Advice on mods

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Hangar181
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Advice on mods

Post by Hangar181 » Thu, 14. Jul 22, 07:06

I'm looking to start a new game with mods but keen to avoid the last game situation where the Xenon steamrolled the entire universe! I used VRO + VRO Ship pack and a few cosmetic extras that didnt change anything major (smoke and fire etc). Reluctant to use VRO again as, although I liked it, I gather it was the primary reason why the Xenon were so strong. The main things I'm looking for in the next game are:

1. Xenon not becoming an insurmountable force
2. Better economies - spent the last game continually refilling hull parts to non-terran races and had to build my own missile components factory to complete a mission!
3. Maybe a few extra ships and weapons for variety

There's so many mods out there that might do what I'm after from their description (e.g. balanced economies, "bounce back" factions that have a rubber banding AI), but I dont want to sink another 50 hours into a new start only to find the economy has gone to sh1t and the Xenon have wiped out every man and his dog.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

CBJ
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EGOSOFT
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by CBJ » Thu, 14. Jul 22, 09:46

Please use the Scripts and Modding forum (where this thread now is) for questions and issues relating to mods.

LameFox
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by LameFox » Thu, 14. Jul 22, 09:48

I didn't find the Xenon were too bad in VRO. The thing is in a default start, even vanilla, some of the game's economies are bad by design so you have niches to enter, and if you don't do that, the Xenon in a luckier start will simply overrun them. VRO does give them some better ships but at the end of the day it's really the economy that kills them. It happens to ZYA more often than not, in my experience. Other factions can be unlucky too, but it's more random. If you use mods to boost the economy, the Xenon will probably not do as well as that.

Probably the most straightforward economy saving mod (tho it does cheat) is Deadair Fill. Since you can configure it to keep ship making stations from becoming totally empty, factions are much less likely to become helpless to Xenon. So I think first off I'd try that and set it up maybe with slightly higher minimums than default, and see if they fare a bit better.
***modified***

af_2017
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by af_2017 » Thu, 14. Jul 22, 15:56

Consider starting new game without Split Vendetta dlc.
No splits - no xenon rush.
Terran should handle the rest.
X4 is not a destination. It's a journey. Unfortunately in a wrong direction.

LameFox
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by LameFox » Thu, 14. Jul 22, 16:18

af_2017 wrote:
Thu, 14. Jul 22, 15:56
Consider starting new game without Split Vendetta dlc.
No splits - no xenon rush.
Terran should handle the rest.
If you're willing to go that far, just using a custom start with the split plot completed in favour of ZYA will make them a lot stronger without taking a huge chunk of your map and factions away.
***modified***

Hangar181
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Hangar181 » Fri, 15. Jul 22, 08:18

Thx all, maybe I was unlucky in my VRO start but am going with vanilla for now. One thing I found bizarre was how quickly the Xenon replaced sectors - I built up an army of 30 Syns to wipe them out of Hatikvah 1 and went from south (argon prime end) to north. By the time I was destroying their last station near the far north gate, they had already rebuilt a solar plant and a defense station in the south!! I have no idea how given Argon prime was still Argon owned - they must be cheating somehow but whether that is VRO specific or Vanilla too remains to be seen.

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Shuulo
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Shuulo » Fri, 15. Jul 22, 11:10

Hangar181 wrote:
Thu, 14. Jul 22, 07:06
I used VRO + VRO Ship pack
I do not recommend using XR shippack, it has no connection to VRO itself and makes very bad edits to jobs, breakes economy (what you see in your game) and galaxy balance.
VRO is well balanced at this point to have a constant but not hugely overwhelming Xenon threat, but not if you are using XR shippack.

Hangar181
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Hangar181 » Fri, 15. Jul 22, 14:56

Shuulo wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 11:10
[quote=Hangar181 post_id=5135322 time=<a href="tel:1657775182">1657775182</a> user_id=569442]
I used VRO + VRO Ship pack
I do not recommend using XR shippack, it has no connection to VRO itself and makes very bad edits to jobs, breakes economy (what you see in your game) and galaxy balance.
VRO is well balanced at this point to have a constant but not hugely overwhelming Xenon threat, but not if you are using XR shippack.
[/quote]

Ah thank you!! I had no idea the VRO Xr ship pack wasn’t connected to VRO! I’ll restart VRO but just wondering if you can recommend ANY ship packs for VRO that won’t stuff things up? I’m just after a few extra ships for variety.

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Shuulo
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Shuulo » Fri, 15. Jul 22, 15:27

Hangar181 wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 14:56
Ah thank you!! I had no idea the VRO Xr ship pack wasn’t connected to VRO! I’ll restart VRO but just wondering if you can recommend ANY ship packs for VRO that won’t stuff things up? I’m just after a few extra ships for variety.
VRO already adds more ships, you can check on wiki, other than that, using shippacks is totally on you, as wel las risks for that.
I can recommend DeadAir EVE mods though, they come as separate factions and are well tested, but can cost you a bit of FPS.

ScandyNav
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by ScandyNav » Fri, 15. Jul 22, 22:13

Shuulo wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 15:27
Hangar181 wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 14:56
Ah thank you!! I had no idea the VRO Xr ship pack wasn’t connected to VRO! I’ll restart VRO but just wondering if you can recommend ANY ship packs for VRO that won’t stuff things up? I’m just after a few extra ships for variety.
VRO already adds more ships, you can check on wiki, other than that, using shippacks is totally on you, as wel las risks for that.
I can recommend DeadAir EVE mods though, they come as separate factions and are well tested, but can cost you a bit of FPS.
VRO adds absolutely imbalanced terran cruisers on top of existing Asgard and Syn. Without mods, such as XR ship pack, other factions are pathetic in comparison with Terrans. Isn't it enough to just delete jobs.xml from XR ship pack?

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Lord Dakier
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Lord Dakier » Sun, 17. Jul 22, 12:26

ScandyNav wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 22:13
Shuulo wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 15:27
Hangar181 wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 14:56
Ah thank you!! I had no idea the VRO Xr ship pack wasn’t connected to VRO! I’ll restart VRO but just wondering if you can recommend ANY ship packs for VRO that won’t stuff things up? I’m just after a few extra ships for variety.
VRO already adds more ships, you can check on wiki, other than that, using shippacks is totally on you, as wel las risks for that.
I can recommend DeadAir EVE mods though, they come as separate factions and are well tested, but can cost you a bit of FPS.
VRO adds absolutely imbalanced terran cruisers on top of existing Asgard and Syn. Without mods, such as XR ship pack, other factions are pathetic in comparison with Terrans. Isn't it enough to just delete jobs.xml from XR ship pack?
The Terran cruisers weren't that well balanced upon their inclusion into VRO, I believe Shuulo changed that. The VRO Asgard and Syn balance is perfectly fine. The Asgard is nerfed from its vanilla state where its a complete game-ender alone.

XR Ship Pack is awfully balanced to the point where they're just cheat ships in comparison with some of the vanilla ones. I'm not even sure why people use it, the ships are mostly awful looking do no fit the theme of X4.

ScandyNav
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by ScandyNav » Sun, 17. Jul 22, 15:41

Lord Dakier wrote:
Sun, 17. Jul 22, 12:26
ScandyNav wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 22:13
Shuulo wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 15:27


VRO already adds more ships, you can check on wiki, other than that, using shippacks is totally on you, as wel las risks for that.
I can recommend DeadAir EVE mods though, they come as separate factions and are well tested, but can cost you a bit of FPS.
VRO adds absolutely imbalanced terran cruisers on top of existing Asgard and Syn. Without mods, such as XR ship pack, other factions are pathetic in comparison with Terrans. Isn't it enough to just delete jobs.xml from XR ship pack?
The Terran cruisers weren't that well balanced upon their inclusion into VRO, I believe Shuulo changed that. The VRO Asgard and Syn balance is perfectly fine. The Asgard is nerfed from its vanilla state where its a complete game-ender alone.

XR Ship Pack is awfully balanced to the point where they're just cheat ships in comparison with some of the vanilla ones. I'm not even sure why people use it, the ships are mostly awful looking do no fit the theme of X4.
Raptor is balanced against Colossus? Syn against Behemoth?
Ship pack only closes such gaps.
And how is that ships from X Universe game X-Rebirth are "not fit into theme" ?

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Lord Dakier
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by Lord Dakier » Sun, 17. Jul 22, 16:11

ScandyNav wrote:
Sun, 17. Jul 22, 15:41
Lord Dakier wrote:
Sun, 17. Jul 22, 12:26
ScandyNav wrote:
Fri, 15. Jul 22, 22:13

VRO adds absolutely imbalanced terran cruisers on top of existing Asgard and Syn. Without mods, such as XR ship pack, other factions are pathetic in comparison with Terrans. Isn't it enough to just delete jobs.xml from XR ship pack?
The Terran cruisers weren't that well balanced upon their inclusion into VRO, I believe Shuulo changed that. The VRO Asgard and Syn balance is perfectly fine. The Asgard is nerfed from its vanilla state where its a complete game-ender alone.

XR Ship Pack is awfully balanced to the point where they're just cheat ships in comparison with some of the vanilla ones. I'm not even sure why people use it, the ships are mostly awful looking do no fit the theme of X4.
Raptor is balanced against Colossus? Syn against Behemoth?
Ship pack only closes such gaps.
And how is that ships from X Universe game X-Rebirth are "not fit into theme" ?
The Raptor and Syn are both vanilla DLC ships. Both vanilla forms are far deadlier than their VRO counterparts in comparison with the respective ships you suggested. The ship packs ships don't close a gap at all, they're simply broken lol.

They don't fit the theme because the designs of X4 are completely different. The Paranid ships for example, look nothing akin to the X4 designs.

Stop embarrassing yourself please.

user1679
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Re: Advice on mods

Post by user1679 » Tue, 19. Jul 22, 03:21

VRO, ROR, FOCW, XRShipPack are all great mods. Personally I didn't find them imbalanced in the 5.x version of the game (though XRShipPack isn't compatible with other mods I use now). For
me the problem is the number of ships added in each mod's jobs.xml. My CPU became a bottleneck.

I'm currently using VRO, ROR and FOCW and I had to modify the VRO jobs.xml to decrease the amount of ships added. I found within 5 minutes of a new game, my FPS was betwen 12-18
while on a station because of all the AI ships crashing around. When I looked at the VRO jobs, there were some Xenon fleets spawned with 40 wingmen... Even though they were't in my
sector, the X4 engine doesn't stop or pause their AI.

I would suggest using all those mods but if you have an i5-7500 or similar, you will need to modify or delete their jobs.xml files. Removing them completely only removes the additional
spawns but you can use FOCW to fine-tune spawns instead.

WIthout the added jobs.xml and FOCW set to "light" for most options, my FPS is now back to around 68 in space and 32 around stations. I'm still enjoying things, 10 minutes in and
there's already a Xenon battle cruiser hanging around the gate in Argon Prime and I can watch the battle from my crappy single-engine plane without it being a slideshow.

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