Make Xenons great again

[Raptor34]

The one reason why Xenons are so inflexible is that they are missing proper full set of ships, currently they have:

Xenon T - scout
Xenon N - no idea what purpose it is, light fighter?
Xenon M - standard fighter
Xenon S - M-size Freighter/Miner
Xenon P - Corvette
Xenon K - no, it's not a destroyer, it's XL and doesn't have main batteries - a cruiser perhaps?
Xenon I - battleship


Here is what they need:
S-size freighters - something small and fast to be able to supply these frontline outposts under construction.
L-size freighters/miners - to boost their economy and rpovide something that could dumb enough good for frontline outpost to be build in one haul.
LX fighter - heavy fighter, or perhaps upsized to become gunboat?
L-size destroyer - ideal candidate for Xenon Q, possibly with some kind of long range beam batter similar to Asgard, but less powerful - would allow Xenons to siege stations, but lower dammage would allow player and NPC factions to response in meanigful way.
XL size carrier - Basically Xenon J - in order to avoid general problem of Carriers loosing all their fighters rather easily, it could be a drone carrier that carry 100-200 drones and launch them in swarms like Xenon shipyard? It could also gradually and automatically replenish destroyed drones to retain it's power.

L-sized just means easier interception. I regularly see their miners/power distributors travel around, L ones won't do that. S-sized might work, but I think it might be a better idea to just boost their speeds. Gives more reason for Mass Drivers and Disruptor missiles to knock them out of travel speed.
LX with some smaller scale Gravitons would be nice, and give their fighters more anti-cap punch.
Q, eh, I don't think it's necessary.
J, rather than a drone carrier, give them the launch tubes thing and simplified docking for their fighters, since players can't get them anyway they don't need the standard land/launch systems. Just give them something fast and rough. Both for launching and landing.
What they really need is a Xenon M0 though, make it so that it's sole purpose is staying behind to defend their sectors, but as they expand they'll move to defend their new sectors. I'm imagining it to be an Asgard on steriods. And also give them mobile ship building capability.
Like I'm imagining 10 XL shields, Gravitons all over, perhaps some tougher version with more health, probably 50 of them or something and an Asgard Beam but with better cooling/reload. And it should be real big, barely fits through a gate.
I mean Asgards are meant to take down tough fortifications, this is a tough fortification. Make there be a real reason to deploy multiple Asgards.

[Raevyan]

one option to keep as many folks happy is to have a Hostility Slider bar for them under Gameplay settings... possibly.

A better version would be some kind of plot with some kind of choice to make them more aggressive or not. Sure this would require more work but hey, they can sell a new plot and we get some more aggressive xenons if we so choose. That’s a much better implementation although a lot more work.

[CBJ]

But you don't have to balance all of that option. Just medium mode.

I don't think you have fully understood what the balancing issue is. It's not just about how strong the Xenon are in combat against the player, or how aggressive they are - it's about the potential to collapse the entire in-game economy. This isn't just a wild assumption; we conducted lengthy tests, in which we found that even just adjusting the strength of a couple of Xenon weapons could be enough to significantly change the whole game.

[Spartan]

Maybe there is a point in making something like “emergency mode” for Xenon. When close to extinction they change their behaviour, making more ships for example...

[mr.WHO]

But you don't have to balance all of that option. Just medium mode.

I don't think you have fully understood what the balancing issue is. It's not just about how strong the Xenon are in combat against the player, or how aggressive they are - it's about the potential to collapse the entire in-game economy. This isn't just a wild assumption; we conducted lengthy tests, in which we found that even just adjusting the strength of a couple of Xenon weapons could be enough to significantly change the whole game.

Ballance aside, any confirmation about Xenons being broken in OOS?
I've been observing Xenons in OOS in my game and they struggle to fight in OOS in all areas - from S-class to XL, they always need advantage 5:1 otherwise they either loose ot win with major losses. If it were only XL ships, my bet would be on turrets, but I see dozens of Xenon fighters wiped out by just a few Argon fighters and I haven't seen Xenon P taking anything in OOS for the long time either.

[Raptor34]

Maybe there is a point in making something like “emergency mode” for Xenon. When close to extinction they change their behaviour, making more ships for example...

Speaking of which, do they always keep to the max quota and does it change?
Like lets say you extinguish all their sectors bar one resource rich one, do they build like a dozen wharf/shipyards and stack all their Is there?

[slober]

But you don't have to balance all of that option. Just medium mode.

I don't think you have fully understood what the balancing issue is. It's not just about how strong the Xenon are in combat against the player, or how aggressive they are - it's about the potential to collapse the entire in-game economy. This isn't just a wild assumption; we conducted lengthy tests, in which we found that even just adjusting the strength of a couple of Xenon weapons could be enough to significantly change the whole game.

Of course you understand it better than any of us.
In my opinion you can made balance only without player in the game. Whatever the player does it effects everything around.
This option is just personal fix to balance of each player and some type of way how to avoid possible balancing mistakes.
For example with 4.0 everyone would switch to Hard Difficulty and it could a lit bit decrease complains about weak xenons on the forum.

Anyway. It just a possible ideas how to make your life easier and our gameplay better.
We complain, we discuss but only what we want is supporting you.

One more time thanks and all the best.

[Spartan]

Like lets say you extinguish all their sectors bar one resource rich one, do they build like a dozen wharf/shipyards and stack all their Is there?

From my expirience that is "game over" situation for them. For a while, I watched the Wharf and Shipyard at Emperor's Pride VI. They both are dead, presumably due to lack of resources. After taking over about 7 Xenon sectors, I've noticed that they trying to rebuild only one wharf/shipyard at one sector per destroyed one.

[slober]

But you don't have to balance all of that option. Just medium mode.

I don't think you have fully understood what the balancing issue is. It's not just about how strong the Xenon are in combat against the player, or how aggressive they are - it's about the potential to collapse the entire in-game economy. This isn't just a wild assumption; we conducted lengthy tests, in which we found that even just adjusting the strength of a couple of Xenon weapons could be enough to significantly change the whole game.

Ballance aside, any confirmation about Xenons being broken in OOS?
I've been observing Xenons in OOS in my game and they struggle to fight in OOS in all areas - from S-class to XL, they always need advantage 5:1 otherwise they either loose ot win with major losses. If it were only XL ships, my bet would be on turrets, but I see dozens of Xenon fighters wiped out by just a few Argon fighters and I haven't seen Xenon P taking anything in OOS for the long time either.

I haven't been playing for a long time. I noticed that a lot of things for xenons were nerfed. I always was afraid to go to xenons sectors before...
Huge amount of ships next to the gate, fly next to Xen station was like suicide. Now it is like kindergarten.

Anyway I'm happy that developers know about this issue and I guess it will be fixed.

p.s. I remember in 3.30 xenons were good. They really made some challenge and force me to think and support factions. Now only what I do ... watching TER Asgard or TER Tokyo to save my poor xenons from OOS fight )))

[Nort The Fragrent]

The Xenon were once a feared red rage of destruction, and were for the wise, to be kept well away from.

Now they are wiped puppies, who roll over and play dead.

Not that I am complaining, the less xenon the better.
Lets get the KHK to follow.

[GCU Grey Area]

The Xenon were once a feared red rage of destruction, and were for the wise, to be kept well away from.

Now they are wiped puppies, who roll over and play dead.

Not that I am complaining, the less xenon the better.
Lets get the KHK to follow.

Tend to disagree. In past games made an absolute ton of money transporting high end ship components between factories & the shipyards. Noticed over the past few days my trade fleet is only making around 1/2 of what I would normally expect & best trades I'm finding tend to be for intermediates (microchips, refined metals, etc). The really good trades from previous games (Adv Electronics, Antimatter Converters, etc) are few & far between - used to reliably get around 1 million or more profit from a single cargo of such wares. Now not so much - fewer trades & the profit margins are noticeably lower. Most NPC factions seem to have such overwhelming forces, in particular compared to Xenon, that they're not losing ships at anywhere near a fast enough rate (at least as far as I'm concerned). Frankly it's very bad for business. More Xenon = more death = more profitsss...

[chew-ie]

No, it really wouldn't!

I've explained on a number of occasions before why "make it optional" (or in this case "make it a slider") is not a magic solution to every problem, and can actually cause more problems than it solves. In this case it would be an absolute nightmare for balancing and testing the game, for example to make sure the settings are balanced and the range of the slider sensible. The previous poster "got the idea" that it would break the game from our posts on the subject, where we explained in some detail how things like the economy can be severely disrupted even by seemingly small changes (and a "multiplier" on Xenon strength would be anything but small).

Hi CBJ Sorry if you already talked about that - but I've to ask about a detail regarding the "make it optional" topic:

I fully understand that you don't want people to blame you devs for the Xenon going full on because the player did a mistake by cramping up their "difficulty slider". So my question is this: did you already discuss the option in the team to provide this option as an expert option only along with a (big red) warning and / or a marker in the savegame (like "modified" but with other wording like "unshackled xenon" ^^) ? Or in other words: why can't we players have the option to set our galaxy on fire on our own responsibility while you have the option to indentify unshackled savegames?

Normally we'd go to non-vanilla games to spice up the conflicts. But with the ventures on the horizon I guess not all players consider that a "real" option.

As an example:
Right now my savegame is "too balanced" and thus boring. The moment the Kha'ak and Xenon try anything my Asgard & Syn fleets adress that and after a few minutes there is a long period of peace. Although I don't conquer anything, the Xenon are only loosing territory, not gaining sectors. I'd really appreciate a chaotic universe where I can use my resources to slowly push back the threats. Defending my assets and the npc borders - that's playing X4 for me.

[Tharrg]

I played a game just after SV. The Xenon quickly captured Family Kritt and Company Regard and Family Zhinn, Zyarth's Dominion I and Family Nhuut went red although the Split are fighting back, (In response Matrix451 went to the good guys!). Anyway, it was all great fun.

Now I start a new game with COH and Xenons are losing sectors and just not doing anything. I just want to start a new game with mods to beef up the Xenon, but then I can't use Ventures.

Suggestions?

So if I go back to the old game, will the Xenon crash due to the COH xenon nurffing?

[Malchar]

The xenon didn't get weaker with the expansion. The reason they are not doing as well anymore is because of the terran intervention asgard fleets that attack them in their home sectors all across the map. If you want to fix the xenon, nerf asgards in OOS combat.

I said it above, I played games in V4.00 beta public ... but without coh DLC, so no terrans and no Asgard. Result was Xenons were also weak, amorph and pathetic in this configuration.

It seems hard in these conditions to blame terrans for Xenons s fate in v4.00.

[LandogarX4]

No, it really wouldn't!

I've explained on a number of occasions before why "make it optional" (or in this case "make it a slider") is not a magic solution to every problem, and can actually cause more problems than it solves. In this case it would be an absolute nightmare for balancing and testing the game, for example to make sure the settings are balanced and the range of the slider sensible. The previous poster "got the idea" that it would break the game from our posts on the subject, where we explained in some detail how things like the economy can be severely disrupted even by seemingly small changes (and a "multiplier" on Xenon strength would be anything but small).

Hi CBJ Sorry if you already talked about that - but I've to ask about a detail regarding the "make it optional" topic:

I fully understand that you don't want people to blame you devs for the Xenon going full on because the player did a mistake by cramping up their "difficulty slider". So my question is this: did you already discuss the option in the team to provide this option as an expert option only along with a (big red) warning and / or a marker in the savegame (like "modified" but with other wording like "unshackled xenon" ^^) ? Or in other words: why can't we players have the option to set our galaxy on fire on our own responsibility while you have the option to indentify unshackled savegames?

Normally we'd go to non-vanilla games to spice up the conflicts. But with the ventures on the horizon I guess not all players consider that a "real" option.

As an example:
Right now my savegame is "too balanced" and thus boring. The moment the Kha'ak and Xenon try anything my Asgard & Syn fleets adress that and after a few minutes there is a long period of peace. Although I don't conquer anything, the Xenon are only loosing territory, not gaining sectors. I'd really appreciate a chaotic universe where I can use my resources to slowly push back the threats. Defending my assets and the npc borders - that's playing X4 for me.

Many players feel the same way and have made similar requests before, but our pleas have been ignored: viewtopic.php?f=146&t=430388

[slober]

If you don't want to lose your xenons before new update come:

Hack construction terminal of TER Shipyard. At the same time it can help ANT in ARG vs TER war.

[jlehtone]

In my opinion you can made balance only without player in the game. Whatever the player does it effects everything around.

A system can be stabile or labile. Stabile system resists change.
In X3 you could kill all Xenon ships and stations, but they would keep their sector ownership and respawn. Very stabile.

If a small player/dev/rng action can create huge difference, then the system is labile.

A chemical system tries to reach equilibrium. It has forces that drive towards the equilibrium; the "minimal energy state".
If the forces are strong, then the equilibrium is (re-)reached quickly and disturbances have no lasting effect.
If the forces are weak, then even minor disturbances have long lasting effect.
If there is no drive towards equilibrium, then there is no equilibrium and system keeps its current state only until something changes it.

A system can have multiple "local energy minima". For example: (A) factions are about same strenght and have continuous war, and (B) a faction has conquered the Galaxy and there is peace. There must be thresholds between them. If the system does have a force to drive towards equilibrium, towards minima, then crossing threshold is when the forces get a new goal.


One could say that X4 is rather labile and the "return to normal" forces are weak or non-existent.

Indestructible Xenon Shipyard is very "stabile".
Easy to destruct Xenon Shipyard that immediately rebuilds is also quite stabile, although you can "do something". Limited immersion.
Easy to destruct Xenon Shipyard that never rebuilds lets you definitely to "do something". Problem is that we don't like the new state.

[slober]

One could say that X4 is rather labile and the "return to normal" forces are weak or non-existent.

Indestructible Xenon Shipyard is very "stabile".
Easy to destruct Xenon Shipyard that immediately rebuilds is also quite stabile, although you can "do something". Limited immersion.
Easy to destruct Xenon Shipyard that never rebuilds lets you definitely to "do something". Problem is that we don't like the new state.

For more stable XEN I would make some simple but good logic of building and behaviour.

Defending Station - only next to the gate. Maximum 2 Def Statin per gate or even 1.
XEN Behaviour - play from defence. Each station has some pull. Shipyard/Wharf has 2x I + 5x K for defending. DefStation has 1x I 3x K. Solar plant 1 or 2x K. Plus some M/S for fun. Pull must be always full of ships.
XEN responce - if something happens or some L/XL ships in the sector - send support from pulls of Def Stations.
XEN Attacks - they can send some M/S ships to other sectors just for fun in any time. But XL ships only if all pulls next to all XEN stations are full of ships. Only Extra fleets could send to attack.
XEN take sectors - take sectors one by one. Don't pass or skip them. Destroy everything in the sector, build defence and only then go to attack next one.

In this case I think it could be very easy to balance Aggression. For sure Egosoft can play with turrets and other stuff but it is very easy to make levels of difficulty for players.

Low - XEN sectors full of xenons and all pulls next to station full of XL ships. Shipyard/Wharf stop and working only for replacing ships in the pulls.
Xenons attack and kill only what come inside their sectors. Only M/S class go to other sectors just for fun.
Medium - it should be responsibility of Egosoft balance. Everything is working like Egosoft wants.
High - XEN sectors full of xenons. Wharf and Shipyard work non stop. All extra ships go around and destroy everything.
HardCore - XEN sectors full of xenons. Nonstop construction and huge bonuses to Xenons. - I think it is a dream for EndGame stage. Checking all defending what you build all your time in the game

You don't need stable Xenons. You should be able to destroy them. But it has to be a challenge for any level of difficulty. It is not ok and not a balance when you able to destroy all xenons with only 1 ship.

And personal balance for Yaki mission.
Depends of player choice:
1. TER send fleet. Standard behaviour for Xenons. Play from defence depends of level of difficulty.
2. XEN send fleet. Huge bonuses only for these sectors of Xenons. Till TER kaput. Then again depends on level of difficulty.
3. Clean XEN sectors - possible stop construction and replacing of XEN ships in these sectors to help player finish this mission.

p.s.

I don't think you have fully understood what the balancing issue is.

Maybe it could be interesting for you.

[Karmaticdamage]

Xenon success varies from play through to play through. I've noticed the biggest influence is literally just station placement. In one play through the split get run over by the xenon, in another the split get lucky and several plasma turret equipped stations are spawned together in front of a jumpgate leading into xenon space. Same with hat space, if several good defense stations are grouped up and near the xenon jumpgate, they will be held off.

[jlehtone]

... if several good defense stations ...

The greater picture is that AI does not use fleets efficiently. Therefore, stations are more effective defense than a fleet.

Fill every sector with "proper" stations and the factions can&will send their fleets to destruction without fear of losing ground. That is good business.

The player can still make a difference as demolition expert.