[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[XenonArchitect7]

Wait, so no more capitals doing fighter-style attack runs on stations, where 80% of the time they are awkwardly spinning around trying to fly back out for the next dive?

I had always assumed that was hard-coded into the game engine, it's impressive you have managed to rewrite that behavior.

[Fureimuu]

Pretty sure there was an update in Mayhem that made capitals keep distance from their target. Might be wrong tho.

UPD: yeah its in the 2 latest updates xD Not sure if it affects station combat.

[Joubarbe]

@XenonArchitect7: Actually I thought the same. Then I realized that the attack scripts were very messy. I don't even understand how the game runs ok with them. The whole "fighter-style attack" is actually removed. But the fallback mechanics doesn't apply to huge ships, so yeah, they should go and make a full stop in front of the station they're attacking. Against other moving ships, I'll keep them moving, because I think it gives a random opportunity to use all their turrets. The vanilla game gives a lot of time to all ships to do what they call "defensive manoeuvres". Which is, in a nutshell, doing nonsense cryptic moves that randomly avoid lasers, if you're lucky. That behavior is even triggered when the ship is trying to avoid other ships. In other words, it's not efficient at all. ("defensive manoeuvres" are hardcoded)

@Fureimuu: The changes in the latest patch concern the "broadside" combat-style Litcube implemented. I've totally removed that behavior, for a more static approach. In Mayhem 2, I've tried to fix this thing, because it can be buggy sometimes. My solution is not perfect either.

[Xenon-Fan]

Greetings,

I decided to start playing Mayhem soon and while the future of the 3rd installment sounds fantastic i would like to try out Mayhem 2 first.
My question though is: Is it absolutely imperative to get my first own sector soonish or could i just play classicely building my trade empire without any own sectors? whats gonna happen if i dont claim them? Will the races just take them over themselves?

regarding Mayhem 3:
with the randomized universe sounding fantastic, have you considered giving the races only a few sectors for the start, making the majority of sectors neutral, so that the races will first have to expand like in the old xtended mod?

[Joubarbe]

IIRC, in Mayhem 2 you have 24 hours before the other factions start claiming Unknown sectors. At some point, you're going to need to capture a sector, it's an essential part of the mod.

About the starting state of the galaxy in Mayhem 3. Yes, my first idea in Stardust (another project) was to have empty galaxies from which every faction starts from scratch. This was a very crucial point to deliberate, but at the end, starting in an empty world makes everything slow and dull. X3 is fun because there's a whole galaxy to explore and contemplate, with hundreds of ships doing their business, like you just pop into that and have to make your way up. Starting from nothing is good for 4X and RTS, but in X3 you pilot your own ship, and if there's absolutely nothing outside, you just hit SETA and wait for something to happen. In Mayhem 3, as soon as you finish your Ascension, all Battle Groups start to claim new sectors, it's very lively.

Having an already generated universe was a lot of work, and technically, it's now "impossible" to start from nothing. That being said, you can influence the number of Unknown sectors (to some extent) with the "Galaxy Expansion" slider (early, average, advanced) in the Game Creator.

[Fureimuu]

I love starting from scratch.

[Hector0x]

My question though is: Is it absolutely imperative to get my first own sector soonish or could i just play classicely building my trade empire without any own sectors? whats gonna happen if i dont claim them? Will the races just take them over themselves?

A quite peaceful trade empire is entirely possible and i encourage you to try. But you won't be able to "beat" the game with this. There are two major mechanics which kind of convice the player into making progress. OCV forces you to invest into military (but only very little if you don't claim many sectors) and dwindling neutral sectors create a desire to build your economy and earn cash.
The key is that NPC strength is very much linked to your threat level. If you stay in a single sector, the AI's will claim all remaining empty space. This isn't a bad thing because at the same time all militaries will also stay fairly weak. Yes your threat level also rises every 24h, but this doesn't weigh in much unless you sit there with SETA and do nothing. Meanwhile your ability to earn cash is not very limited by the fact that you only have one sector. Even one can churn out a large merchant fleet and later combat ships. You may have to deconstruct and replace some factories to get certain goods, but most components can be bought anyway. Especially if you focus on trade and stay peaceful with everyone.
When you feel ready, flip the table and attack a major facton to get more land!

I still recommend to establish at least one sector very early. Bailed or bought ships are lacking random extensions. Half the time important commands are missing and you will pull your hair out trying to use those to build up a large trading fleet. A single sanctuary with the ship hangar perk will keep your sanity. Normal gamestart in unknown sector omega should be best for beginners. It's safe, sector stats are allound and decent. You often have many different trading partners nearby.

TLDR: Choose normal gamestart and take the ship hagar perk. Don't panic about OCV and NPC's taking away neutral sectors. Have a small wing of M4/M3 until the first OCV invasion. Everything else will come in time.

[Xenon-Fan]

TLDR: Choose normal gamestart and take the ship hagar perk. Don't panic about OCV and NPC's taking away neutral sectors. Have a small wing of M4/M3 until the first OCV invasion. Everything else will come in time.

Thanks for the advise. So while playing the tutorial start (which i wont continue) i learned that every sanctuary has 4 perks. Some ppl here suggested earlier to take no food perk but i feel like the "one sector challenge" might be better off taking different perks since food is cheap anyways.

Hangar perk goes without question and i was considering faster research and ?maybe? cheaper stations but probably not since the station limit will make this perk useless once i built my sector.

Any perk suggestions?

[Joubarbe]

If you really want to go with a "one sector challenge", I recommend to wait and see. If you choose all your perks at the start, you force yourself into a very static game. You should play a bit and select a perk if you really feel the need for it. In your situation, cheaper stations and faster research are pretty useless. Your game is going to be slow, and a lot of SETA will be needed. Besides, if you only have one station, you will gather all your resources at only one point.

[Edna]

I had the luck to get a nice Quickstart game where the four sectors leading to Unknown Omega were empty, so that gave me a pretty solid launch, so it gave me a little change to the otherwise rather repetitive gameplay phases (Exploring/Battle-Missions/Deploying Satellites Phase; Collection Phase; Capture Phase; Empire Phase). That way I also was allowed to be rather lazy with the perks. Since the systems were all connected, the linking bonus perk made sense, and I went to war with Paranids and ATF/Terrans rather early for the additional perks, ascended and got the double tax trait, so all Sanctuaries were fully self-sufficient due to No Food Consumption, Tax, Solar Collectors and then their individual system-related perks (Unknown Omega had recycling and marines, Ares Iota was my shipyard, one other system was producing ship components and energy, another one produced all the equipment).

In the last phase I was constantly capturing Dreadnoughts from the Split and Argons, the Ocelote being my favourite warship while my stolen Boron M7s were defending my systems. Every sector had their defense platforms, but I sadly had to realize that they aren't aggroing the OCV as much as they are praised to do it. The sectors also felt pretty cramped when they had full station deployment, platforms and capitals roaming around. Still less lag-inducing than doing it the Hector0x-way, spamming fighters all over the place (which is clearly the superior way of dealing with the early OCV capitals).

Despite me playing it lazy, the micromanagement became sorta troublesome and I stopped playing a few hours before the global OCV invasion. Which sorta bugs me now since I never found out about what comes next, but right now I rather wait for Mayhem 3. The hype is always the best.

[Hector0x]

Thanks for the advise. So while playing the tutorial start (which i wont continue) i learned that every sanctuary has 4 perks. Some ppl here suggested earlier to take no food perk but i feel like the "one sector challenge" might be better off taking different perks since food is cheap anyways.

Hangar perk goes without question and i was considering faster research and ?maybe? cheaper stations but probably not since the station limit will make this perk useless once i built my sector.

Any perk suggestions?

If i only had access to 4 perks for a very long time, then i would go for:
1) ship hangar
2) increased maximum specialization. This is kind of a no brainer on all production sanctuaries. Makes stuff cheaper after some time. Your first ship hangar will likely level up fastest, so this perk should always go with it (imho).
3) all ships equipped with quantum jump gate. The flexibility this item gives is astonishing. Getting it for free is pure comfort and it will also save a lot of crystals (cash). For me this is also a no brainer on the main ship production.
4) marine barracks or laser production. Lasers only if i knew i would end up attacking a faction and need to produce their weapons on my own. If you don't like those perks you should leave this blank for now because hidden perks do exist.

Simple buffs like no food, cheap stations, tax or faster research all have good uses. Overall i think i used those more than any other perks. But never in the first couple sanctuaries.

[mmorpgeek]

Hello
I just installed litecube with patch 1.7.2 and mayhem ... All works really fine except with weapons.The firing rates seems broken.
All the lasers are firing irregularly.
I did an installation from scratch following the installation wiki.
I have the same matter when i did a new installation with only Litecube 1.7.2. i did a post on Litecube Thread ..
I don't have this problem with original vanilla game patched with X3AP_3.3_nonsteam
Any idea ??

[Joubarbe]

Define "irregularly". If you expect all lasers to fire at the same time, that's not how X3 works.

[mmorpgeek]

Merci bcp Thanks for the explanations ...
Keep up the work that has made X3 beautiful. I haven't tested Mayhem 3 yet but it's encouraging ^^

[Joubarbe]

Devblog #589: Marines

There are now more than 1 billion people quarantined in their home waiting for Mayhem 3. So let's talk about marines!
First: I've recoded everything from scratch. The current system in Mayhem 2 was kind of an experiment at start, then I was too lazy to properly balance it. On paper, it seems fun to have a complex mini-game with plenty of stats to play with. It's not. I feel there's a major flaw, that is that during a boarding mission, the player does nothing. In Mayhem 3, despite the mod being very much like a simplified 4X, I want to involve the player a bit more, as long as it doesn't feel too "unnatural". So, with this new system, and knowing the fact that your marines are now just poor guys you pick up in space (or any other way) and enslave, you must lead them from the comfort of your cockpit.
Only M1, M2 and M7 can be boarded, and boarding is not available in early games. Each ship has several decks that you must hack one by one to access the upper deck, where you'll be able to install a backdoor into the system, and take full control of the ship whenever you want (you can exfiltrate your marines, then return back anytime). In each deck, you have several types of rooms, like Storage rooms, Reactors, Servers, Communication rooms, etc. (13 types in total). Each of these rooms can be secured by a device, like a camera, or a sensor. How do you take care of that? One word: tasks! The core of this new system is about assigning tasks to your marines. One marine can only work on one task at a time, and it takes a various amount of time to complete one (time that is influenced by one of those skills: Leadership, Logic, Perception, Craftsmanship). So, for example, let's say a room is protected by a camera. Hacking cameras require Logic, so you assign your clever guy to this task. Once the camera is off, the room becomes safe and depending on its type, several other tasks become available. For instance, in the Reactor, you can sabotage the engines to temporarily stop the ship from moving; and in the Communication room, you can amplify the transmission between you and your guys to reduce the order delay (the further you are from the boarded ship, the longer the order delays). There's a lot of other tasks that I won't describe here.
To access the upper deck and install the backdoor, you must hack each deck. That task requires that no proxy servers are activated on the deck. Each room can have a proxy. You also need to have 1 Hackerchip, which is a new item craftable from crystals. Of course, there's a twist: in each deck, there's a Sentinel patrolling. A Sentinel is a robot that can sense the presence of your marines. You have a timer indicating when it's coming. If you are still here when the Sentinel arrives, you'll have to fight it (through a special task) and risk a marine to be injured. When a marine is injured twice, he dies.

"No combat between marines then?", you may ask. Well... no. No equipment, no gear, no weapons. Lore-wise, I see all ships as AI-controlled vessels. But with the Terraformers in mind, the Terrans force everyone to put a human in every ship, to oversee the AI. This guy is called "the pilot", and that explains why you only see one guy getting out of the ship when he bails out. That also explains one new rule: every ship requires 1 population. However, this one guy could cause some problems to your marines...

With this new system, I also want the player to feel more attached to his marines. A full team is now composed of only 4 marines, and TPs cannot take more than that (was 40 in Mayhem 2). Also, marines can now become pilots of any of your ships, if you decide to. As pilot, a marine receives XP (aka. skill points) whenever he destroys a ship (the amount of XP depends on the ship class he killed). If several marines are piloting multiple ships that are 1/ in the same fleet 2/ in the same wing 3/ your wingmen, they will share the XP.

[Fureimuu]

Interesting stuff, can't wait to test it out. So ships will no longer be protected by X amount of marines?

[Joubarbe]

No enemy marines inside. You take risks. Two injuries, you die. If you don't want to take risks, you don't die

[Edna]

Joubarbe, just between you and me, have you recently been exposed to Stargate? Because your marines concept describes one third of the show's episodes. The other two thirds are walking through suspiciously similar looking forests.

[Joubarbe]

I've seen the movie... in 1994. But that's about it

[Hector0x]

every ship requires 1 population.

Like it very much (+your new marine concept ofc).
With this and the new scan mechanic i'm hopeful to cure my fighter-addiction.

Also gives you another balancing handle.
Which makes me recommend adding an inverse exponential function to population growth. Slow it down more and more before it reaches the maximum.

This makes those last 20 people more valuable without nerfing early game production speed.