Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

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NewtSoup
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Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by NewtSoup » Tue, 30. Aug 22, 20:44

I have a fleet of Behemoth's guarding the north gate in Family Nhuut.

They are making a very effective mess of the parade of Xenon Raiding parties that come through. But also the stream of S Miners that are headed for the roid field in East Nhuut.

It made me wonder - Can I drain them of resources by specifically targeting their favoured mining sectors and just destroying everything that comes in?

Will it slow or even halt their spread? I don't mind them being around I just don't want them taking over the .. Galaxy? Cluster? What is the collective noun for the sectors that make up the game's map?
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dtpsprt
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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by dtpsprt » Tue, 30. Aug 22, 22:35

Yes. The Xenon are just as in need of resources as everyone else. The difference from ther factions is that they need only Ore, Silicon and Energy to produce ships and Stations. Once they are deprived of one of them they are "dead in the water".

Targeting the S Miners works two ways:

One, they can not get resources to build anything and two their shipyards are busy building fighting ships so they can not stop to replenish the S Miners, for which their resources are been crippled...

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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 30. Aug 22, 22:41

Destroying their 'S' supply ships (Miners and Power Supply) is very effective as both an early tactic to limit the speed of their initial expansion, and a long term tactic to limit their ability to repair their stations that you may be trying to remove by force. It is particularly effective where you might wish to limit their early inroads into HAT/ARG and ZYA sectors. (Remember to empty out any of their build storages you come across too.)

Another mid-game tactic that I use (in parallel) is to do quick hit-and-run raids on accessible Xenon Wharves and Shipyards with a *fast* capital of choice. I don't try to destroy the station nor their defences as that takes far too long, but destroying their storage modules (and ship building modules if they give you time) is a relatively quick and effective way of limiting their local fleet replenishment capability. I tend to go back and forth between the Shipyard and Wharf doing what damage I can and often with a Xenon capital patrol of an I and several Ks lumbering after me but never quite catching up (as long as I don't stay still for too long and try to keep the target station between us). Over time they will rebuild and restock what you have destroyed until you hit them again, but it takes them longer if you are also culling their supply ships and build storages.

You can similarly also fairly quickly take out storage and solar modules on their solar energy stations too, if you wish.
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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by NewtSoup » Tue, 30. Aug 22, 22:50

Very Nice, thanks guys.

My Fleet now named Vindy's VIndicators have now dispatched countless ships, 2 K and 2 Xenon Stations in Family Nhuut. A third K arrived but didn't engage as the second station blew. Instead it turned around and went back to the jump gate

I assume the AI had "Defend Station" in it's head and rather than being able to "Attack Enemies In Range" off the bat it went to default behaviour in the sector it came from. I didn't pursue it as Vindicator I ( Captain VIndy Kierk ) still had some hull damage from the last K encounter.

I am back up to 20 million and it's tempting to buy another Destroyer and bring the vindicators up to 7
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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Wed, 31. Aug 22, 21:54

While you can starve the Xenon there are reasons you may not want to.

In most of my games station demolition missions for NPC factions are a significant source of mid-late game income for me, as well as providing exceptional weapon mods as mission rewards. Consequently I do my best to limit the amount of damage I do to the Xenon to no more than is necessary. In particular I have my default fire authorisation override for the Xenon set to 'chivalrous' so my ships won't open fire on non-combat units. After all I can hardly make a ton of cash & get all those lovely mods if Xenon freighters & miners can't make their deliveries to the station building sites.

I also generally don't hunt Xenon warships either, unless they pose an immediate threat to my demolition fleet, or of course if someone's willing to pay for their destruction. Don't want the Xenon to have to divert an excessive amount of building materials to producing replacement ships that could instead be used for station construction. Furthermore a strong Xenon faction also does more damage to friendly NPC factions & guess who profits from keeping their shipyards well supplied...

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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 1. Sep 22, 16:12

Let say that you do kill all the S. The Xenon will build replacements in addition to military ships and stations. That depletes their material storage. If that continues, then they have no S and no materials in storage. Then they can build nothing. No new S to retrieve materials.

That did happen to Atiya in my game. The Xenon Wharf and Shipyard did linger a long time, helpless, until they too succumbed to attrition under ANT and HOP assaults.


Yes, you can "starve" them, but that can lead to a game with no Xenon threat.
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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 1. Sep 22, 22:00

The Xenon starve themselves usually. Eventually only 1 cluster seems to function correctly and becomes near incapable of expansion (over 24 hours to build a station).

This issue has started since 5.00 odd.

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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by dtpsprt » Thu, 1. Sep 22, 22:36

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 1. Sep 22, 22:00
The Xenon starve themselves usually. Eventually only 1 cluster seems to function correctly and becomes near incapable of expansion (over 24 hours to build a station).

This issue has started since 5.00 odd.
I have noticed it since the resource nerfing happened and the Terran Intervention Groups appeared in V4.00. Most people, at least the "regulars" in this Forum did not notice that since they were playing old games (at least at the time).

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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 1. Sep 22, 22:55

dtpsprt wrote:
Thu, 1. Sep 22, 22:36
I have noticed it since the resource nerfing happened and the Terran Intervention Groups appeared in V4.00. Most people, at least the "regulars" in this Forum did not notice that since they were playing old games (at least at the time).
Terran intervention corps used to be an issue due to L and XL guns never missing and turrets dealing far too little damage in low attention. This has been fixed. Now Destroyer I reasonably reliably wins over the Intervention Asgard.

However around the time this was fixed the Xenon AI was broken to the point they sacrifice most of their clusters (stop building ships in them) and then build a doom fleet in Matrix #9 and never expand. Even the nearby Matrix is sacrificed as well and attempts to rebuild in it take over a day of play time and still have not progressed past the initial foundation. Mean while Matrix #9 sits with 20 XL ships, enough to murder pretty much all NPC factions if they were to attack as a fleet. These ships only defend Matrix #9 except when the odd 2K + 1I raid is launched. They do not even defend the low health unbuilt stations right next door outside the jumpgates...

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Re: Is it possible to "starve" the Xenon?

Post by grapedog » Mon, 5. Sep 22, 20:07

Alan Phipps wrote:
Tue, 30. Aug 22, 22:41
Another mid-game tactic that I use (in parallel) is to do quick hit-and-run raids on accessible Xenon Wharves and Shipyards with a *fast* capital of choice. I don't try to destroy the station nor their defences as that takes far too long, but destroying their storage modules
I used to do something similar which is just take out their solar power plants, mainly the storage modules, but the solar panels too if I have time. It used to be pretty easy to find em relatively un/under-defended, quick hit and run, and you're out. Slows em down for a bit. Now that I play modded and they're juiced up quite a bit, I may have to go back to doing that. One of my gates sees at least an I an minute, sometimes quicker.

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