough new stations and ships to keep the Xenon at bay. Sometimes when a I find through I need to help.

I also add 2 to Zhin and 2 to Heart of Acrimony. Ideally those should be very early if you don't want the Split to suffer.

Make your job easier with the Xenon, add a trickle to the faction economies and they will mostly take care of themselves.

[Ebyl]

My current game (unmodded) is about 3 days in and only the Split are suffering (because I didn't get up to them right away). I assisted the Argon, Antigone, Godrealm, Terrans, and Teladi with miners from fairly early on. This is a game where I'm setting up the base of my economy with miners, so I have a lot of them spread through those factions. I'm intentionally not doing a lot with large fleets or gate-guarding, but rather just putting out fires here and there with minimal forces.

Hatikvah's Choice I sees frequent Xenon fleets, but they usually hang around that "eastern" grouping of gates harassing trade traffic until I bother to go there and handle them. If I leave it long enough the Terrans usually show up (the Argon sometimes lose some ships sending in a couple destroyers as sacrifices - I assume they load them with malcontents, lock out the controls, and set them on course for the Xenon fleet).

I'm not supporting the Holy Order right now and they seem to be in a zero sum game with everyone else.

I'm supporting the ZYA a little (started only recently), but am moving to intervene a little more directly (again, kind of a minimalist effort). They've lost control of Family Kritt and Family Zhin, but still have a decent number of stations there (they're well-armed and the Xenon are having issues with them for now when they decide to have a go).

As a small note, when I finally got around to vising the ZYA, they had no military at all. Out of curiosity, I tried feeding the their shipyard ridiculous amounts of materials and that did get them building some military ships (which they mostly used badly - "Oh, is that a K I see? This poorly designed Rattlesnake with no support ships can easily take it. YOLO!!" I looked, and the brave captain was not named Leeroy Jenkins, much to my surprise).

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Ebyl:

I'm supporting the ZYA a little (started only recently), but am moving to intervene a little more directly (again, kind of a minimalist effort). They've lost control of Family Kritt and Family Zhin, but still have a decent number of stations there (they're well-armed and the Xenon are having issues with them for now when they decide to have a go).

As a small note, when I finally got around to vising the ZYA, they had no military at all. Out of curiosity, I tried feeding the their shipyard ridiculous amounts of materials and that did get them building some military ships (which they mostly used badly - "Oh, is that a K I see? This poorly designed Rattlesnake with no support ships can easily take it. YOLO!!" I looked, and the brave captain was not named Leeroy Jenkins, much to my surprise).

i asked some questions the other day regarding the Split and the users mentioned that they have no functional military or economy because their miners are getting slagged in the early going by the xenon, stalling their economy. It still seems a bit badly designed, but i took on the comments and plan to give the split a chance the next save i start.

Effectively what was said is that you need to supply the resources and keep supplying the resources to the Split so they can function. it seems they are reliant on you to help them from the off.

[Ebyl]

Originally posted by Xautos:

Originally posted by Ebyl:

I'm supporting the ZYA a little (started only recently), but am moving to intervene a little more directly (again, kind of a minimalist effort). They've lost control of Family Kritt and Family Zhin, but still have a decent number of stations there (they're well-armed and the Xenon are having issues with them for now when they decide to have a go).

As a small note, when I finally got around to vising the ZYA, they had no military at all. Out of curiosity, I tried feeding the their shipyard ridiculous amounts of materials and that did get them building some military ships (which they mostly used badly - "Oh, is that a K I see? This poorly designed Rattlesnake with no support ships can easily take it. YOLO!!" I looked, and the brave captain was not named Leeroy Jenkins, much to my surprise).

i asked some questions the other day regarding the Split and the users mentioned that they have no functional military or economy because their miners are getting slagged in the early going by the xenon, stalling their economy. It still seems a bit badly designed, but i took on the comments and plan to give the split a chance the next save i start.

Effectively what was said is that you need to supply the resources and keep supplying the resources to the Split so they can function. it seems they are reliant on you to help them from the off.

Yeah, that's been my observation as well. I figured the ZYA would suffer by leaving them alone for a while, and that's definitely what happened. Family Zhin is very dangerous right now (and has been for a while, I think), which I'm sure really hurts them. One of my minimalist goals is to reestablish control in Zhin and then try to better feed the ZYA economy with raw resources to see how they recover.

[felmari]

hatikvah is a special case it is a huge chokepoint in that area. it is also owned by a independent with no real means of defense outside stations. response from other factions is slow at best. north of there is one of the bigger and active xenon sectors which hits zya in that area first. they normally get stuck with just zyarth's core. frf usually do ok.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Xautos:

i asked some questions the other day regarding the Split and the users mentioned that they have no functional military or economy because their miners are getting slagged in the early going by the xenon, stalling their economy. It still seems a bit badly designed, but i took on the comments and plan to give the split a chance the next save i start.

Effectively what was said is that you need to supply the resources and keep supplying the resources to the Split so they can function. it seems they are reliant on you to help them from the off.

Not exactly. I mean, it is the same for every faction really. If you neglect the factions they will all eventually be in trouble. Argon in Argon Prime and Hatikvah. Teladi in Ianamus Zura. Holy Order are usually ok because they start with a big military but they can get hit pretty hard too.

Split have 2 issues: 1) they're sandwiched between Xenon so they get it from both sides. 2) one of their two main factions cannot build capital ships as a result of their armistice - that's the Free Families who own the right side of the map. So the Zyarth faction have to defend both. That said, the Free Families can defend themselves very well with M fighters but they take resources and their sectors are quite spread out. For some reason there is always an Advanced Electronics station in the most distant sector from the Wharf. So if the Xenon do encroach on them they can get cut in half which can make recovery very difficult.

The cool thing about this is then there is more opportunity for the player to be the hero! Don't think of Xenon aggression as a "lost game" think of it as an opportunity for a) profits, and b) heroics!

The big thing that keeps getting said but folks keep missing is that the Xenon have limits (all factions do). They can only build up to that limit in fleet size. It isn't small but it is limited. What this means is that the more spread out the Xenon become, the more tricky it is for them to defend territory. The map can get pretty red but the factions can often recover on their own. Access to raw materials becomes the biggest issue. As long as they have raws coming in, the factions will build more and more dense stations until they're SUPER EFFICIENT because of shorter travel times and they will push back the Xenon.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by Oddible:

Originally posted by Xautos:

i asked some questions the other day regarding the Split and the users mentioned that they have no functional military or economy because their miners are getting slagged in the early going by the xenon, stalling their economy. It still seems a bit badly designed, but i took on the comments and plan to give the split a chance the next save i start.

Effectively what was said is that you need to supply the resources and keep supplying the resources to the Split so they can function. it seems they are reliant on you to help them from the off.

Not exactly. I mean, it is the same for every faction really. If you neglect the factions they will all eventually be in trouble. Argon in Argon Prime and Hatikvah. Teladi in Ianamus Zura. Holy Order are usually ok because they start with a big military but they can get hit pretty hard too.

Split have 2 issues: 1) they're sandwiched between Xenon so they get it from both sides. 2) one of their two main factions cannot build capital ships as a result of their armistice - that's the Free Families who own the right side of the map. So the Zyarth faction have to defend both. That said, the Free Families can defend themselves very well with M fighters but they take resources and their sectors are quite spread out. For some reason there is always an Advanced Electronics station in the most distant sector from the Wharf. So if the Xenon do encroach on them they can get cut in half which can make recovery very difficult.

The cool thing about this is then there is more opportunity for the player to be the hero! Don't think of Xenon aggression as a "lost game" think of it as an opportunity for a) profits, and b) heroics!

The big thing that keeps getting said but folks keep missing is that the Xenon have limits (all factions do). They can only build up to that limit in fleet size. It isn't small but it is limited. What this means is that the more spread out the Xenon become, the more tricky it is for them to defend territory. The map can get pretty red but the factions can often recover on their own. Access to raw materials becomes the biggest issue. As long as they have raws coming in, the factions will build more and more dense stations until they're SUPER EFFICIENT because of shorter travel times and they will push back the Xenon.

How bad has it been in your experience on your saves with the Xenon? I'm genuinely interested in knowing how far the xenon have gotten, you seem to have a lot of insight on this and that can only come from the experience of seeing it and getting into it with the Xenon from time to time.

it could help as much as an example for your point as it is a good story.

[fade7777]

i purposefully help and let the xenon take the entire northwest area and setup gate camps at the bordering gates to farm modification components.

[felmari]

^so many. at least having a gate that they can spill out of to your defenses not necessarily helping xenon for it diminishes them. having a fast scout repeat collecting and docking so they do not sit in one place too long is effective and what they collect is in firing range so the xenon prioritize the threat.

[Oddible]

Yeah, personally the game gets quickly boring if I don't let the xenon overrun some sectors. I need it to get a little harrowing! The VIG enmity in the ToA plot was about the most exciting thing to happen in the game since the Curbs!

[hurepoix]

In theory xenons should strike everywhere, and conquere some sectors, without beeing able to be a real threat due to lack of ships. It was about true in V2.x and in some extend in the v3.x.

However, in practice since the V4.x Xenons are able to strike only weak points, that makes them very predictable. These weak points are Argons and the splits, especially the patriachat. It is mostly due to weak economy, crappy weapons and too expensive ships for splits. Argons share with splits inefficient station defense due to a preference for large beam turrets.

As a result most games you can do since the V4.0 will see xenons strike the patriachat, Hatikvah, argon prime and the voids. Some skirmish can occurs in the northern part of the teladis, but nothing serious. At worst shipyards or maintenance stations can be destroyed at apha center/bright promise, but it stay minor skirmish.

--Nota-- for memory up to the V3.3 Teladi should had been threatened and business stations at hewa 1 and zura 4 destroyed by xenons from green scale plate and 451. That mades trinity and apha center should be directly threatened, as well hatikvah or the splits sectors. With the v4.00, threat on the east disapeared. Point also before the V4.00 HOP was able to conquere Second contact, and passivly suppress the other Second contact sectors economy. That made, at this time, it was true situation was far less predictable.

Points also xenons strengh have not be increased from v3 to v4 and v5 despite numerous sectors had been added and a major faction, the terran, had dedictated fleets to destroy xenons.

Imo if you change large beam turrets for large plasma ones for antigone/argon and hatikvah stations, xenons will be a threat only for splits. Splits problem are numerous and structurals, unlike argons ones.

Modded games ; I tested with various combo. For exemple if you change xenons ships and xenons weapons for more efficient ones, but dont change jobs, xenons will push hard in the first 48 hours then quickly slow down. Xenons as real threat require enhanced weapons, and more ships. Enhanced ships is optional, but can be a benefit if you dont want to add too much ships and have a laggy game.

In unmodded game xenons are minors trouble. Anyway in a usual game a player is unstoppable after about 5 days. X4 is not a 4X, however if it is the player goal, a global conquest can occurs in 7 to 10 days, xenons included. It is about 24 to 48 hours more than in V2. Repaint the map in green is easy but tedious. It is just to say xenons are not and never had been a threat, whatever the played version.

Players always win, it is just a question of time.

[eMYNOCK]

If you want my 2 cents.

My Xenon always end up extinct... despite my best efforts to just contain them in safe and resource rich Systems.
(For Xenon component Farming)

I also have a Playstyle were i only start with the Base Game and gradually add the DLCs...

[🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑]

There was Argon patrol Behemoth destroying Xenon shipyard from far and no xenon forces around. I needed that ship production at xenon AI hands and decided to board Behemoth to neutralise threat and prevent rep loss with ARG.

Also I accepted ARG vs Xenon missions chain. While boarding ship was moving to Argon destroyer I completed few missions from a chain and got one which asked me to board "Rogue scientists" ship. And the ship was that Behemoth I was going to board.

Its nice that AI acknowledge their mistakes and let me fix it.

[fade7777]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

If you want my 2 cents.

My Xenon always end up extinct... despite my best efforts to just contain them in safe and resource rich Systems.
(For Xenon component Farming)

I also have a Playstyle were i only start with the Base Game and gradually add the DLCs...

There is some unique things you can acquire in the game if you play it this way ... not only gradually adding the dlc's but starting the game itself in previous game versions. such as but not limited to ... unique plot ships that are no longer boardable in current game version(Okinawa Research) .. also unique npc models that are no longer available in current versions (Old Split Female npc model+ Unique marine npc models) but will persist in your save game if u start on a lower game version then upgrade later on when you gradually add dlc's throughout your playthrough.

i had an old save game where i had progressed through and got alot of those things .. i ended up starting over in TOA with stranded start because i love the armor+looks of the pirate player model in that start .. hes got some cyberpunk/fallout style armor with a pipboy looking thing =)