[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[Hairless-Ape]

Well I'm finally going back to trying out Mayhem, and I'm already feeling lost on the first few hours.
One particularly frustrating tidbit is that manual trade seems MUCH harder now, because the AI actually has sufficient ships to do the work. When I finally do find a factory with a full inventory, some NPC trader swooped in and bought everything before my traders even got there.
I'm torn between doing combat missions to make some cash, or hopping into the fastest ships I have and explore the galaxy for spots to settle.

So I'm completely lost. What is a good path for the first hours?

I'm only marginally past that point, but have absolutely experienced the headaches of the first few hours. Still reeling and wish there were just some quick reference to help with some of the basics. It forces you to either have to read a thousand posts, or give up, or flail around failing over and over until you stumble on the right answer.... all of which ruins the experience. I agree the struggle has it's rewards for this game, but this is more of a sadistic trick than a struggle.

Anyway, The Trade Run command is horrible. Don't use it. Also the best trade search feature can often send you 4 or 5 jumps away and by the time you get there, the deal is gone every time. I found best thing to do is just manually look at each station's inventory in a system where your trader is at, and if one is full, go there and buy it, because you know it's the best price. (be sure it's one of the basic resources you can actually sell to a factory, such as Telad or Chemicals etc.) If none are near full, move your trader over to another system. Point is, try to minimize your jumps because there are simply way too many NPC traders out there, and the only way to really reduce your jumps is to capitalize on what's selling low in your immediate area. Yes, selling can be difficult too, so again, I recommend looking at the type of station you would sell that resource at, and manually looking at the nearby systems. You're not looking necessarily for the best selling price, but just a decent one and more importantly one that's close.

Once you get an outpost, you can assign traders automatically, but so far my traders all slowly lose money. I have a sweet corner, surrounded by NPC's and lots of business to be had, but somehow my traders always seem to sell for less than they buy. Some people say they have great luck with outpost traders, but I consistently see them being horrible. I'm still not sure how to make "good" money. Missions are a grind and dull. You can't send your claimed ships to a shipyard to sell anymore, so that's been nerfed also. You can sell excess materials from your factories but automating that seems complex and I've not figured out how yet. Personally, I loved Mayhem 2 far better with the exception of a few nice features in 3. Maybe it will change after I bludgeon myself a few hundred more times.

[Betelgeuse97]

Well I'm finally going back to trying out Mayhem, and I'm already feeling lost on the first few hours.
One particularly frustrating tidbit is that manual trade seems MUCH harder now, because the AI actually has sufficient ships to do the work. When I finally do find a factory with a full inventory, some NPC trader swooped in and bought everything before my traders even got there.
I'm torn between doing combat missions to make some cash, or hopping into the fastest ships I have and explore the galaxy for spots to settle.

So I'm completely lost. What is a good path for the first hours?

Once you get an outpost, you can assign traders automatically, but so far my traders all slowly lose money. I have a sweet corner, surrounded by NPC's and lots of business to be had, but somehow my traders always seem to sell for less than they buy. Some people say they have great luck with outpost traders, but I consistently see them being horrible. I'm still not sure how to make "good" money. Missions are a grind and dull. You can't send your claimed ships to a shipyard to sell anymore, so that's been nerfed also. You can sell excess materials from your factories but automating that seems complex and I've not figured out how yet. Personally, I loved Mayhem 2 far better with the exception of a few nice features in 3. Maybe it will change after I bludgeon myself a few hundred more times.

When you're self-sufficient, money will be used only for maintenance. Did you try the tax perk?

You can also scrap claimed ships and their equipment at any outpost to get materials. Sell the materials if you need money. Only traders can sell stuff from factories using export values set at the factory. According to the encyclopedia, when a trader sells something, it locks that item at the destination. For example, a factory needs 3000 waste and your trader wants to sell 3000 waste to that factory. The trader will lock that resource so that other traders will not sell the same item to the same factory.

Traders are best put on the outpost so that they're not limited to selling only from one factory. Use agents to gather items from your factories beforehand. You can either set the budget to 0 (so that trader buys or sells only what you want imported to or exported from the outpost) or keep the budget as is so that it does some other trades unrelated to your outpost.

[azxcvbnm321]

My experience with Mayhem 3.0 is that the beginning is very hard. Trading is nearly useless, there just aren't enough decent opportunities at start, there will be, but not at start. You cannot afford to waste money because you have no source of income but there are ongoing maintenance costs so slowly your treasury will be drained. You have plenty of time, but I bought a good number of advanced sats to place around and got to the point where I didn't even have enough to pay the maintenance. At that point I started selling what I could, ship equipment, whatever. I was able to finish ascension and build an outpost surrounded by 2 xenon sectors and 2 pirate bases within 2 sectors (didn't know about 1 of the pirate bases). Didn't have much of a choice, I needed to get that outpost down and start producing income. And I did. I used the no food perk, I didn't have any money to purchase food anyway, but the food I produced I sold to neighboring outposts. I then built a protein paste factory and food prep factory because I noticed AI ore and silicon mines were always low on C-rations. I sold everything from those factories and the game got a lot easier as I consolidated all my ships and had enough money to start buying resources which I used to produce factories to make more resources that I could actually use myself.

So I think the best way to start is to explore and do your ascension, you don't have to rush, just be wary of picking up too many ships and the maintenance costs. Then you build your first factories to make products that will sell. I think energy cells are also in high demand along with C-rations. Once you get money, you'll have to deal with pirates taking out your traders (always have them escorted). Build your first M3's, don't expand too fast into other sectors. If pirates start getting lots of M6's without you being able to produce M6's yourself, that could be the end. It almost happened to me, but luckily I was able to produce my own M6's just as Xenon raids with 2 M6's and a bunch of M3's started attacking my outposts.

In all, I think 3.0 is much more fun in the beginning than LU or vanilla where it's not much of a challenge. With 3.0, you feel under pressure and have to fight for survival as you build up your empire.

[Sirrobert]

According to the encyclopedia, when a trader sells something, it locks that item at the destination. For example, a factory needs 3000 waste and your trader wants to sell 3000 waste to that factory. The trader will lock that resource so that other traders will not sell the same item to the same factory.

Traders are best put on the outpost so that they're not limited to selling only from one factory. Use agents to gather items from your factories beforehand. You can either set the budget to 0 (so that trader buys or sells only what you want imported to or exported from the outpost) or keep the budget as is so that it does some other trades unrelated to your outpost.

I'm pretty sure that means YOUR other traders. NPC traders still compete as normal.

[Hector0x]

For Mayhem 3 you have to rethink how money works and what your goals are. You are not in the buildup phase yet. You are in the exploration phase.
Owning too many expensive ships will ruin you. Trying to setup a satellite network will ruin you. Both require money you just don't have and can't earn right now.

The only thing you can do (and the only thing you need) is to just earn enough money to get by. You can do this with a few fighters and traders. Your maintenance will be what? 500Cr every 10 minutes? I bet some of you already own multiple M6 again. Come on man! What do you expect? Complete your Ascension quest and search for a sector to setup your first base! If you try to build a huge fleet from bailed ships or earn a fortune with trading way too early you will be frustrated. Stick to a few small ships and money issues are gone. Mayhem 3 is not like LU. Building fleets is easier. You don't need to spend the entire game to scrape for additional ships so you can reduce grind time. You can build a decent number of ships quickly once you actually need them.

With a sector you will get:
- a free Resource for your factories
- free Food you can sell
- free Energy (Perk)
- free Taxes (Perk).
- the ability to build factories which generate value over time if you sell some products
- the ability to setup automated looting, ship claiming, mining, trading

Once you start to sell all this free stuff and get some factories to refine it into something valuable you will earn your millions. Money is a bitch in Mayhem 3. You need to pay your maintenance, so cashflow is critical. But having millions in the bank is fairly useless. Because global resource output is limited and factions hoard the good stuff. You simply won't find much to buy with all your money. Crafting resources should be your desire. If you had the choice between getting a million credits and getting a million worth of Quantum Tubes you always choose the Tubes. Because the Tubes can be transformed into money or ships. Money is just money. That's the mindset you need for Mayhem 3.

To cover your maintenance:
The best money strategy is to occasionally check the worth of your outpost freight levels with the logistical overview (player console) and adjust your export thresholds to sell any excess you don't need. For example if you have Rastar Oil and Teladianium worth 200k, but also Ore worth 600k. You should setup your outpost to sell all three components once each stockpile reaches a worth in credits above 200k. This keeps your resource levels balanced for station production and your traders will slowly turn additional parts into cash. In this example especially the Ore.

If you want to force additional profits, build factories which compliment the NPC economy. This can vary from game to game. In my current game i'm building additional Computer Plants because the NPC's have somehow built a lot of microchip factories nearby which are always filled to the brim and sell cheap. An Outpost uses its traders to feed the Computer Parts to the Paranids, who are my allies and computers are the bottleneck in their shipbuilding. This arragement yields me millions and helps them to rebuild their fleets quicker.

Traders are best put on the outpost so that they're not limited to selling only from one factory.

You can't put traders on a factory. Each outpost can support 5 traders. This is all you will ever get. Want more traders? Need more sectors.

I'm pretty sure that means YOUR other traders. NPC traders still compete as normal.

No, your traders too. Also Agents. All automated ships (Workers) put a trade lock on these factories. NPC's or player owned. You can beat NPC traders manually by buying while a factory is below 40% product level and sell to a factory which has no resources. The profit will be lower but it will be a profit. And no trader can beat you on buying if you buy below 40%.

People keep talking about the special equipment, like the one that reduces maintenance costs, but how do I get those? I also have colored crystals at my base, but have no way of using them, does all of that come later in the story? I'm currently at the point where I have to kill all Xenon stations.

Check your Hangar in the outpost manager. There should be an upgrade button and the equipment should already be available (only boarding stuff is locked until after the xenon are gone)
In my opinion the maintenance bay is only good for capships. For smaller ships recycling and rebuilding is better.

[Dragofer]

Many thanks Joubarbe once again for taking X3 to a new level. I had great fun playing Mayhem 2.9.13, and just passed a few in-game days in Mayhem 3.0, after which I'm (still) at the stage where I'm using large fighter clouds with a few corvettes strewn in. Certainly didn't help my progression that I'm in a permanent war with the Paranids, who are the dominant force in this galaxy, but it did spice up the gameplay. At one point I made an M7, but it promptly got shot to pieces by the first pair of M2s they sent my way, so for now I'm still relying on swarm tactics until I can make proper ships (2200/3300 research for an M2 Atlas).

I really like the new premises of Mayhem 3. The fact that I use the same scripts as my opponents for the first time makes it feel like we're all on a level playing field. The absence of the jump drive makes ware logistics & fleet strategies matter and makes me accept losses in battles, transforming the gameplay for the better. And the scripting has been improved yet again, allowing much appreciated features such as queuing multiple station constructions at specialised outposts or seeing sector stats on the galaxy map.

That said, as I played Mayhem 3 plenty of feedback came to mind that I gladly take the time to write out. A lot of this probably arises from the fact that I played Mayhem 2.9.13, the most polished version of Mayhem 2, while this is the first release version of Mayhem 3. So my hope is that this can help in making Mayhem 3 as polished as Mayhem 2 is.


Overall pace of the game
The pace of the game feels like it's slowed down compared to Mayhem 2, even with SETA x10. I think there are two root causes to this:

- The removal of the jumpdrive, which is by design and has had a good impact in several regards. But I think it'd be good to compensate for this slowdown elsewhere. For example by reducing gate distances or speeding up construction. Currently at default values it takes 3-4 hours to build 5 corvettes, which feels like an age especially when you constantly have to fend off attacks.
- Combat is another main aspect that seems to have slowed down. For one, hulls seem to be tougher and maybe also weapons less powerful, which makes fights seem drawn out both on a ship vs. ship and a fleet vs. fleet level. But I think it's also to do with some kinks in fleet tactics, which are described later on.

I realise that personal preference comes into play with this, and fortunately the t-file lets me adjust some of those to my liking, but I think there's still more room for customisation options (like avg. gate distances and hull/laser strength) and for tweaking the current default values for the benefit of the overall game pace.


Fleets
- Join Fleet: Mayhem 2 had a fleet command called "Call to Arms" which made all fleet ships join the fleet. As far as I could find Mayhem 3 only has that command in the fleet settings menu ("Rally to" looks like it's just a navigation command).
- Invade Sector: this might be because I only really invaded sectors with fighters & corvettes so far, but they tend to chase trading ships and cartographers instead of taking down the stations. It'd be good if their priorities were: enemy forces -> stations -> civilian ships. Other fleet commands also tend to have problems with cartographers, diverting significant portions of my fleets in futile chases.
- I've seen that my fighter fleets tend to focus down each enemy one by one. For hostile corvettes and larger this is great, but against fighters this feels inefficient since my fighters constantly need to change their targets. Fighter wings that are set to "Attack all" tend to attack multiple targets at once, which feels smoother.
- Ships scattering out: it often happens that individual ships (especially corvettes) scatter out to about 30km from the main battle even though they have full health, probably because they're in 1v1s with other ships. Hunting them down after the main battle is over takes a lot of time.


Data scanner
- I really liked how in Mayhem 2 using the data scanner was a hostile and dangerous act, and I have fond memories of how I got scans of an Exterminator and a Z with makeshift fleets. The scanner in Mayhem 3 follows a different philosophy, which is fair enough and I can appreciate how you can research any ship without having to attack the faction that it's from, but the main issue is that its measly 10 points only really feel effective for fighters and TS. It would be neat if there were a 2nd mode for the scanner that resembles the one from Mayhem 2 and offers a bigger point reward.


Workers
- Traders no longer have the massive advantage over the NPC competition in the form of a jumpdrive, so quite often they get beaten to the deal and end up with a cargo full of wares they couldn't sell as intended. In that case they bring it back home, so after some time my outpost was out of money and I had to stop the traders. Maybe they could try to get rid of the ware elsewhere, or even just sell it at neutral price to the nearest outpost?
- I'm really missing something like a Dock Agent whose focus is (solely) on getting what the outpost needs and selling any excesses. I understand that Traders prioritise my own outposts, but it didn't look like too many juicy trading opportunities arose for the trades I wanted to make.
- Miners have huge cargo holds that they must fill before they return to base, as far as I can see. That takes ages, in which time they're likely to get taken down by a task force. It'd be good if they could be set to return home when their cargo exceeds a certain volume or value.


Ships & weapons
- AI factions tend to load their M7s with M2-grade weaponry (i.e. PPC) which drains their batteries within a couple shots.
- According to their data entries, Cluster Flaks have a projectile speed of 500m/s while PPCs have a speed of 3500m/s. Could it be they were swapped around?
- I don't think I've seen M1s carrying fighters yet. Surely a Paranid Empire with 35 sectors has the capacity for filling their M1s?
- TMs are tough nuts to crack with their 1 GJ in shielding and they get spammed en masse, so disposing of them turns into a slog. I think half the durability and moving them near the bottom of the target priority list would be good changes.


Production looping
- It'd be nice if running out of resources didn't cancel production, instead letting the outpost wait for resources like with non-looped projects.
- "Produce full template" seems to be glitched for looping. For example, if I loop an M3 fighter that should have 8 PBEs, the factory adds 808 PBEs to the queue. I think it should queue 8 PBEs every time it starts producing a fighter.


Setting up logistics
- This is still one of the more work-intensive parts of the game. Most of the logistical instructions are just to transport wares to/from local stations, so maybe the default values could reflect this i.e. by pre-selecting "Local factories" and setting the import stock to maximum. Even fancier would be some script command that reads which stations exist in the sector and automatically sets up basic local import/export instructions where needed.


Finally, I could never figure out what exactly "difficulty of your path" changes. I've read from someone else that choosing "Hard" seems to give the AIs an advantage in OOS combat?

[sigurhel]

Is there a way to dismiss your own marines?
Shooting them ain't working.. they get magically resurrected at the barracks.

Further, save games have started to go corrupt sometimes. All save games after that point are corrupt. I have to reload to a point before that starts to happen.
Anyone have that problem?

[Hairless-Ape]

Possible Bug: My Ryu consistently won't dock if I'm in the same system. I can re-issue the order over and over and it will never dock until I leave system.

Removed feature? : Used to be able to use COM's to talk to agents at a station and browse and then accept a mission without ever having to dock. Seems tedious and a setback for the game to be forced to dock to see and accept a mission.

Logistics - Importing: I'm building stations for everything I need except Ore. When trying to determine how to get my traders to import ONLY ore from other factions, and use station funds for it, I have yet to figure out how to do it. Seems like a logistics feature that was readily available in Mayhem 2, but not in 3. What am I missing? Surely I don't have to make manual trade runs for Ore every single time?


Thanks.

[sigurhel]

...

Logistics - Importing: I'm building stations for everything I need except Ore. When trying to determine how to get my traders to import ONLY ore from other factions, and use station funds for it, I have yet to figure out how to do it. Seems like a logistics feature that was readily available in Mayhem 2, but not in 3. What am I missing? Surely I don't have to make manual trade runs for Ore every single time?


Thanks.

It's the Outposts traders that import/export from/to other factions.
In the Logistics page you have a control that can be switched between agents, traders and stock. In the traders tab add the ware you want to import or export and set your thresholds.
Be sure to assign traders to the outpost(s) that are gonna be trading and give em funds. Use the Station settings to setup automatic money transfers.

[Hairless-Ape]

JEZE.. I looked at that screen a hundred times and never saw the "Add ware" line. It's so small, and easy to miss. How about something that looks like a button huh!

lol.

Thanks.

[Sirrobert]

Interestingly, the "Full" logistics template does not include waste or food. But I think those are pretty important to add.

[4square425]

While the "Logistics Overview" is very useful, I like the ability to see the logistics of my entire empire at once instead of just a single resource or sector.

To that end I created an Excel spreadsheet to help me:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GWvuYY ... sp=sharing

It's still a work in progress, but it primarily uses conditional formatting to inform when one is low on certain resources. This does not take into account buying or being sold resources, nor mining for Ore, Silicon Wafers, or Crystals.

The major math aspect I'm trying to solve is to get the "Total Resources" to adjust when a more basic resource is not being met.
For example, 4 Protein Paste Facilities create 120 Protein Paste per minute. This takes 240 Waste to do so. However, since 239 Waste only results in 90 Protein Paste due to rounding down, I can't just use a percentage formula.
Ideally, the "Total Resources" would change from 120 to 90 and the rest of the spreadsheet formulas would adjust from there, so C-Rations would also go down, etc.

If you have a better grasp on spreadsheets than me, please let me know so I can improve this. Until then, it is still useful to get a general idea of what is being produced and what sort of stations you need to fill in resource gaps.

[aurelcourt]

If you have a better grasp on spreadsheets than me, please let me know so I can improve this.

Hi,

Try with a QUOTIENT formula.

The quotient of 240 by 120 is 2 "cycles of division"
The quotient of 239 by 120 is 1 "cycle"
(The MOD formula would give you the 119 that remains if needed)

[azxcvbnm321]

Two Small Tweaks That Would Drastically Improve Quality of Life for Player

1) The default "full" logistics template that you can import is helpful, but some minor changes would make it awesome and more useful to the player. All settings should be set to LOCAL so that agents only operate in sector by default. This is much more useful because most of the times you want your agents to be moving wares from factories in sector to other factories in sector. The special circumstances that require export or import out-of-sector can be changed by the player, but as it stands, everytime I use the template, I have to change most of the settings to "local" so that my agents aren't going 3 sectors away to get something from another factory I own.

2) I feel the default settings for when a factory should import and export are set in a way that will produce a lot of downtime for factories. Default settings are import if 10% stock or lower. Given the time needed for travel, and for agents to have time (they go through multiple job searches first), it's very likely that the factory will be out of production by the time the next shipment arrives. I feel like it should be much higher, like 50%. Similarly, the export if 40% stock or greater is too high. 40% takes a long time to get to and there's no need for a factory to hoard resources since they can't produce anything by themselves. I understand you don't want empty or mostly empty agents to ferry around only a few wares, but I believe it's more important to get your factories running, especially in the earlier stages. Again I am having to manually change every single factory I create. Something like export if 10% or greater is much better, 10% is already a good amount of resources and makes sure your agent will be full for the most part.

In summary, please change the default logistics templates to have "local" as the default setting instead of "factories in range". Also change the default import/export settings to 50%/10% respectively. I'm pretty sure these changes would help the vast majority of players. Thanks.

Edit: I realize you can change the settings and resave yourself, but for new players, it's really overwhelming to deal with the logistics page at first. You have to slowly figure it out, so if the default template were changed, it would make it a lot easier for newer players, that's all I'm saying.

[4square425]

If you have a better grasp on spreadsheets than me, please let me know so I can improve this.

Hi,

Try with a QUOTIENT formula.

The quotient of 240 by 120 is 2 "cycles of division"
The quotient of 239 by 120 is 1 "cycle"
(The MOD formula would give you the 119 that remains if needed)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GWvuYY ... sp=sharing

This helped. I generated a list of "Potential Resources" to show how much you could possibly produce if you devoted everything to it. For example, all Waste to Protein Paste and none to Chemicals.

It's not perfect, but a step in the right direction.

[Betelgeuse97]

In the beta, I noticed that ships in a fleet wouldn't "fly to position" just to reach a target, but in the current release, they do. Is this a bug?

[Dragofer]

Got some bugs to report here:
- Paranid battlegroups only consist of a single M3 fighter, I haven't seen anything else in days. At the start they had proper battlegroups, then it was just a single Zeus or Cyclops, then it was just an M3.
- Xenon sectors are mostly empty except for the stations. I don't think they've conquered any sectors. When I first invaded one of their sectors I noticed a defence fleet spawn in, then I went to an earlier save and from then on I never saw any Xenon ships in their sectors.

Galaxy & Save:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uUELSp ... sp=sharing

[4square425]

Got some bugs to report here:
- Paranid battlegroups only consist of a single M3 fighter, I haven't seen anything else in days. At the start they had proper battlegroups, then it was just a single Zeus or Cyclops, then it was just an M3.
- Xenon sectors are mostly empty except for the stations. I don't think they've conquered any sectors. When I first invaded one of their sectors I noticed a defence fleet spawn in, then I went to an earlier save and from then on I never saw any Xenon ships in their sectors.

Galaxy & Save:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uUELSp ... sp=sharing

I also noticed the first one. In my galaxy, the Paranid are down to two sectors because of this. It made declaring permanent war against them a really easy choice.

As for the second one, the compendium states that the defense fleets for Xenon sectors don't respawn, but the task forces for attacking other sectors have. Most races have enough ships to repel the basic Xenon, which is why they don't take any sectors. A couple of times, they've sent the task forces against me (you get a "Xenon Targeting Signature" warning). They did end up attacking one of my factories, but I destroyed them with some effort before I could lose it. The real conquest happens during the section with the third enemy of Mayhem 3.

[azxcvbnm321]

How do I use the crystal transmuter? Do I need to be personally onboard? And what type of ship would be best to install it? Seems that I wouldn't want to be fighting with this ship, but if it drains a lot of shields, then a M6+ would work best...

[Betelgeuse97]

How do I use the crystal transmuter? Do I need to be personally onboard? And what type of ship would be best to install it? Seems that I wouldn't want to be fighting with this ship, but if it drains a lot of shields, then a M6+ would work best...

There is a command under "special" tab. Click that, and you should see a command to transmute crystals.

The ratio is 5 crystals of 1 tier to get 1 crystal of the next tier, so it works like so:

5 regular crystals -> 1 red crystal
5 red -> 1 yellow
5 yellow -> 1 blue
5 blue -> 1 green
5 green -> 1 black

Higher conversions drain more shields. It's best to use it on a capital ship that's typically left at home such as a TL or a very highly shielded M1/M2 such as a Tokyo. You can also have multiple TLs and pass the transmuter around so that you can still convert crystals after 1 TL's shields are out.