[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[Betelgeuse97]

I just dropped a jump beacon down and I did nothing after. Upon looking at a courier supposed to return to the sector with the jump beacon, I noticed that it didn't take the jump beacon and flew through the gates instead. What steps am I missing for them to use it?

[4square425]

I just dropped a jump beacon down and I did nothing after. Upon looking at a courier supposed to return to the sector with the jump beacon, I noticed that it didn't take the jump beacon and flew through the gates instead. What steps am I missing for them to use it?

Do you have a second one for it to link to?

[Hector0x]

Is it possible to distribute a lot of missles evenly on a group of existing ships which don't already have a missle resupply setting? With the supply software this was possible but it seems to be gone in Mayhem 3. I can create another template with missle resupply setting and then template-outfit all ships. But this takes a lot of individual clicks.

[Joubarbe]

It's not possible. Would it be a good idea to have a Global supply menu? Like global naming, where you apply one resupply configuration to selected ships? Then you would either use the resupply drone or the supply fleet ship.

[aurelcourt]

It's not possible. Would it be a good idea to have a Global supply menu? Like global naming, where you apply one resupply configuration to selected ships? Then you would either use the resupply drone or the supply fleet ship.

A specific "Supply Template" that would only change the resupply type and number of missiles/consumables on the ships it is applied to...? That'd be cool

With an access via personal console (next to "templates").

But then.... using it is complicated because so many options...?

- making a command usable from the ship itself : "Get Resupplied" -> opens the Resupply Menu, choose resupply template and find resupply ship
- making a command usable from a selection of ships (fleet?/ owned ships? / landed ships? / ships in sector ?)
- and then again, how to filter it ? by ship type ? by ship template?
- how to avoid 100 clicks when dealing with a big fleet ? (anything more than 10 enter enter enter enter enter is starting to get tedious...)

Imagine the scenario : I have a fleet with 40 M3 interceptors (anti-fighters), 40 M3 heavy fighters (anti M3/M6), 20 bombers M3 (anti caps), and multi task M6s ... (+ a few capitals but nothing that really need to get "templated").
If I want to change the resupply setting of my 40 M3 interceptors only... how would that work?

If that scenario can be addressed with less than 10 clicks, then we'd have an awesome tool to work with indeed !!

But that would require a LOT of thought I fear...
(although nothing Joubarbe couldn't manage ... but would it be worth the trouble... )

[Joubarbe]

How do you rename 40 M3 with the global renaming menu? You click 40 times. With a Global supply config menu, it would be a one-time process. That would only be for these cases when you want to change something, or apply to old ships, because you still have the template outfit system that can be applied to new ships.

[Betelgeuse97]

Crystal transmuter description says it can transmit regular crystals into mining crystals (e.g. regular crystals -> red -> yellow -> ...), but it transmutes only the mining crystals to better ones, not regular ones to reds.

[Betelgeuse97]

I'm going to guess the next update means one of two things:

1. Xenon prioritize killing your jump beacons.
2. Xenon can use your jump beacons to get inside your core sectors.

[Joubarbe]

I'm going to guess the next update means one of two things:

1. Xenon prioritize killing your jump beacons.
2. Xenon can use your jump beacons to get inside your core sectors.

Good guess

[Joubarbe]

Beta 7 released

Now it is safe to go chasing some OCV. And by "safe", I obviously mean "a lot more dangerous".

[Betelgeuse97]

Not sure if this was fixed, but I noticed prior to BETA 7 that a fleet leader won't launch its ships. What I mean is:

1. Make the leader of a fleet a carrier.
2. Load ships into the carrier.
3. Carrier won't launch ships that are docked inside. (This applies only to the carrier that's also a leader.)

EDIT: I just tested the crystal transmuter, and it doesn't enable the command to be used with just regular crystals onboard. I have to have mining crystals in the ship before I can use regular crystals.

[4square425]

Well, I experienced the Xenon "love" of my jump beacons.

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The infection seemed to happen about 5km from the beacon itself, which seems balanced. I reloaded the save and was able to repel them before the infection. Later, I'll let it happen and see how long and how many Xenon or OCV come pouring out. However, it is a good mechanic to balance the efficiency of a jump beacon network.

[Joubarbe]

[Betelgeuse97]

Well, I experienced the Xenon "love" of my jump beacons.

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The infection seemed to happen about 5km from the beacon itself, which seems balanced. I reloaded the save and was able to repel them before the infection. Later, I'll let it happen and see how long and how many Xenon or OCV come pouring out. However, it is a good mechanic to balance the efficiency of a jump beacon network.

So my guess was right! But is this only when they're active and they have a jump beacon? (It does not make sense for them to spawn out of thin air.)

[Joubarbe]

Ok, if you want to know...

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Xenons will use your infected Jump beacons if they have at least one station in the galaxy. The fleet is actually the same one that spawns from the station (aka. "the invader"), except it teleports to a random infected beacon if any.

[Leshak]

Another strange naming from my game: newly assigned traders autorename behave like traders blown up in the past is still here
Save

[Edna]

You know, looking at all the stuff I did in my Beta 4 galaxy and looking at all the horrible, horrible evil things that would instantly happen if I upgraded, I guess I'll stick to Beta 4 until I win.

[Joubarbe]

You know, looking at all the stuff I did in my Beta 4 galaxy and looking at all the horrible, horrible evil things that would instantly happen if I upgraded, I guess I'll stick to Beta 4 until I win.

You really shouldn't.

[SaintD1970]

Edit: Mayhem 3 beta 6 hotfix 2
New player, first impression. (English is my first language, but so is dyslexia so what I probably mean what you think I mean rather than literally what I write.)

X3 TC/AP was a pretty good deal on steam, I remember enjoying X:BTF a long time ago and my PC is getting a bit old so it was of a decent vintage to run well. I put about 80-100 hours into TC/AP collectively. My lightly modded AP game ground to a standstill after about 8 days of in-game time. With the FPS in the tank I decided that I would move on to LU. After I looked at the comparsion post between LU, Mayhem 2 and Mayhem 3 it was clear to me Mahem 3 was closest to the game I always wanted. Empires at war, and the player is the one who can tip the balance (or just take over.)

I installed everything without much trouble and got rolling. At first I messed around a little trying to do some trading, but the AI factories seem a lot more balanced than Vanilla (where they are just a disaster!). I am sure there are some good opportunities, but my previous knowledge wasn't valid. I parked the freighter and started exploring in the fighter. Grabbed a few missions. They don't seem to pay much and if I understand correctly you only even get one set of missions the first time you enter a sector, so I didn't feel the need to try to grind them. I started finding abandoned ships, mostly M3's, and a handful of traders. Once I had a fleet of about a dozen following me around the puny pirate scouting forces were no match for me, but soon maintenance drained my money and all my ships started to fall apart.

I realized I needed money but it wasn't clear how to get more than a few thousand here and there from scattered missions. It took me a while to find a station that would by weapons and shields, once I did I sold off about half of what I had an destructed the ships to save costs. I explored about 50% of the map before I got tired of juggling six remotely exploring ships. Plus I couldn't really afford satellites so exploring was really slow. (TIP: I discovered carrying one Adv. Sat and dropping it and picking it up let me map the gates faster, wish ships I wasn't flying could be remotely instructed to pick up sats).

I finished my my ascension quest and picked an abandoned sector tucked into a nice L shape on the map with good buffer between me, neighbors and Xenon. Then I realized I couldn't really do anything. I had no trading ships (having traded sold the equipment and then scrapped them). I had about 100K in the bank and no good idea how to make more. By this time I was back up to about a dozen fighters. I thought maybe if I recycled them I could get materials to make a solar array, but it turns out ships don't recycle into those goods.

I went exploring some more in my fastest ship and managed to find a few abandoned trade ships. After some initial fumbling I got them working to sell the fish and waste in my station, hopefully I will be able to make enough money to start buying Ore, Oil, and Tel. in enough quantity to start building stations.

My impressions so far (they are likely to be objectively wrong, but this is how I understand things now.):

• The mod is amazing in so many ways. Seeing battle groups slugging it out in huge battles over sectors (with a good framerate!) fills me with joy. I can't wait to bring my own fleets to the party.
• The mid-late game vanilla micromanagement problems seem to be well taken care of, but I haven't got there to test it out yet. Agents and Traders setup, while a little complex, is vastly better already. Fine grained control of the macro goals with little to no need to micro manage ships.
• The early game is _very_ slow compared to vanilla and feels like exploring is about the only worthwhile activity. (In contrast the Terran start in vanilla TC gives you a million dollars in ships quite quickly.) Took me about 2 in game days to map 90%+ of the sectors, even when I was running 3 explorers in parallel for a while.
• Trading, unless I am missing something, really requires a decent satellite network or a ton of legwork to get going. The economy isn't broken (a good thing!) so you can't just rely on everyone being desperate for energy and ore.
• Missions pay a pittance and there isn't a lot the improved relations buys you. They don't regenerate so you can't "rank up" and make any real money like in vanilla.
• The best way to make some money early game is to sell off ship equipment you find, but unless you are really poor it's probably a mistake to destruct ships before you can at least recycle them.
• Claiming ascension with 100K was a bad idea. I had to pick the "no food" perk to keep my station from starving. It might be best to add an extra requirement of 1M in the bank before you can claim it.
• Once you start a station, it's pretty unclear what you need to do to progress. It took me a while to realize I would have to buy Ore, Oil and Tel from the open market to get going.
• The only station I found so far that will by my shields and weapons is very a long way off from my station so it's taking forever to sell them.
• I didn't realize anyone would even buy the recycled ship stuff for quite a while and that station is also a long way from my home base. It also feels like a maybe a bad idea to sell it all off, but it seems like the best way to bring in the piles of cash I need somewhat quickly.
• The early game seems to be all about claiming ships. The painfully slow turning rate of the astronaut makes this a terrible chore. I left a ton of ships behind because I didn't want to spend the tedious time it takes to get close, fly over, claim, repair (not so bad with SETA at least!), then slowly turn around back to my own ship. I did at least scan them all in the process.
• The advice in the thread that I was able to find all seems to consider having your station up and pumping out other stations a given, but I am finding a big hump to get over before that's a thing. At this rate it's going to be a few more in game days at least.
• With the randomized galaxy, I am finding the encyclopedia list of buyers and sellers to be a hassle to use. I practically have to write down the names and then scan the map for each in turn. It would be great if they had the number of jumps from my current position listed, or the trade list function on the ships listed all known stations by number of jumps and just put in ??? for unknown prices.
• I think I have explored my entire galaxy and no one is selling a triplex scanner at all, maybe they no longer exist? At least it shows up in encyclopedia with no sellers. (I made do with re-using one adv. sat.)

So I am at a point where I have a station that's pumping out fish and waste but my traders can't automatically sell due to my lack of satellites. Right now it seems like my best way forward would be to go back out and claim all those fighters I left behind and sell the shields and weapons, then manually sell all the recycled parts to the one place that will take them.

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I regret not choosing the jump drive. Now that I will never have it, I realize how powerful it is for trading at this point and for jumping a big ship into fights later.

[XenonArchitect7]

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I regret not choosing the jump drive. Now that I will never have it, I realize how powerful it is for trading at this point and for jumping a big ship into fights later.

That's an interesting use for the jump drive, although what about once you move on past trading in your personal ship ? Sure, it gives you instant access to the entire map's economy to buy whatever you want, but manual labor in Mayhem gets automated very quickly. Once you get traders going, you'd be better off letting them do all your resource trading so you can focus on management. I suppose the jumpdrive could be used for going around and claiming abandoned ships, but this too can be automated. And even before that, you can just tell a M5 to follow an abandoned ship and use the teleporter to enter your M5 across the galaxy so you can easily get out and claim it, then teleport back. This is faster than jumping to a gate, flying your personal ship to the abandoned ship, then claiming.

And I'd say the teleporter is far superior simply for its use as a universal transporter device used in the same sector as the player ship. It lets you jump between ships during huge fleet battles, and this is extremely useful for preventing game-overs, managing enemy targeting, and manually controlling ships in the best possible positions. Just jump around within your own fleet using the teleporter rather than constantly needing to bring your personal ship to the action. If you don't mind switching ships or having multiple personal ships ready, the teleporter greatly cuts out travel times to your enemies in a fight and thus maximizes the damage you can do by directly participating in the action. If you had the jumpdrive, you would need a transporter device on each ship you wanted to beam too, and this is not feasible to set up on more than a couple of ships in Mayhem 3 due to the minerals needed for that upgrade. Not to mention how the teleporter lets you position your fleets while OOS and then you can instantly beam directly into the action right as they are about to engage the enemy.

The problem with using the jumpdrive for combat purposes is that you can only jump to the center. So that means there needs to already be a battle raging before you get there (and this battle also needs to be located near the center, which probably isn't the case). This also means your battle will be OOS for the first part, and losses are brutal while OOS (avoid fighting huge battles OOS, unless you have only capitals). You then have to fly your ship to the battle, which is valuable time lost where you can't be contributing. There is also the problem of you not being with your fleet. The fleet will have entered the hostile sector from the gate, and you from the center. If you get swarmed, there is nothing you can do except try to jump back out, you don't stand a chance without your fleet to back you up. Perhaps if your personal ship was a super heavy M1 carrier with fighters, this could work. But I think the teleporter offers so much more utility for invasions and huge fleet battles.

One colossal advantage I can think of for the jumpdrive is using it to jump a TL anywhere and deploying jump beacons with no direct travel necessary. You can use this to instantly access any part of the map and link it with a beacon. This would allow you to ignore large swaths of enemy territory and set up sectors scattered around the map, where you can't do that if you have the teleporter. I personally can't justify losing the fleet battle utility offered by the teleporter though.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this subject, it would be great to see some opinions on the pros and cons of each jump option.