[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

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Joubarbe
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Joubarbe » Sat, 26. Dec 20, 11:00

@4square425: So I cannot reproduce the bug. I actually never had it, and all 4 tries I made were not corrupting my saves. However, I was doing some strange things in the Marine mission destroy scripts, so please retry with these scripts: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DmDI7x ... sp=sharing (EDIT: included in 3.5b)

Also, there is a debug cheat at the very bottom of the player console: '...instant_tasks'. That removes all timers. You can make some very quick tests that way.
Last edited by Joubarbe on Wed, 30. Dec 20, 15:30, edited 1 time in total.

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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Hector0x » Sat, 26. Dec 20, 14:54

temetvince wrote:
Thu, 24. Dec 20, 20:37
Is there a cap on how expensive it gets on old ships? If I can afford it now on a group of ships, will I always be able to afford it on that same group of ships? The mechanics are a bit alien to me and I know things have probably changed since I last played.

Does it ever make sense to get rid of a ship that you've had for too long due to ongoing cost?
maintenance can grow very large over time. But we are mostly talking about ingame days here. As long as you don't run SETA overnight you should be fine.
What i like to do is just forming new fleets from time to time. That way you can send your oldest fleets into battles first and get a healthy ship rotation going. That's usually better than recycling. But i also like to do that when maintenance factors reach 300-500%. Anything higher and i end up ask myself if this ship is really providing enough benefit to justify such a cost explosion and it gets recycled or i install a maintenance kit (which locks maintenance factor at base level forever).
You will definitely loose ships in Mayhem 3 because they got no emergency jumpdrive like in Mayhem 2. Avoiding ship losses entirely is almost impossible in bigger fights. So it might as well be your oldest most expensive ships which get destroyed.

One thing you could try is lowering the cost increase over time. You can tweak maintenance cycle (which is 1% cost increase) to last longer than 10 min. For example taking 6 times longer (1 hour). But then i would also increase the base maintenance cost a bit. For example doubling it. This would give you a much more predictable and forgiving maintenance mechanic.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Hector0x » Sat, 26. Dec 20, 15:29

Black--Snow wrote:
Fri, 25. Dec 20, 15:21
Also, does the "Build full template" option in Outposts build and ship the gear from nearby outposts somehow, or does it require a multi-specced single outpost?

TLDR: Only use multi-specced outposts for ship/laser/shield production!


I think you need the multi-specced outpost. In my last game i tried to use only very few of those. Most outposts were specialized for a single production line (lasers, shields, ships, missles, factories). The reasoning behind that was that you can be more efficient with your perks and more people in your empire are actually doing something other than producing waste and taxes. I strongly believe that my economy was very powerful in that game because of this decentralized approach. I had tons of stuff and almost every outpost could also use additional wealth generating perks like solar panels, tax, or no food consumption.
But the big problem is that you can never properly find a balance in your total production. You are constantly building up stockpiles of various shields or lasers. All that efficiency that comes from having extra perks and workers is useless because you're often producing stuff just to put it in the shelf.
I had to stop that game after the 22nd outpost because it got way to cumbersome to manage all the logistics and productions. It somewhat worked, but i had to change or restart production lines way too frequently. That killed all the fun for me. Especially since i also had 1 multi-specced outpost which worked SO much better than all the others. But that single one couldn't produce ships fast enough on its own and i already unlocked so many production perks on other outposts.


With multi-specced outposts you will only produce exactly what you need with 1 click, especially if your ship needs more than one type of laser. Some features like auto-reinforcing fleets won't work well either without having multi-specced outposts. If you don't have them then you need to seriously standardize your fleets and use very few different types of ships, shields and lasers. The convenience from multi-specced outposts is always worth it in my opinion. My advice is to try and give every shipyard these 5 perks (eventually):
1) laser production
2) shield production
3) insurance policy (absolute must have if population is big, can be delayed otherwise because the really bad event only appears later into the game :D )
4) increased maximum specialization (insane resource discount, but delay that to mid-/endgame when your outpost is leveled up)
5) optimal parallel tasks (this has the least priority. But for each ship producing outpost without this perk you will need another ship producing outpost to make up for the first one's slow production speed. And you'd need to split up more of you ship components, which makes your logistics more complicated.)

In the end i consider these 5 perks to be almost mandatatory for every ship production line. Once you have them you can start to think about others like engine tuning. And all other perks should be outsourced to other outposts entirely.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Black--Snow » Sat, 26. Dec 20, 15:48

Hector0x wrote:
Sat, 26. Dec 20, 15:29
--
Now that is an excellently thorough answer. Thanks a lot! I usually go for multi-specced but I thought maybe it was a naive approach and wanted to try spreading them out. The micromanagement is no fun for me. I think I'll run the perk init script on my production outposts and respec them in a way that gives a single production outpost.

What kind of perks do you like to grab on non-production outposts? I usually grab the no-disasters, and tax. The no food is kinda neat for reducing logistical complexity, but food is such a non-issue supply-wise that it feels like a waste of a slot if you've got something better to put there.

Dry dock doesn't seem like it'd provide much benefit unless it's an attack fleet or something (How long are ships really docked?). The marine perks seem good, but that'd only be on one or two outposts, etc.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Hector0x » Sat, 26. Dec 20, 17:09

I mostly seem to use 3 types of outposts.

1) one or two out of 10 outposts should be such a multi-tasking Shipyard. They will use up a lot of perks. So their position on the galaxy map is quite important to get those adjacency boni stacked up a bit. I try to avoid any non essential perks like no-food on them. In the long run you seem to gain a lot of convenience if you take those 5 perks i mentioned above.

2) having a few fleet bases/fortress outposts near your borders can be nice. Maybe 2 out of every 10 outposts. That's where new ships from the shipyards can go to dock and get maintenance free with the drydock perk until you need them. Yeah, once your fleet is in actual use they rarely ever dock again. But it is still a good perk to save a lot of maintenance money when you're still building your fleet up to strength. Also seems to be a good place to put your missle production if you use that. And if you're really close to an enemy empire, then EMP can be a gamechanger. Your fleet is safely sitting in drydock. Boom, enemy shields are down, your fleet undocks and attacks = massacre. If you unlock Solar Panels your outpost can even recharge it's own EMP energy over time.

3) all other outposts aren't really needed to produce something or do any kind of special job. So i always end up giving them tax, faster research, solar panels or no-food. Economic boosters like that. Or the marine stuff. And these outposts are always the biggest group after i start to take more sectors. Maybe 7 out of 10 outposts in my games.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Black--Snow » Mon, 28. Dec 20, 05:57

Hector0x wrote:
Sat, 26. Dec 20, 15:29

4) increased maximum specialization (insane resource discount, but delay that to mid-/endgame when your outpost is leveled up)
I don't think this perk exists anymore, or at least I can't see it?

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Joubarbe
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Joubarbe » Mon, 28. Dec 20, 11:37

Mayhem 3.5b released

Various fixes and an overhaul of all laser’s hitbox. See changelog on first page.

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Black--Snow
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Black--Snow » Mon, 28. Dec 20, 14:54

https://puu.sh/H1CN9/91cf0def11.png

Is it intentional that there are just pirate ships appearing at the far edges of sectors? It seems almost like there's a pirate base out there, but if there is it's both off the map and outside of Advanced Satellite vision.

I'm constantly losing ships and unable to move my fleet from that sector because there are endless waves of enemies spawning.

Edit: There are pirate bases far off the map. One I found was at 151km, 12.1km, -110km. It's not so much the fact I couldn't see them, as I didn't even think to look for them because the map doesn't expand that far. I realise that's probably a built-in limitation of X3, but I'd assume the pirates spawning >120km out is a Mayhem controlled thing?

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Joubarbe » Mon, 28. Dec 20, 15:05

Everything is under control.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Hector0x » Mon, 28. Dec 20, 17:55

Black--Snow wrote:
Mon, 28. Dec 20, 05:57
I don't think this perk exists anymore, or at least I can't see it?
Damn, i think you're right! It's so hard to keep track of all changes.

About the pirate bases. A satellite will usually reveal them (not always). But you can also see them! I mean visually with your eyes by looking closely at the gameworld. They're hiding in between small asteroid fields. You can track the general area down with flightpaths pirates are using. I really like how these pirate bases are somewhat hidden from the player.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Black--Snow » Tue, 29. Dec 20, 03:30

Hector0x wrote:
Mon, 28. Dec 20, 17:55
Black--Snow wrote:
Mon, 28. Dec 20, 05:57
I don't think this perk exists anymore, or at least I can't see it?
Damn, i think you're right! It's so hard to keep track of all changes.

About the pirate bases. A satellite will usually reveal them (not always). But you can also see them! I mean visually with your eyes by looking closely at the gameworld. They're hiding in between small asteroid fields. You can track the general area down with flightpaths pirates are using. I really like how these pirate bases are somewhat hidden from the player.
After the initial frustration, I certainly see the value in these hidden bases. The map is most of my issue. Frankly I don't see why Egosoft limited the field of view of the map. Were there off-map pirate bases in vanilla? I have to admit I didn't play all that much of it, it's not nearly as good an experience as Mayhem.

Suggestion though:

Perhaps some kind of deployable could perform a scan in a 250km radius for 10 seconds or something before self destructing? That way the player has a way to find these bases without individually searching for them, or making random guesses with fleets on the map they can't see.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5

Post by Edna » Wed, 30. Dec 20, 03:45

Black--Snow wrote:
Tue, 29. Dec 20, 03:30
Were there off-map pirate bases in vanilla?
Yes.

X-Beyond the Frontier (including X-Tension) was the only game without fog of war on the map. X2 The Threat introduced it as the systems back then were handcrafted and had a lot of secrets outside of the map boundaries, like hidden gates behind big asteroids and pirate bases hidden in off-map asteroid fields. The latter was done in X3R/TC/AP to a smaller degree. The entire fog of war feature lead to the introduction of the duplex/triplex scanners, nav buoys and satellites, with advanced ones being able to show other sectors visually (at least in X2) on another monitor. In vanilla X3, systems were mostly generated with a very few handcrafted systems and unique stations like the hidden Argon station in Black Hole Sun or the hidden Paranid station in Priest's Pity. Likewise there were off-map pirate bases like in Ore Belt and semi-hidden ones like the one in Nathan's Voyage, which is also one of those hidden in an asteroid cluster. The same for the base in Nyana's Hideout.

In Mayhem 3, despite everything procedurally generated, these pirate bases are fairly easy to find IF you know that they are in system. Asteroids are usually aligned in a ring-like form throughout the system, so if you see stray asteroid clusters somewhere in the distance, chances are there is a pirate base. If there are quite a lot of pirate ships around in the sector, it's pretty obvious.

Would be cool if there was more stray stuff slightly off-map, but with the mechanics of Mayhem 3, I wouldn't see what could be out there that is somewhat useful or at least interesting. I guess that is something left to X2, which was the game with the best atmosphere and manually built systems.
Image

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by XenonArchitect7 » Wed, 30. Dec 20, 05:14

Am I missing something here? In my experience Mayhem 3 off-map pirate bases are extremely easy to find, simply deploy satellites in unknown sectors and there will likely be a pirate base listed on the right side of the sector map view. It takes a few seconds to check...

And then the crosshairs on the map will tell you where it is, even if you can't see the icon on the map. I usually just have a small fleet attack it OOS anyway, no searching required.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Black--Snow » Thu, 31. Dec 20, 00:47

XenonArchitect7 wrote:
Wed, 30. Dec 20, 05:14
Am I missing something here? In my experience Mayhem 3 off-map pirate bases are extremely easy to find, simply deploy satellites in unknown sectors and there will likely be a pirate base listed on the right side of the sector map view. It takes a few seconds to check...

And then the crosshairs on the map will tell you where it is, even if you can't see the icon on the map. I usually just have a small fleet attack it OOS anyway, no searching required.
Both instances were outside of advanced sat range, at ranges of around 200km.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by dunderhead327 » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 11:39

I don't know about 200 Km, but I am fairly sure I have found and attacked a base at more than 150 Km using that technique.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Black--Snow » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 14:06

So what's the go with carrier configuration in Mayhem 3? I see the lack of ADS / MLCC, and I can't find any resources on the main page nor the encyclopedia about it unless I've missed something.

I just docked 24 M3s to an Ariadne and realised I have no clue how I'm supposed to set them up here. :P

The encyclopedia suggests that the M3s should be added into the fleet, and that a transporter device on the carrier is mucho beneficial, but how do you command the carrier to launch fighters / dock all fighters etc.?

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Hector0x » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 15:37

The fleet does all of that on its own. Support fighters choose their own home-carrier. They launch and attack once their carrier's follower scanning range gets triggered by an enemy. They fallback when their own shields drop very low. They go to an outpost or any repair carrier in the fleet when needed.

This fleet system can be a very powerful automation tool. But i think many players interrupt it all the time because they think its broken (not adressing anyone specific, just my general observation over many months)
I recently recorded 2 episodes where i attack a pirate base. I'm only giving exactly 1 command. "invade sector"

My fleet:
- kills all remaining pirate fighters in the sector
- then focusses fire on the pirate base
- when 2 pirate M6 respawn at the base my fleet automatically retargets and takes them out
- after both M6 are dead my fleet resumes killing the base

I didn't need to use any command broadcasting to all ships. No fleet command to "attack all enemies" when the pirates spawned, no priority attacks, nothing. Only 1 invade command did the trick. The problem is that it takes your ships a while to switch targets. It might seem unresponsive and broken and you might even suffer a few more losses which could be avoided by giving manual commands like crazy. But once you start doing that, you're removing your ships from the fleet and that turns off all this automation.
Try to achieve what you want to do within the fleet system, it's probably possible to do. And it makes handling multiple fleets later in the game so much easier.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Black--Snow » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 17:03

I see, thanks! By "Support fighters" are you referring to a specific mechanic, or just any fighters in a larger fleet?

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Joubarbe » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 17:54

Encyclopedia:

In Mayhem 3, all combat scripts have been rewritten from scratch. That means that some basic things have been redesigned. In that regard, combat tactics and ship formations have been overhauled. All formations, squadrons and fleets now have the same rules:

1. The leader is at the center of the formation and only the leader runs the main script that tells him what to do in what situations.

2. Followers are all the other ships that follow the leader and assist him. They will always try to protect the leader in priority, then attack his target, or assist other followers.

3. Support ships are fighters that can be carried by a follower. As soon as they are in the carrier, and while the carrier is alive, they become independent from the formation. Their priority then becomes the protection and the assistance of the carrier. If the carrier dies, they will join the formation back, as standard followers. If the carrier is equipped with a Carrier Repair Module, the support ships will wait there while their hull is damaged.

Note that wings are one of the few things - with turret scripts - that have been left untouched. Please report any problem you might encounter with them.
Last edited by Joubarbe on Fri, 1. Jan 21, 17:56, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.5b

Post by Hector0x » Fri, 1. Jan 21, 17:55

Support ship is just a term in the fleet command structure. The encyclopedia has some more info about that.
You got Commander>Follower>Support ship. Afaik any ship which is able to dock at another fleet ship will do that and become a support ship. The idea is that you need to give orders only to your fleet commander. Support ships can't be controlled at all and will only listen to their carrier which should be a Follower. What Followers do is dependent on your fleet settings.

On default the commander auto-attacks enemies at very long ranges, but followers only scan and attack at very low range. So the entire fleet will move towards enemies but stays together just until the actual clash. You can change all of that with the 2 scanning ranges. Think of these as your fleet's "personal space". If it gets violated your fleet gets angry and attacks. High ranges are good for patrols or if you want to clean up weak enemies. Small ranges are good if you need to be careful, fear losses, want to focus on one target at the time (for example for efficient station destruction without far away enemies distracting your fleet), or generally want your fleet to stay together as much as possible and be rather passive.

It's usually a good idea to make the slowest ship fleet commander. I remember that i had some issues if the commander was a carrier. Don't remember what it was exactly. I think your fighters will either not launch at all or launch too early and spread themselves too thin. A leader carrier may launch it's support fighters against enemies up to 200km away (default) while on a follower carrier it should be only 20km which keeps a better herd and fewer losses. As a habit i avoid using carriers as commander if possible. But you could try that. Make your Ariadne commander, see if and at what distance to enemies it launches its fighters

Edit: got ninja'ed

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