[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[herocrafter]

Thank you alexalsp!! I somehow manage to make simple things complicated.

[dunderhead327]

It's best to take a copy of your X3AP directory, and install NoSteam, LU, and Mayhem to the copy. This should prevent any problems if Steam tries to update AP, and you can still play AP or even try other mods without affecting Mayhem.

[herocrafter]

I've set it up exactly as you wrote. I sure I've got a steep learning experience as I never even did Litcube mod. Extended was what I was into oh so long ago.

I've generated a hollow scratch galaxy (yeah I disregarded the warning) and I could use some help here. Looking at the preview screen I don't know which colors belong to which race. Yellow, green, blue, purple and peach? each have 1 sector and brown has one plus a cross elsewhere. Which color is the player and who is brown and who is yellow (yellow is off all by itself).

[Hector0x]

Yellow - Teladi
Blue - Argon
Green - Boron
Purple - Split
Peach - Paranid
Brown - Xenon

The player doesn't start with any sector. After the initial questline you get a big transporter which can colonize any empty sector to start your empire.

You've activated 'none' expansion since all main factions start with just 1 sector. For your first game i'd recommend to choose 'early' or 'average'.

With 'none' expansion the pirates and xenon tend to be more dangerous.

[dunderhead327]

I sure I've got a steep learning experience as I never even did Litcube mod. Extended was what I was into oh so long ago.

Mayhem is very different to LU, so that shouldn't be any handicap.

I've generated a hollow scratch galaxy (yeah I disregarded the warning) and I could use some help here.

The problem with a hollowed galaxy is that your workers (when you get them) have to go all the way round, instead of cutting across the centre of the galaxy, and are more likely to get into trouble. Extra Sector Stats will give you more to work with.

Your first order of business is to map some hotkeys. One for the Player Console is probably the most important - lots of information in there. Also, have a look at the options in the t-file (that's [game directory]\addon\t\9972-L044.xml ). Personally, I always change the limits on bailed ships (options 197 and 214) - just imagine the pilot's thought process - "Oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die. I'll have to punch out. Oh, I can't, there are already two abandoned Xenon Ns in the sector."!

Have fun.

[herocrafter]

Thank you both. I was stumped on the galaxy map colors without a legend. I didn't want to bore you with the minutiae before but since you mentioned extra sector stats, well I did tick extra sector stats along with clustered Xenons, limited enclaves, and hollowed. I haven't hit the run button yet so I'll definitely take a look in the t folder as well as some YouTube's and remember to set the hotkeys. I watched the first of Darth Fiscus's video guide of Mayhem 3 and will watch a few more.

About the workers. If I'm not mistaken, my workers (of which I have no idea about, yet) that have to go around the hollow wouldn't be at a disadvantage to the other races as their workers must also go around. Being on equal footing with the AI was, as Joubarbe wrote, a core philosophy. My hope here is that it slows down the game while I get my feet wet. I'm sure I'll get crushed, but as is said in Dwarf Fortress: losing is Fun.

[dunderhead327]

Ah, but if the galaxy is hollowed, your workers are forced to use a relatively narrow corridor (which may be blocked by enemy sectors), whereas if it isn't you may be able to set up somewhere in the middle. You would then have the advantage of interior lines, and the workers would have more safe routing options.

[Hector0x]

well it's not like your workers should fly through the entire galaxy. From my experience the maximum feasible range they can go is 3-4 sectors. Anything higher gets really inefficient because the factory reserves wares for incoming ships so only 1 can be en route at the same time.

Later you can also build your own wormhole connections to let your workers jump over that big gap in the middle. Hollowed galaxy is fun. I played one myself one time. Only the additional scrolling on the galaxy map can be tedious and it's always a clean cut out in the middle. No hidden pathways or dead ends. That would be cool.

[dunderhead327]

All true.

Sometimes I overthink things. You may have noticed!

[herocrafter]

Map I rolled with is below and now i have this feeling that the map didn't really matter much. Six minutes in and 4 of my satellite were destroyed. Fine I wasn't heading that direction anyway. The pace of sector grabbing was furious. 50 claimed in 5 or 6 hours. Lots of loot in space that i couldn't pick up was difficult at first but I became numb after a while. Patience. My time would come. Right? After 6 hrs I ascended. The TL with my HQ will have many sectors to fly though to get where I want it (around the NW corner). Hopefully it will still be unclaimed by then. I already plan to plop it down next to a claimed sector. First one is OK. Claimed a few ships. Did one mission and it got a smile out of me as I was the "bait". Cute. Anyway I thought I'd share a bit and maybe you can remember your first attempt.

[Hector0x]

Hopefully it will still be unclaimed by then.

This is the type of psychological warfare that this mod wages against us

But at least you don't have to fear that there will be nothing left for you. There is a hidden minimum number of empty sectors that the NPCs must leave untouched. This limit will only go down step by step as you expand into more sectors. Eventually there will be no empty space left. That's when things get interesting

With this type of gamestart (where all factions have just 1 sector) they can build everything for free for the first couple hours and their initial fleets can conquer sectors 'on the fly' to expand very quickly until the gameworld hits this hidden limit of minimum neutral sectors which must remain available for the player.

With 'none' expansion it might seem like the NPCs are getting less of a headstart based on the starting condition, but this is mostly an illusion. The amount of neutral sectors you will find once you're actually ready to claim them will almost always be the same. Your starting conditions don't really matter. If you play with 'no' expansion the galaxy has many neutral sectors but the AI can claim-rush them. If you start with 'advanced' expansion you have less neutral sectors but the AI leaves them almost untouched. This actually makes it more predictable which sectors will be left for you. I personally like 'advanced' expansion a lot.

[dunderhead327]

There are a couple of options in the t-file which should limit their initial expansion. 198 forces them to wait until you complete your ascension, and 196 specifies how long they can build things for free.

I've never used them, so I don't know how much they would actually affect your game.

[Betelgeuse97]

I'm thinking of trying this mod again (I get bored once I conquer most of the galaxy), but is this mod finalized or still WIP?

[Hector0x]

Joubarbe has left us for the time being. I don't know how long and hopefully he will come back some day. But the mod is pretty final. No gamebreaking bugs have been reported lately.

FYI, soon there is going to be the 1.0 release of my Mayhem 3 addon (hopefully end of this month). This update brings a lot of new features which might be right up your alley. Basically the NPC empires are no longer complete pushovers. Then some of the most popular grinding and OOS tactics will not work as well anymore (exploits). And recently i could also reduce the major Quantum Tube bottleneck which was a serious economic problem for the NPCs in all of my games so far.

Lategame won't feel much different, so you will still get bored at some point. But my changes should make your expansion during the mid-game much more interesting and difficult. Right at the time when you're not yet powerful enough to completely wipe a faction out, but you can't find any more free sectors to expand into. So you get forced to attack some faction which is likely still much stronger than you.

[SyntheticGoat]

So, how does one deal with Xenons overrunning the entire galaxy? I have a stupid amount of Xenon ships jampacked in a corner of the galaxy, with about 6-7 M2s in a fleet, steamrolling everything and conquering ~20% of the galaxy by now, while other races are too busy withdrawing their battle groups and fighting for the same sectors between themselves, giving zero damns about their own sectors being lost, and me only managing to build two M2 by this point.

Am I doing it wrong?

[Hector0x]

Avoid major Xenon fleets like the plague. You won't gain much from killing them because they spawn rather quickly. Focus on destroying all their undefended sectors. This is the only way to get rid of them. It's a race of who can conquer more sectors. You + the factions against the Xenon. And you have a very good chance to win that race, because Xenon sectors will go down after destroying just 1 station. Usually they don't even leave any defenders. So you can stay away from their invasion fleets and 'clean up' behind them. Eventually there are no Xenon sectors left and their fleets can be defeated for good.

If you do need to fight a Xenon fleet because they come too close to your territory try to do it when they are still in NPC controlled sectors at your border for massive rep gains and hopefully some fire support. You can seriously immobilize them for many hours by conquering a sector in their path and placing a ton of cheap protein paste factories very far away from each other. If you cannot afford that give these sectors to NPCs as they will build stations fairly quickly which slows down reconquest by the Xenon. You should have enough reputation to do that. In Mayhem 3 you don't need to reach high ranks with the factions. Reputation is mostly just a currency that allows you to expand peacefully. You should spend this currency right now to defeat the Xenon.

If you're desperate you can still unleash a deadly triple combo. Trigger an EMP to drain roughly 70% of a fleet's entire health pool, then use jump beacons to bring your own fleet in at full health, and then activate the Ring of Fire Perk. If you can't stop them with that it's hopeless.

[SyntheticGoat]

I was actually considering the EMP+ Ring of Fire. I only lack jump beacons for the full combo, unfortunately.
Another roadblock I stumbled upon was the fact that the only passgeways into the Xenon territory are chokes currently being invaded by their main forces. So, if I wanted to clean up from behind, I'd need to let them move forward and swoop behind them.


This is a unique situation and, it being my first Mayhem playthrough, quite memorable.


On a side note, is there a way to downgrade graphics or improve performance somehow else? My game really, crashingly, doesn't like having a lot of ships in one sector and, from videos I watched so far, it's something the playthrough will almost inevitably come to.

[Hector0x]

is there a way to downgrade graphics or improve performance somehow else? My game really, crashingly, doesn't like having a lot of ships in one sector and, from videos I watched so far, it's something the playthrough will almost inevitably come to.

Try low shaders. Looks a bit different, but not necessarily worse. Definitely improved performance for me and now i'm always using them. You could also use the 'no engine trails' option from Joubarbes graphics pack.

But actual crashing would not be solved with better performance. That's something different. The game shouldn't get unstable in large battles. It runs at 3 fps if need be. Crashing was often some script error. It happened a lot during beta. I still get the occasional ctd, but very rarely. When it happens there is always a mining station under attack in my current sector. The game gets choppy and sometimes crashes.

[dunderhead327]

You could also try a smaller galaxy, but that obviously means a new game.

Staying out of those busy sectors, especially if there's combat in progress (that's you personally) should also help.

[Hector0x]

To add on performance. I remembered some other tweak i made. Go to your t-file and edit option 282 (extra waiting time between turret firing for Huge Ships). The default is 0. I'm no expert but i believe that this is a performance hog. Without any waits the game tries to process everything at the same time which could be the cause for your crashes in heavy battles. Some time ago i read that even a waiting time of just 1ms queues X3 scripts up so that the CPU is ready to actually process them smoothly.

So i've been using a setting of 10 here. I just reverted this back to the default 0 and tested in an invasion sector. The performance definitely seems to be much worse and after some time in SETA i also got a crash now.

Give this a try.