[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[Edna]

Buggo?

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Is it intended that station recycling doesn't return any resources (apart from the Outpost, where it's obvious)?

[Hector0x]

Started a new experimental galaxy on B9 HF2.

This time i wanted to focus less on Terraformers and more on wars with the main factions, because out of curiosity i progressed kind of quickly through the Yaki phase and ended up very busy with the OCV in my first game.

So far i'm very pleased how the experimental galaxy settings turned out. I specifically wanted to reduce this gritty survival feeling of a whole galaxy fighting the Terraformers and emphasize faction vs. faction and player vs. faction conflict instead.

Early observations:
"hollowed galaxy" - allows to have a very large galaxy size with huge distances, but at the same time it's extremely performance friendly due to all the missing sectors in the middle. Keeping a large distance to certain clusters of Xenon sectors is easier. Travel is more limited. This may even help small factions to survive due to less possible frontlines. The map is very symmetrical. It would be nice to have some small paths of 1-3 sectors occasionally reaching inside the hole to make it more organic. Maybe even creating shortcuts or alternative paths at the edges (in some rare instances).

"random distribution" - causes a lot of early wars. Everyone is hostile to everyone until the first Truces kick in. Larger territories generally don't exist and have to get created during the game first. I like this very much because the player can have a great and earlier impact on factions becoming local powerhouses or getting wiped from a certain areas.
It also makes it easier to attack factions. Good for pirate/boarding/war oriented players. You can quickly go in, cause havoc, and leave with many escape directions. With "limited enclaves" i'd expect it would be the opposite. Harder to go deep inside faction territory and make it out alive.
The economy is changing until certain factions prevail locally.

"extra sector stats" - boosts faction economies, ship building, trading possibilities and the player. Increased activity overall. Pirates/Xenon are less of a threat to everyone. They don't scale as high because the player needs less sectors and factions have more ships to take them out. Also faster player progression due to research/production boosts. Good if you want a faster game in general.

How are NPC factory station limits adjusted if you tick "extra sector stats" during galaxy creation?
For example, according to your B9 H1 limits there can be 1 solar plant, tel foundry and crystal fab per sector. And 2 ore/silicon mines. In my game (extra sector stats) i have seen 2 SSP's and 2 foundries in the same sector, but only 1 crystal fab. And up to 3 Ore/silicon mines.

[Joubarbe]

How are NPC factory station limits adjusted if you tick "extra sector stats" during galaxy creation?
For example, according to your B9 H1 limits there can be 1 solar plant, tel foundry and crystal fab per sector. And 2 ore/silicon mines. In my game (extra sector stats) i have seen 2 SSP's and 2 foundries in the same sector, but only 1 crystal fab. And up to 3 Ore/silicon mines.

Galaxy creation:

Code: Select all

$support = [NULL]-> call script 'Mayhem.SectorSupport' : sector=$race.sector
if $galaxy.age == 0
    $rng = random value between 3 and 5
else if $galaxy.age == 1
    $rng = random value between 2 and 4
else if $galaxy.age == 2
    $rng = random value between 1 and 3
else
    $rng = 0
end
$stationsNeeded = $support - $rng

I've set the limit to 3 for each mine. Makes more sense to me because of the lot of asteroids everywhere. Maybe it's a mistake, keep me updated on that.
The limit per sector I've shown you is actually the "product" station. So there's 1 SPP and 1 Teladianium foundry. However, the other stations act as "resources": Hull plating also needs a foundry, and a few other stations need SPP. It works as intended, but maybe is not properly balanced. I think the economy is a lot more balanced now though.

[Joubarbe]

Is it intended that station recycling doesn't return any resources (apart from the Outpost, where it's obvious)?

You actually have to select them with arrows (trade bar at the bottom of the screen), just like weapons.
In the next version, I'll try to make it a little clearer with a "Selected" column:

Spoiler

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[Edna]

Oh boy, I should have tried that. But thanks!

[Edna]

TLs limited?

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I tried to construct a new TL (which would be my second TL) but despite the resources being available and crew being available, the construction does not start. Did you limit TLs to 1?

[Joubarbe]

Send a save, I'll look into it.
(it's not limited)

[Edna]

I can't reproduce this bug. I tried to get my shipyard back to the stocks to build a TL and get you a save, but when I give the order to build an Elephant, it does it. Weird. Will keep my eyes on it, but maybe it was just a singularity.

[Joubarbe]

Beta 9 Hotfix 3 released

[Crypticguy]

If a xenon infects a jump beacon of mine can they jump to all of my other beacons with it? Or do they have to infect another one to use it?

[Joubarbe]

They can only use their own jump beacons.

[Edna]

I just noticed that when you destroy the pirate base in the sector of any race, it will get abandoned. There are some Argons here who are just waiting for this opportunity, and I do not approve of that.

EDIT: Nevermind, it fixed itself. Just took a bit longer than usual.

[Crypticguy]

Is there a way to make fighters and corvettes stick with the fleet commander for a bit when they attack an enemy fleet so they don't rush in and die immediately? I tried some of the fleet settings but i don't think im seeing a difference. Sorry for the many questions

[Edna]

Here are my observations on my current playthrough on Beta 9, currently on H2.

- The only race that is expanding are the Argons, with currently 38% of the map. All other races stopped expanding, even when there were still free sectors available.

Argon: 38 (and one is about to be lost to me)
Boron: 13
Paranid: 3
Teladi: 2
Split: 8

I'm planning to feed the won sectors to the Split. Another thing I noticed: There are no sector take-overs. The Argons claim sectors but don't attack them. The other races don't claim at all. I'm currently at Day 3 1/2, I have about ten sectors, full economy, jump beacons, a fleet and the first Dreadnought is in the making. That's why I started to mop the floor with the Argons, and I noticed that they didn't send any defense out apart from ships in system and docked on station. No task force, no battle group. When a small battlegroup arrived, they instantly reclaimed the sector the moment one of the M3s entered, an Argon Outpost spawned and when I destroyed it, I got the friendly reminder by Terracorp to not shoot protectorate sectors. (Goodbye, million credits!)

I've also noted that the Xenon didn't attack anyone. No raids, nothing. So far I've only seen the pirates from one base in the area and once I wiped them out, nothing from them. Every now and then I see the Yaki sabotage event spawning some Yaki, but that's it. Feels like I ended up with another bugged universe, which is nice in the beginning but annoying right now, as I assume there should be more action in space. Especially since it's an Extra Stats playthrough.

Galaxy and Save

By the way, I started the galaxy with total war doctrines and play as ally of the Split. When I started the game, I got some overlapping messages from some races for declaring war to their enemies until they realized I declared war on them, too. Weird.

[Joubarbe]

I'm investigating this, but first thing I should say is that after SETA for a minute, the Argons claim Holy Vision and move a Battle Group (incomplete) into this sector. Plus, when I go into one of their sectors, police attacks me.

However, there's a serious lack of everything, and I don't think it's actually fixable. It doesn't seem to be a bug. Your galaxy is a free for all, everyone is at war with not a single second of peace, and you started with the "no expansion" setting, which makes harder for the AI to keep up. I think that's the main problem, and to me, it seems reasonable that in a realistic economy, everything stalls when there's complete chaos. At this point, your galaxy is basically a no man's land.

I can still improve some things. For instance, some fleets should regularly switch homebase instead of always staying in the same area. They also should wait longer for reinforcements. But in my opinion, what you have here is a consequence of total chaos. Nothing good comes out of total war

What I would recommend at this point is to activate the debt system. In X3\addon\9972, there's this option:

Code: Select all

<t id="153">0</t> <!-- AI cheat: debt system. The AI will build anything when it needs it, and will pay the costs later, if it can. (default: 0) -->

It's basically free resource for the AI.

There's also a problem with the garbage collector (Zeus). It doesn't seem to work well on docked ships, which is a problem because some workers return home when attacked (I'm going to also remove this behavior). And this leads to shortage of resources, and big bottlenecks in a game like yours (Borons have half their traders and agents doing nothing, because of recent attacks - they're heavily damaged and scared to go out).

[Hector0x]

@Crypticguy: Try follower scanning range at 0 and use the "rally to" command instead of an attack order. Your fleet will move close to the enemy and only engage once the commander gets attacked. Alternatively you can set follower scanning range to very low if you want your fleet to engage first but stay close to the commander.

@Edna: these should increase NPC ship counts:
- at least early galaxy progression instead of no progression (it takes them forever to build all these fleets which would normally just spawn in at the start)
- no permanent wars between factions (they really need some truces to rebuild)
- play with less factions or enable permanent alliances to get a 2 vs. 2 or 2 vs. 3 situation (trading between allies, helps economy)
- increased sector stats (more factories)
- limited enclaves (more areas with stable economy)
- difficulty easy (i believe this reduces xenon/pirate spawns)
- clustered xenon (to have a large portion of the map unaffected by them)

The recent HF3 factory limit changes should also have a notable effect. I couldn't test them yet.

@ Joubarbe: maybe add a t-file option to add more corp traders.

[Edna]

Well, bad news is that I was at a lake today and had a lot of fun. And the sun was like "why hello there".

Good news is that I'm sunburned crusty so I won't leave the house for a few days until I peel like a snake. That means I will dive into a new galaxy and try some different options, with B9H3. The sector stats boost is now way different. H2 gave me some nice sectors with 24 stations, but H3's high pop sectors with some going up to 180 and higher is DEFINITELY better, especially when you don't know what to do with the remaining sectors. More credits and more building power. I'll also remove the total war settings. Maybe the Xenon will be more likely to do something, then.



Joubarbe, let me once again thank you for not only creating this lovely mod over and over again, but also spend hours on checking out other players' games and fix the bugs they find. You're doing one hell of a job, and I hope you have fun doing all this.

[Joubarbe]

I'll teach my children X3 scripting to ensure that proper mod support will be provided.

[You Lose Profit]

Hello Joubarbe,

I just started x3 mayhem 3, and very early on the game crashes after deploying the outpost you receive after completing the first Ascension mission. In the savegame that I have attached I rushed to get to that point again, and it sill crashes no matter if I make a new game.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y7jUTT ... sp=sharing

Thanks,

You Lose Profit

[Joubarbe]

Wrong link, still access denied. You must authorize the sharing in the settings.