Building a fleet against a universal Xenon swarm

[fireanddream]

Soooo... Xenons been spawning left and right in my save now. It was so sudden.

I thought it was the migration, until I tracked a Xenon K that beelined towards ARGON PRIME ALPHA of all the places. And it almost destroyed the argon One. At rank Fighter Chief & Mogul I'm typically seeing one K + 20ish fighters. If the RRF tries they can obliterate the spawns but they just don't care a lot of the time.

So, a fleet. I know vanilla fleet commander things are broken so there's that.

I'm thinking my OOS heavy muscle should be:
Megalodon with IC/PPC （don't know how autoswitch interact with OOS combat. I saw my Xenon I got destroyed by a K once because it had PPC/FBC autoswith...)
Escorted by 2-3 Tern (huge shield, many capital-grade weapons)

Pteranodon has so much better speed but terrible amount of guns (almost half of Megalodon). I need to catch them at the gate anyway so speed shouldn't matter too much. Maybe Megalodon escorted by Boreas?

For in-sector lightweight interceptions of stray P, PX and fighters I'm thinking Astraeus with fighters, PBC all around makes it a mobile laser tower bundle. A duo of Aegir should work too but they have terrible cockpit weapon choice (not easy way to get MAM warheads for me).

[Jimmy C]

If you want to cheese it,an M7M with a few Hammer barrages will obliterate that K, IS or OOS. If you want to tackle it personally, drive an M2 up to it yourself.

Personally, I've found the Megalodon to be rather ineffective against Xenon M2s. Shields got dangerously depleted before I could destroy the target. The Kyoto was more effective when I reloaded and called it in instead of the Megalodon.

[BrigandPhantos77]

If you want to cheese it,an M7M with a few Hammer barrages will obliterate that K, IS or OOS. If you want to tackle it personally, drive an M2 up to it yourself.

Personally, I've found the Megalodon to be rather ineffective against Xenon M2s. Shields got dangerously depleted before I could destroy the target. The Kyoto was more effective when I reloaded and called it in instead of the Megalodon.

I annihilated a K while in a Woden personally. A fully charge set of PSP at it was nasty. Fire it before it gets in range and you will deplete it's shields in a single volley. Then 2 more rip the hull apart quick too. It never breached my shields.

[fireanddream]

If you want to cheese it,an M7M with a few Hammer barrages will obliterate that K, IS or OOS. If you want to tackle it personally, drive an M2 up to it yourself.

Personally, I've found the Megalodon to be rather ineffective against Xenon M2s. Shields got dangerously depleted before I could destroy the target. The Kyoto was more effective when I reloaded and called it in instead of the Megalodon.

I'm not throwing resources at infinitely spawning enemies, regardless of how much money I have.
Isn't Kyoto is just like a worse Tyr? Like I said I saw my Xenon I got defeated by a K once... May need to really read the OOS damage of those weaponry.

[Jimmy C]

Never got around to flying a Tyr myself so I don't know how they compare. The Kyoto has a medium-class hangar bay that lets me dock into it directly with my M6. That's why I chose it.
The Xenon I has one distinction. It can barrage fire common missiles. This allows you to command it to fire missiles at targets OOS.

[Hwitvlf]

I have found the Megalodon to be mostly effective for OOS Xenon battles. Weapons with high hull damage (Gauss Cannon, PSP) seem to be better OOS than high shield damage weapons; shields are usually stripped in one or two combat rounds whereas hulls take four or five to drain.

The only thing I would modify in your strategy is to lose the fighter escort for the Astraeus. When a small ship is destroyed OOS, the killing blow's damage seems to be continued toward nearby ships until it's exhausted. This means a single Xenon can auto-kill a stack of nearby fighters in one attack round. They have a very short lifespan OOS.

If you have emergency jump enabled, note that a ship waiting to jump doesn't seem to defend itself. If it targets a gate which a combat ship (TM or higher) has recently used, it may sit defenseless for a long time waiting to jump. Escorts try to follow and are likely be destroyed before the gate clears and they succeed in jumping. I generally have had more success in having separate patrolling ships rather than escorts. Escorts also seem to lag in target acquisition if the engine is busy so they don't always get involved in the battle until it's too late.

I'm fairly certain that the game engine has a cheat in place which gives an advantage to Xenon in OOS combat. I've seen a J with nothing more than ISR defeat a fully equipped Tyre and Woden. I've had a Valhalla with 15 Valhalla escorts patrolling a Xenon sector in X3AP and one would still get destroyed now and then by a simple K. That wouldn't happen if combat was decided purely by mathematical weapon/shield stats.

[fireanddream]

I have found the Megalodon to be mostly effective for OOS Xenon battles. Weapons with high hull damage (Gauss Cannon, PSP) seem to be better OOS than high shield damage weapons; shields are usually stripped in one or two combat rounds whereas hulls take four or five to drain.

The only thing I would modify in your strategy is to lose the fighter escort for the Astraeus. When a small ship is destroyed OOS, the killing blow's damage seems to be continued toward nearby ships until it's exhausted. This means a single Xenon can auto-kill a stack of nearby fighters in one attack round. They have a very short lifespan OOS.

My OOS muscle is just gonna be a megalodon + 2 terns, all equipped with the best hull damage weapons like you said. Shield is never a problem.

Atraeus tho I completely dropped. Fighters are best used in numbers and in sector, so it's panther raider or bust.

[BrigandPhantos77]

My OOS muscle is just gonna be a megalodon + 2 terns, all equipped with the best hull damage weapons like you said. Shield is never a problem.

Atraeus tho I completely dropped. Fighters are best used in numbers and in sector, so it's panther raider or bust.

Sadly you may still loose a Mega in that scenario. The Xenon get bonuses that are not shown for OOS combat. There DPS does not nerf like the players for OOS combat. My best fleets have always used multiple M2 ships versus single roaming Ks or Js, or Is.

A J is more dangerous than the K if you encounter one. More DPS with or without the fighters. When you get higher in combat rank expect to see fleets with an I and K combo, or K and J combo, with 3 to 6 Q escorts. Those are the worst to deal with.

My best defense fleets use Megas or Titans in pairs. The Phoenix despite being super slow. is also a massive tank. Best hull for it's class.

As for behavior, if you have at least 4 capitals in a system, most of the time the Xenon will avoid it. (has to be M2 or M1 though) Sitting in a system yourself will also slow them entering or spawning in it. (That probably is affected by your personal ship flown.)

These are just personal observations, and maybe I'm just getting lucky. I've seen Black Hole Sun go silent for hours if I sit in system. But suddenly become hot when I leave as an example. The pipelines between Xenon systems will almost never be silent like that though. Especially Grand Exchange delta.

A nice trick to dealing with Xenon incursions if any other AI capitals are in system. Jump in if they are in range of the Xenon. They will move to engage. The detection of enemies is only performed if the player is physically in system about half the time. And it depends upon which enemies. You can get a Teladi ship to attack a Xenon ship, or even a Split capital ship to engage a Q (as example) inside Argon space if you jump in.

[fireanddream]

A nice trick to dealing with Xenon incursions if any other AI capitals are in system. Jump in if they are in range of the Xenon. They will move to engage. The detection of enemies is only performed if the player is physically in system about half the time. And it depends upon which enemies. You can get a Teladi ship to attack a Xenon ship, or even a Split capital ship to engage a Q (as example) inside Argon space if you jump in.

I do it when they pass through BHS to treasure chest. The sector is a straight line east to west, with north gate to the goners that nobody visits. If a titan is in the way they'll pick a fight.

Do you know anything about RRF algorithm. I've seen them show up one time in BHS, every single one of them, 2 titans, 2 colossus, everything. I figured they were always occupied in Getsu Fune but no, they are just scattered in argon sectors.

I wish I'm pro split & paranid in this playthrough. If I just route the traffic through Zyarth's Domanion or Pontifex' Seclusion none of these Xenon can survive through the sector.

[BrigandPhantos77]

I do it when they pass through BHS to treasure chest. The sector is a straight line east to west, with north gate to the goners that nobody visits. If a titan is in the way they'll pick a fight.

Do you know anything about RRF algorithm. I've seen them show up one time in BHS, every single one of them, 2 titans, 2 colossus, everything. I figured they were always occupied in Getsu Fune but no, they are just scattered in argon sectors.

I wish I'm pro split & paranid in this playthrough. If I just route the traffic through Zyarth's Domanion or Pontifex' Seclusion none of these Xenon can survive through the sector.

As far as an algorithm I couldn't say. Might wanna ask that of the mod team who made this version. They might have a more solid answer. Try in the modding section. Or message one directly.

As far as my experience in game goes, rapid response are more prone / apt to responding to the player actions more than NPC actions. Though if one ship gets hurt or destroyed, it will summon all nearby others of its group for defense. They will usually appear all at once next to the ship in trouble, uncontrolled jump style.

I'd imagine the script that handles it can lock up like others. The Omicron Lyrae shipyard usually breaks at some point. They have to repair themselves after all. And by break I mean the alpha system gets all the surrounding area defenders stuck in system with a single capital and its escorts occupying most of the shipyards docking slots as well.

For defense in game:

I have Xenon capitals entering Midnight Star sometimes. (I took the beta in my current playthrough). I had Ks making a beeline for my sector numerous times. I stuck a fleet in both sectors and the beelines stopped. 2 Destroyers and 2 Frigates on the N gate of Midnight Star, 2 carriers and 3 frigates in the beta sector.

I get random Qs trying to enter once in a while, but they seem more apt to make havoc around the factories in the main sector.

I've gotten Teladi and Split capitals to engage them several times since the Argon seem to have everything locked to the previous mentioned sector. Just keep Adv Nav Sats as best you can. And if your going to build factories in commonwealth sectors, make sure you got big ships to protect those sectors and surrounding ones. The presence is usually enough to deter the approach.

You'll also get Xenon ships that fly from the pirate corridor (XS101?) BT to Hatikvahs, they will beeline to any sector in the NW part of the map. But they will also pick a random sector to spawn in from time to time. And it wont follow the stated within 10 sector jump range of a Xenon Sector. I've had them pop up in Terran Space - Oort Cloud and a few other places. Mostly Neptune in that area though.

The game also weights the active spawns to your last actively engaged targets race. At least it does for me. If I shot at Yaki, I see them spawn all over. Xenon, then I constantly see them all over.

One other tip for defense, "Bombers with Tomahawks". There glass cannons. If you fully fit out a Marlin, you can get 70 Tomahawks with enough E-cells to jump a significant range to deal with major threats. It will usually take at least 10 volleys for K, J and I. If you can't buy the Marlin, use another. There cheaper than M7M frigates. Just a warning, any capital that does an OOS missile launch can insta-pop any bomber. So keep them back. Especially an I.

Hope this helps you. Sadly, the Xenon are a grind. And the scripts push combat more than the build and trade aspects of the game.