Well, some points while I am playing with 10x larger sectors - using (now hidden) mod larger sectors (Nexus '
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations ... posts&BH=0') for several months now.
This mod uses(used) X4 Customizer to enlarge all (vanilla) sectors 10 times, and also increases the travel drive speed 10x.
Also using additional mods:
+ Sector Satellites (here the enemy detection and the explorer probes)
+ Jump Drive Research
+ Luxury Satellite & Laser Tower Mk 3-Resource Probe Mk 2 (using the luxury sat.)
+ Increased Long Range Scanner (500km)
+ Spherical Long Range Scan (for conv.)
Also: 'IS' - In sector (player is in the sector); 'OOS' - out of sector (player is outside the sector)
No in-sector highways! (switched of by custom start)
Now, while playing with it, some points I found out. This may also be the case in yours when (later) playing...
- Space is big, nothing new. Most station cannot be found and seen like in vanilla. You may need additional mods like mention Scanner and Sat. mods. Some mods are cheat like, while they detect all stations (eg. mod sector sat. explorer probes). Also, a lot of stations may be placed way higher or lower (y-axis).
- Traveling takes time, even when using a mod for faster travelengine. Also a faster travel speed need a larger time/way to decelerate. This may leed to problems with missions like follow ship/find & scan ship(s), ... In this cases you need to use traveldrive - disengage traveldrive - engage traveldrive - and so on, so you can hold the distance or get to the target.
- Research mission - the race for the mod research: This may get harder. Try to reload a save before, so it reset the course. It seems that its hardcoded into X4. So you may have problems to win it. Sometimes the race course is to large to get it done, or some objects are in the way. If its a station, you may edit the save.xml to replace the station. I had to reset it 3times, and then relocated a station to get a clear course to win.
- X4 seems to place stations near the gates. I had a teladi trade station directly after the gate (the same that prevented me from winning the research race). This trade stations was very near the gate. If 'IS' you never could use travel drive - always hitting and then stuck inside the station mesh. If coming from the other sector - same problem. Moved the station in the save.xml, to avoid this.
- Planets: ...are dangerous. Eg. Hathikva - here through the enlarged sector, I got the trade station (with the Representativ) very near it. 'IS' I can only fly from center-above to the station, but not directly (travel drive!) from a gate. If doing so, I will be destroyed by the planet. So, if you enlarge such sectors, plz. be sure that stations are not placed in the atmosphere. (As a workaround in such cases: send a ship OOS to dock, then teleport to it - and you are fine.)
- Trade and building: it takes a lot more time, bec. of the distances involved. Also it needs more exploration, because you may not find the needed factories and therefore their products. I use a jump drive mod (needs research first), with this (also NPC uses them) you can shorten the travel times and with that fasten trade/build time.
- Patrol (sector), attack fleets, etc...: Also take more time to respond. And BIG thing to know, the radar range of your ship is still 40km! That means in case of patrol in an eg. 3000km sector you may patrol only empty space, bec. your ship/fleet cannot see the enemies. I use mod (steam version) sector patrol, with parking at the sector core, this helps, as long as you have a decent satellite coverage (using the luxury sats from above mod). Now my patrol fleet respond 'mostly'.
- Sector core: where is it? Several mods/commands using the sector core as a starting point. E.g. Sector explorer mod, here you can set several things how to discover th esector and its objects. Same if you use resupply ships and give them the support fleet order, BUT set a sector as the target and no commander, then this resupply ship will be around the sector core. So it cannot resupply ships who are out of radar range to detect this resupply ship. The problem I encounter, is that the sector core may also way to high or low from the normal plane. This should be reconsiderd when you create the sectors.
- Speed: Is the key to a enlarged sector/universe, but as metion above it may be a little bit tricky now in case of missions. I didn't use your real speed mod by now. I also encountered a problem when I command ship to eg. deploy sats. at a give point. In this case the m ship flys full (travel-) speed to the point and releases the sat. But now, in some cases, the sat still has the drift from the ship itself - and its now floating away... (well, as in real life
)
- CPU impact: found none! Well, if you use travel mules a lot, read their faq. If you have (as I had in an earlier play) around 60+ active mules - this then starts to takes a toll onto your cpu. Same if you are in 'need' of a overwhelming HQ with everything (as me
. Even some NPC sectors have ~50 stations - no problems encounterd.
- GPU impact: found none! (Only visual mod; using your star mod, no problem.)
Still, I like larger sectors. Its more interessting. You need to explore a lot lore, and you also need to plan more (in the beginning and in case you need products for your station building/factories. So I am realy looking forward to yours
It also seems, that the X4 AI likes to cluster and build alongside travel lines (I don't have sector highways). When started, most stations are placed in the sector (randomly?). After several hours the new build stations are mostly in the neighbourhood of others or even anlong the travel lanes. E.g. from gate-to-gate, I build my own 7 factories, now during playtime HAT now placed a lot of its factory beside, across and nearby. While in other sectors I have small clusters. That I like a lot - this seems more realistic, and with larger sectors it even looks greater.
I also use XUniverse, XPand (Xpanded sector adv.) and New Horizons Old Lands. Everything works together. Is there a change that this sector mods can be used together with yours? I think its only about the positioning in the galaxy.xml.