Short lived Duke

[pref]

I have built a nice shipyard for Duke, lots of smart chips, hull parts and whatever a paranid would ever need.

Then near instantly a huge HOP fleet appeared next to it when i had to get the manager for them, and before i could get my fleet in there they wasted the whole thing (and another BUC factory Duke started building at the same time). Is this part of the plot? Or should i try to reload and defend them by all means because otherwise the faction is gone? BUC maybe existed for 30 mins or less
I wanted to feed HOP a bit more with ships and wares before i start a war with them so if it's not absolutely necessary to kill them in order to have BUC around i'd not hurt them yet. Also i hate to reload to change ingame story, that feels like a cheat.. but i would liked to see what they do with all the resources i have provided them.

[Ehli]

That's not scripted (read: that did not happen to me when I did that). I guess you just got unlucky, so a load would be warranted

[pref]

Thanks!

Will be funny, because i haven't finished the plot yet - just have to talk to Girde about some huge strategic stuff. She doesn't know she is already alone
Duke didn't take this too seriously either, they had like 2 gorgons and an S ship to send against the HOP fleet (2x supply ships and their belongings).

[Raevyan]

Had kinda the same happen a few hours after I finished the plot. They attacked pious mist with what was left from the battle in Dukes Awakening. Obviously the trade station was much stronger. Then HOP came and destroyed the Haven.
Back then, the Haven was missing blueprints and was not able to build ships.

Result of the story is, the faction that is supposed to bring chaos in the paranid war is no more (just a few stations HOP isn’t interested in). They spawned a lot of Corsair ships that are flooding the universe doing nothing but flying around (no piracy no attacks against HOP/PAR).TEM also does not rebuild the Haven and the faction representative is gone (so much for their fix.. I also miss the cab rep). Also send the save to two developers that asked for the save. No response yet and I actually do not expect a fix at this point anymore.

Pretty disappointing that their so called “Diplomacy” feature and new plot (key selling points of the DLC) is pretty useless and riddled with bugs.

[pref]

They spawned a lot of Corsair ships that are flooding the universe doing nothing but flying around (no piracy no attacks against HOP/PAR).

Oh.. you mean if i manage to save them they wont do anything?
In that case i just let em rot, not even worth loosing 10 mins of gameplay.

[MHDriver]

In my play through of that story line after building that big station, delivering all those ware and fleet the BUC had taken control of Napilio's Fortune and after a few hours of not paying attention to them I noticed that the Duke and his station were completely gone from the system. The Trinity remains but no Duke and only a few random BUC ships. Very odd story arc I have to say.

[pref]

Wonder how they wasted all the ships i gave them.
They sent me against those heretics with the turtle skin, and after i boarded that ody i saw no more BUC ships apart from a few M/S ship that wasn't from me. Gave that fleet unique names so i would have noticed if i saw them.

Quite a disappointment then, all that effort for nothing.

Has anyone defended them all the way through? Are they capable of building infrastructure, proper fleet and causing havoc as promised during the mission if they don't loose their SY?

[pref]

Went on with the save, it turns out there were 8 BUC/TEM destroyers and a loaded carrier sitting some 50kms away from their shipyard, watching as the HOP fleet obliterated it without opposition.

So they got at least 16 destroyers, a carrier, some supply ships and at least 50 m ships, but still failed protecting a single station. Our three eyed friend isn't the brightest one when it comes to warfare
Anyhow, i still got 4 HEC from the battleground. Maybe i can roll an okay green mod from that.

[Rei Ayanami]

I had a similar problem: Right after I finished building the shipyard and completed the Dukes Tempest questline, PAR came in and started attacking Dukes Tempest (TEM ... BUC got renamed to TEM), almost wiping them out immediately. BUC/TEM really, REALLY needs support in the beginning, not only protection from PAR, but also building production stations for them and sending ressources.

I really wanted to keep Dukes Tempest alive to have a third party in the paranid conflict, so I equipped the shipyard I built for them with lots of defense modules, started shooting the incoming PAR ships and basically helped out TEM in any way I could until I got a mission offer to build a defense station in Dukes Awakening, right next to the southern gate.

I put about 50~70 defense modules with full plasma L turrets on the defense station. It took a looong time to build (meaning more PAR attacks I had to stop), however so many defense turrets mean it is virtually impossible for PAR or HOP to destroy the defense station, so the sector Dukes Awakening is now safe from PAR and HOP. Now TEM regularily sends out attack fleets (usually a carrier and a few smaller ships) into PAR and HOP territory, in addition to the regular corsair wings that don't do a whole lot aside from switching their displayed faction every now and then.

After I helped out TEM I went to PAR stations and shot some criminal civilian ships to gain back reputation.

Whenever a faction got in danger of getting wiped out I built similar super-strong defense stations for HOP, PAR and ANT in their core shipyard sectors, so while PAR/HOP/TEM/ANT might fight over their border sectors, I know that at least their core sectors are safe and I won't have to worry about any of them getting totally wiped out.

So they got at least 16 destroyers, a carrier, some supply ships and at least 50 m ships, but still failed protecting a single station. Our three eyed friend isn't the brightest one when it comes to warfare

Basically, what happened in my game :
After I built his super awesome expensive carrier, the Duke roared "Arrr, you have down well, matey. Now follow me and witness my strength while I wipe out the other paranids! Let the whole galaxy know with fear in their hearts that the Duke is back!". Then, he in his flagship went one sector south and immediately got destroyed by 30+ PAR ships waiting behind the gate.

[pref]

Reading all the above, this can't be a coincidence.

Decided to go back, brought in my unequipped rattlers and killed the HOP force.
Counted the wrecks, they had 20 destroyers, 3 resupply ships and more smaller ones then i care to count. Think this was intentional, maybe for people who disabled paranid forces beforehand this doesn't happen.

Just a side note, rattlers are insane. I had 8 of them fresh from my boarding venture in RHA space, without proper equipment.. they were just sitting next to my SY waiting for repairs.
Select all, chain attack orders on each HOP capship, and the whole thing was done in 5 mins. I haven't lost a single ship. A drop collector nodan almost, i accidentally selected them and they got sent against the odys. I issued the orders and ran in there with my dragon but all i could do is collect the remains (man these crates despawn way too fast!)
Wonder how split haven't managed to dominate the whole universe in half an hour.
And i'm still at 25 rep with HOP (from 29) after all this. Real forgiving fanatics.

Anyway, curious what Duke will do after this, hope not just run around aimlessly. If the guy really just wastes ship quotas i'll kill him myself.

[pref]

I wanted to post this before - not really related - but earlier in the plot when siding with Duke after destroying the monument a couple ships are sent after him. At least 2 of those ships (M, forgot which) were nicely modded.
One dropped 3 exceptional weapon mods and 2 other types (also purple).

Kill those and loot them if you get the chance, guess it couldn't be luck as those drops are so rare normally.

[Raevyan]

They spawned a lot of Corsair ships that are flooding the universe doing nothing but flying around (no piracy no attacks against HOP/PAR).

Oh.. you mean if i manage to save them they wont do anything?
In that case i just let em rot, not even worth loosing 10 mins of gameplay.

The missing blueprints were supposed To be fixed by one of the patches. Since Egosoft took several weeks I couldn’t confirm and the damage was already done.
Releasing a dlc with most of its content not working properly is pretty poor.

The problem with Dukes is also, that they send the remaining fleet to suicide on a PAR trade station right after the battle. When HOP came in not a single Corsair ship wanted to fight and protect the Haven. AI is still pretty poor.

[Rei Ayanami]

While we're talking about Duke's Tempest/Buccaneers :

Did TEM/BUC in any of your games manage, or even attempted, to spread their territory out to other sectors?

In my game they keep their territory in Duke's Awakening IV. And while they send attack groups south towards PAR territory, they never ever try to conquer other sectors by building defense stations. They neither try to conquer the south sector (currently owned by PAR), the west sector(owned by TEL) and not even the north, even though it has no owner and a single defense station would be enough to "conquer" it. I'm not sure if this is because they first want to build up their economy or if they simply don't try to conquer territory at all.

[pref]

I will try to support them, and see if i help them take down their first target in PM helps with their further expansion. They have no sector right now as both Nopileos belongs to me.
I had to kill some more HOP ships that tried to kill Duke, and now they started their station builds already in sector.
Seems like TEMP needs some serious babysitting. Maybe they expand if player takes care of them, will see. I have to take HOP core sector anyway because they got 20 black marketeers in there. That should serve a 60xall or so drug plex if my calculations are correct.

Duke's only enemies are the paranids so don't expect them to take over TEL or any other sectors.

[pref]

Duke builds a lot, hes doing SY support - few hours after he got his manager:




Also that shipyard has all the blueprints. Friendly with most races so i expect a nice consumption. Will be nice for trade rank to supply that.

[Raevyan]

Well if only they would actually rebuild their Haven...

[pref]

That's not scripted (read: that did not happen to me when I did that). I guess you just got unlucky, so a load would be warranted

What state was HOP in when you did the plot? Have you hurt them, or were they strong at the time?

Actually this turned out to be a nice challenge in my game - as soon as TEMP shipyard became operational, HOP started to expand into my sector which they never did before (we're still friends, and they have a very healthy economy).
They also took over the whole Grand Exchange Cluster so TEL has an opponent finally. Also that means i lost half my drug dealers in grand exchange and my smaller drug plex hasn't enough demand.
Duke is up to 11 support stations now, i really like where this is going. Actually i got involved in the factions' war game finally which never really happened before in my X history. X3 was static, and so far in X4 factions acted like some handicapped potatoes at least in my direction. They did some random stuff, but this finally feels like strategic situation even with slight time pressure.

Real nice stuff, hope ES has some more such surprises in the next DLC.

Well if only they would actually rebuild their Haven...

Think this is a one-time chance and obstacle coming with the plot, and if you don't stand up to HOP to defend Duke then you never get to have a proper TEM faction. Have a feeling that i also need to make Duke victorious in the battle ahead. Maybe they expand if i keep their forces alive.

[Raevyan]

Well The plot, aka dal Busta, said that TEM is supposed to bring more chaos into the paranid civil war. When I finished the plot HOP was done with their xenon sectors and haven’t started invading PAR sectors. They came straight into Dukes Awakening to kill the TEM shipyard and then left. The other thing being, that there were tons of Corsair ships around that didn’t care about defending. HOP never went back into that sector and did not touch any other stations.
Besides that, the faction rep is gone. He also did not respawn.

[Ehli]

What state was HOP in when you did the plot? Have you hurt them, or were they strong at the time?

Actually this turned out to be a nice challenge in my game - as soon as TEMP shipyard became operational, HOP started to expand into my sector which they never did before (we're still friends, and they have a very healthy economy).
They also took over the whole Grand Exchange Cluster so TEL has an opponent finally. Also that means i lost half my drug dealers in grand exchange and my smaller drug plex hasn't enough demand.
Duke is up to 11 support stations now, i really like where this is going. Actually i got involved in the factions' war game finally which never really happened before in my X history. X3 was static, and so far in X4 factions acted like some handicapped potatoes at least in my direction. They did some random stuff, but this finally feels like strategic situation even with slight time pressure.

Real nice stuff, hope ES has some more such surprises in the next DLC.

That game I was a trader, so I was 25+ with everyone. HOP did the usual: they got Faulty and Atiya and were messing with ANT in Frontier and with ANT/ARG in Second Contact. They were not overwhelming them though, possibly because I mostly fed HOP and ANT due to my SY location (this was 3.0 and 3.1 so I could not prevent them buying ships from me). PAR were unchanged in terms of sector ownership, but Hewa's Twin was Xenon and thus they were busy with that in Trinity Sanctum 3.

Game was about 200 hrs old I'd say. I did that one for COB and Duke side achievements. Now I started a new for the other side of those two. ZYA done (WITH the police achievement, my first "0% did this" one lol). Now building a fleet for the non-Duke side. I do however notice much bigger HOP fleets even though they did not advance much more than last game. Maybe because this game is 3.3? Again 200 hours in and this time NOT trading with anyone but ANT/HAT/ARG and a little ZYA to prevent them from being overrun.

So I still think it's just bad luck for you Probably explainable because in my game they were busy with Frontier and Second Contact. In yours it sounds like they had much more territory and thus were allowed a higher destroyer cap (something I recently found the formulas for in this forum).

[pref]

So I still think it's just bad luck for you

I'd call that good luck, game really needs some higher level challenge - and nurturing the most lethal enemy of a big faction should provide one.
What made me wonder was that several users reported this instantly, and also because HOP started building in my sector at the same time Duke's shipyard became operational, which they haven't done before ever. Nor had i any kind of HOP incursion in my own space previously.

But maybe i'm just trying to defend ES's less then perfect defence AI
Could be just plain luck, Xenon somehow vanished from my game entirely, never thought that would be possible without player intervention, but they are gone now and i don't see any attempts on a comeback. So all factions have some surplus power for sure.
Duke has all the supplies he could ever need too, that might also be required for them to expand. I'd happily give them the HOP empire, their laws probably fit my trade interests well.
Did they build any sizeable fleet in your game? And did they have the resources to do so?