New strength balance in 7.5

[Capt.J.Schwarz]

Hey I was wondering if the xenon have become weaker due to the flight update, when I played before the update the xenon would batter the ZYA hard and also other sectors but now the xenon get pretty much wiped in most of their side sectors without much player help.

I also noticed that the HOP are focussing on wiping the xenon and then getting to the mist of artemis, is this due to resource hunger AI behavior? most shipyards in my gameplay seem to be almost full and the front line ships are many, however there isnt much HOP ARG PAR invasions going on. So I was just wondering if there have been balance changes? I could imagine that HOP will fight ANT in frontiers edge after a while but not sure.

Only story change I have made is to tell the TER that the YAKI are no threat.

Would be nice if you guys share some info, thoughts :)

[Cellar_Cat]

It's more economic changes than the flight update. Xenon ships have always had kind of bad stats if you compare them directly to other ships, with the exceptions of their K and I that field graviton turrets.

This has historically been offset by Xenon having a very simple economy, and the core factions having a very weak start. But the latter has been changing for the last few game versions, and now that the economy for those factions is in a stronger place, the Xenon don't keep up very well.

[daemonworks]

I wouldn't be surprised if the recent changes haven't hurt the Xenon at least a little. It's been reported that the AI has a few behaviours that make them particularly bad at station combat. I haven't seen anyone test it with Xenon craft, but if they're subject to the same issue, then they may well be suffering significant losses of their larger vessels.

That said, if you've started a new run, that's all that's needed to explain a lot. The new-game RNG can produce some wild swings in relative power from game to game just from having the economies of the various factions being in a better or worse state.

[Capt.J.Schwarz]

Thanks, that makes sense. I*m not sure what the overal consensus is but I think it would be nice to give the xenon def stations some more range so they stand a chance against being wiped from the map. it feels weird if the xenon are no longer a threat to the galaxy. Unless that*s where the devs want the universe to go towards.

[SirProsik]

Xenon defense stations are already massively buffed vs NPC stations with high hit points and insane regen of modules. Only time they are 'easy' to destroy without an asgard are unbuilt stations.

[Capt.J.Schwarz]

That might be true however when they have no K or I ships around a HOP (or pretty much any faction) destroyer can simply stay at range and bombard the station untill its gone and as the range of the turrets is to small they cant even return fire. I*ve just been seeing unchallenged wiping of xenon def station after station from a single 4 HOP destr squad.

It just feels like the xenon can*t defend their stations at all against destroyers that stay at range and that feels like a to severe weakpoint if you want the xenon to have a chance of defending those sectors.

[Cellar_Cat]

Yeah, the Xenon in terms of combat have a very hard counter in range. Largely because their only good weapon is the graviton turret. Literally all their power depends on that thing and getting close enough to use it.

[Project Danny]

One fix for xenon would simply be giving their mining ships cloaking device like the SCA and pirates use.

This will allow them to go into enemy areas undetected and do what they need to do without suiciding to the point their economy breaks.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Capt.J.Schwarz:

Hey I was wondering if the xenon have become weaker due to the flight update,

7.50 introduced defensive stations in zya and hat in front of tharka gate, roughly in the spot where player would place it.

ZYA as a result is doing much better, but HAT station is eventually overwhelmed and then it isn't being rebuilt. Obviously you'll only see those if you start a new game, they won't be built in existing saves.

In most past games, Xen usually lose all sectors except those next to tharka, but from tharka NPCs can't kick them out no matter what.

[Capt.J.Schwarz]

Thank you all for your comments! now I have a better feel for what changed and what was :)

[wArLock]

My anecdotal evidence:

• I started a fresh game post-7.0 and have continued playing it post-7.5.
  
  
• I've specifically avoided doing any missions that would have a meaningful impact on sector control (IE no "build station" missions or "blow up stations" missions etc). Unless it's tied to a Storyline mission of course.
  
  
• I generally went with the galaxy-in-chaos options for Storylines. With the notable exception that I kept YAK alive but blew up their toy instead of using it. I can never bring myself to use it; I blame too many hours in X1.
  
  
• I sell everything to everyone. I have Shipyards and Trade Stations across the galaxy. I have good relations with (almost) every faction.

With that established, the current State of the Galaxy are:

• Getsu Fune - the most militarized sector in the history of sentient life. I have TER, ANT, and BOR tripping over each other for who gets to kill whatever Xenon ship is dumb enough to enter. If I had a Sector Nuke I would be an instant bazillionaire from replacing all the fleets that would be lost. It's so clustered up that I'm starting to wonder if it might be an AI bug and they're all trying to invade Savage Spur but can't because of the 1-way gate
  
  
• Faulty Logic - HOP utterly curb stomped their Xenon problem. The entire "south" of the galaxy is Xenon free. Unfortunately.
  
  
• Hatikvah - HAT got pushed out early and ARG really struggled maintaining any kind of foothold. I broke my rules with this sector and ended up building a DoomStation at the Tharka gate because the sector is part of the main highway loop and constantly replacing trade ships was damaging my calm. But it did give me an opportunity to see just how profitable scrap stations can be.
  
  
• Matrix 9 - I honestly have no idea what is going on here. For a while I thought TEL might lose Ianamus but then they sent a combined TEL/MIN fleet in and swept all of Matrix 451. A RL week later and they still haven't touched M9 and the fleets have dispersed. I can see the TEL side since they usually don't play very militarily, but I don't get why Xenon aren't pouring out even though they have a shipyard and several other stations.
  
  
• The "North" - This is where the Xenon War is happening. They have nearly wiped out ZYA, Pushed TEL out of Open Market, and are starting to work on ARG in 11th Hour. Only PAR in LoF is having any luck resisting.

Overall I'm finding the factions are far more stable in general than they were in the early days. I don't feel pressured to complete storylines before the faction gets wiped out like I used to. As for Xenon and the flight mechanics specifically, I don't see that it has changed much. Except for seeing even more derpy behaviour when you're InSystem. I didn't think it was possible to get worse, but here we are. Aside from the lolz, it didn't seem to do much to change their overall threat. Mine are merrily conquering their way through the northern sectors and probably would be terraforming Argon Prime if I hadn't demanded they stay away from my trade lanes. Paranids seem to be a hard counter to Xenon though. I wonder if the range on Paranid turrets are giving them that edge.

I wasn't aware that HAT/ZYA got new defence stations in 7.5. One the one hand, they definitely need them. But on the other hand, these are the only real hotspots and keeping the Xenon bottled up in those areas is going to make for a boring galaxy.

[thoth.unified]

Originally posted by wArLock:

My anecdotal evidence:

• I started a fresh game post-7.0 and have continued playing it post-7.5.
  
  
• I've specifically avoided doing any missions that would have a meaningful impact on sector control (IE no "build station" missions or "blow up stations" missions etc). Unless it's tied to a Storyline mission of course.
  
  
• I generally went with the galaxy-in-chaos options for Storylines. With the notable exception that I kept YAK alive but blew up their toy instead of using it. I can never bring myself to use it; I blame too many hours in X1.
  
  
• I sell everything to everyone. I have Shipyards and Trade Stations across the galaxy. I have good relations with (almost) every faction.

With that established, the current State of the Galaxy are:

• Getsu Fune - the most militarized sector in the history of sentient life. I have TER, ANT, and BOR tripping over each other for who gets to kill whatever Xenon ship is dumb enough to enter. If I had a Sector Nuke I would be an instant bazillionaire from replacing all the fleets that would be lost. It's so clustered up that I'm starting to wonder if it might be an AI bug and they're all trying to invade Savage Spur but can't because of the 1-way gate
  
  
• Faulty Logic - HOP utterly curb stomped their Xenon problem. The entire "south" of the galaxy is Xenon free. Unfortunately.
  
  
• Hatikvah - HAT got pushed out early and ARG really struggled maintaining any kind of foothold. I broke my rules with this sector and ended up building a DoomStation at the Tharka gate because the sector is part of the main highway loop and constantly replacing trade ships was damaging my calm. But it did give me an opportunity to see just how profitable scrap stations can be.
  
  
• Matrix 9 - I honestly have no idea what is going on here. For a while I thought TEL might lose Ianamus but then they sent a combined TEL/MIN fleet in and swept all of Matrix 451. A RL week later and they still haven't touched M9 and the fleets have dispersed. I can see the TEL side since they usually don't play very militarily, but I don't get why Xenon aren't pouring out even though they have a shipyard and several other stations.
  
  
• The "North" - This is where the Xenon War is happening. They have nearly wiped out ZYA, Pushed TEL out of Open Market, and are starting to work on ARG in 11th Hour. Only PAR in LoF is having any luck resisting.

Overall I'm finding the factions are far more stable in general than they were in the early days. I don't feel pressured to complete storylines before the faction gets wiped out like I used to. As for Xenon and the flight mechanics specifically, I don't see that it has changed much. Except for seeing even more derpy behaviour when you're InSystem. I didn't think it was possible to get worse, but here we are. Aside from the lolz, it didn't seem to do much to change their overall threat. Mine are merrily conquering their way through the northern sectors and probably would be terraforming Argon Prime if I hadn't demanded they stay away from my trade lanes. Paranids seem to be a hard counter to Xenon though. I wonder if the range on Paranid turrets are giving them that edge.

I wasn't aware that HAT/ZYA got new defence stations in 7.5. One the one hand, they definitely need them. But on the other hand, these are the only real hotspots and keeping the Xenon bottled up in those areas is going to make for a boring galaxy.

I had a similar scenario going on.. the xenon had been pushed back hard, even though I barley supplied anyone with anything other then terrans and POI with some ships and their 3 materials they make everything out of.
Only Tharkas cascade to savage spur to getsu still had xenon coming through in low numbers and after I took Tharkas XV they fully stopped.. all the other secotors in the south, east were taken over by their respective factions..

I have the theory this might come from the fact that the non xenon AI now use a similar way of S/M ship combat as the xenon do.. The xenon always had this ability to boost in and out of dog fights when their shields get low, while the NPC AI didn't, and got rekt way harder by the rather weak xenon fleets bc of their superior way of fighting.

The solution is for example the xenon jobs lite or plus mod, if you're cool with mods.. and pretty sure after going through all the story stuff you planned, a bit more fun with your fleet comps via mods is totally cool.. immediately upon adding one of them the xenon get some serious firepower and go to use it right away..

I think it's time the Xenon get some arc too where they get a real serious threat, scaling with the players ot the entire faction networks strength, otherwise as soon as the player reaches a certain threshold there's no more challenges to use all the toys acquired on, besides making more money you don't need anymore lol

[Captain Canard]

Originally posted by wArLock:

Except for seeing even more derpy behaviour when you're InSystem. I didn't think it was possible to get worse, but here we are.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way..

[jackhickman999]

Originally posted by wArLock:

• Getsu Fune - the most militarized sector in the history of sentient life. I have TER, ANT, and BOR tripping over each other for who gets to kill whatever Xenon ship is dumb enough to enter. If I had a Sector Nuke I would be an instant bazillionaire from replacing all the fleets that would be lost. It's so clustered up that I'm starting to wonder if it might be an AI bug and they're all trying to invade Savage Spur but can't because of the 1-way gate

Terran and Antigone are both scripted to build in Getsu fune. For Terran it's their first objective. Antigone want to defend second contact and then get Getsu. For Boron just a nearby threat I guess.
Antigone are scripted to build in Savage spur 2. They're just objectives that get set for the AI. Terran might also be scripted to do it but I don't remember.

Originally posted by wArLock:

My anecdotal evidence:

One of the problems with the Xenon is that they have a xenon aggression number based on seed. They have a system where they also pick which station is going to be their main one. Which is the one you'd want to let grow if you wanted the xenon to be stronger.

From what I know it's picks between matrix 79b which is the HAT one. Matrix 9 which the one up in free Families. Which is why in my current game they went in and sent I's and stomped the free families. The last one is Atiyla.

The others are a lot more likely to die off. I have seen them win some of these areas even to this day. They're a lot weaker in those areas and they're turned down from what they can do.

[Captain Canard]

Originally posted by jackhickman999:

Terran and Antigone are both scripted to build in Getsu fune. For Terran it's their first objective. Antigone want to defend second contact and then get Getsu. For Boron just a nearby threat I guess.
Antigone are scripted to build in Savage spur 2. They're just objectives that get set for the AI. Terran might also be scripted to do it but I don't remember.

When you say "scripted", do you mean like a movie script, or actual programming script? If the latter, is this moddable (anyone can answer). I'd love to be able to write my own scripts to give the factions new objectives and priorities!

[jackhickman999]

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

Originally posted by jackhickman999:

Terran and Antigone are both scripted to build in Getsu fune. For Terran it's their first objective. Antigone want to defend second contact and then get Getsu. For Boron just a nearby threat I guess.
Antigone are scripted to build in Savage spur 2. They're just objectives that get set for the AI. Terran might also be scripted to do it but I don't remember.

When you say "scripted", do you mean like a movie script, or actual programming script? If the latter, is this moddable (anyone can answer). I'd love to be able to write my own scripts to give the factions new objectives and priorities!

There's a Jobs shuffle mod which lets the AI work in any sector with any job.
The AI runs off code to get it to have strategic objectives. How it all works I don't know. I've modded hearts of iron 4 and I've never bothered to look into X4. That's just how the devs explained it ages ago. What objectives it can do and can't I don't know. I have no idea how deep the system is.

You'll see problems if you like want to kill the universe with the Terrans or something. They won't build in certain sectors and that could also just be a job number limitation or whatever.