X3TC Noble Quest To Slay Xenon (Story)

[CerebralAbrasion]

For a long time I've fantasized about pushing through a series of Xenon sectors, destroying everything in my path. Specifically, the string of sectors starting south of Zyarths Dominion. Today, I did just that, with just a Springblossom and Claymore. I figured the Springblossom would be fast enough to keep up with me in my Claymore, and it's shockwave cannons would protect me from fighters while I pounded the heavy targets with phantoms. The plan worked brilliantly. I jumped into enemy territory and told Springblossom to follow me. I got a bit of distance from the main threats while SB fragged a few pesky scouts. Then I let the phantoms fly and annihilated a bunch of Q's, K's, and whatever their carrier is called. Their heavy fighters couldn't get away from the phantoms either Then I mosied on to the next sector, repeat performance. By the time I got to the Xenon core though I was running out of steam. Enemy ships were spawning right and left, and SB was getting over run with more fighters than 3 shockwave cannons could handle. I nuked the crap out of the Xenon station and shipyard, called it good, and jumped away. Then just for kicks I jumped into a few more Xenon sectors and nuked those shipyards too. Next time I make a push I think I'll bring some destroyers to mop up all the fighters, and maybe an Aran so I can dock the fragile Claymore and get into my hyperion or aquilo to help with the mopping.

I'd hoped that massacering the Xenon would set them back for a while, but as I've read online it doesn't work this way. For the next 20 minutes the universe was in chaos with Xenon appearing everywhere. I'm holding down Xenon sector 472 with Osakas and laser towers. I watched on the map as my Osakas took out Q after Q after Q along with masses of fighters, it was insane.

As a side note, I think the Xenon respawn rate is too fast. If the player goes to the trouble of slaying hundreds of Xenon ships and blowing up multiple shipyards, shouldn't he be rewarded with at least a few hours of peace? Anyway, I'm off to bed to have happy dreams of exploding Q's, thanks for reading!

[Feersum]

Well done, sounds like tons of fun.

[MrFiction]

Nice story! I always enjoy taking down Xenon sectors, although like you said it gets a bit ridiculous when waves of Xenon ships start appearing out of nowhere. Doing things like this with a single M7 will give you some very intense combat.

[Honved]

Really a shame that the various races don't have some kind of "economy" that limits production of new ships, so if they lose a LOT of stuff, it takes a long time to recover, while minor losses are quickly replaced.

That would require one variable per race for a "reserve" point pool, plus a quick calculation based on controlled sectors of how many points are added per hour. There should be a maximum cap on the pool, and a minimum amount that gets added regardless of controlled sectors, so you can't wipe out a race permanently, but can reduce them to occasional spawns of stray ships.

That would allow a sizable race fleet to be at least partially replaced immediately after a major battle, and the rest would gradually reappear over the course of a few days. Repeated battles and eventual losses of complete sectors would weaken a race until they couldn't replace losses, other than one or two fighters per day and perhaps a capital ship every so many days. That would allow a player to "nearly wipe out" the Xenon or another race, or weaken them to the point of being non-threatening, rather than having any assault on their sectors and destruction of fleets lead to almost immediate counter-assaults throughout the rest of the game universe as the ships respawn.

As it now stands, it really doesn't pay to fight any kind of serious war, because it merely spawns the ships somewhere else.