Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

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oddible
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Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by oddible » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 20:55

What mod can I use that will make Xenon relevant again? The latest nerf has made them a non-factor. They're just a nuisance now, basiclaly Kha'k with sectors. I've looked at several of the mods on the workshop and they all either radically change the Xenon game or they have comments that say they actually make Xenon weaker. Which mod can I install that just puts them back the way they were before the nerf. They were perfect.

Ideally we need a Xenon slider in game setup that let's us set how strong their economy is and how aggressive they are. For now I'll take a mod but none seem to fit the bill.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Raevyan » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 21:05

You could mod the speed of their s ship and make them faster than most other ships. This should help xenon economy tremendously because the main reason xenons are dying is because they can’t build ships. They can’t build ships because their miners fly across the universe to supply ores to a station and getting killed on their way. If they‘d actually stay in their clusters, that’s because they have all their resources right?, xenon economy would flourish and they‘d actually be able to build ships.

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oddible
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by oddible » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 21:13

I'm not looking to write a mod, I'm looking to install a mod.

Treycore
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Treycore » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 01:12

One of the big problems with the xenon is OOS battles right now, idk if modders can fix that, even giving the xenon more ships won’t help

Stations are near invincible OOS, and until that’s resolved then the xenon or any empire wont be able to push forward in any wars

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 01:48

Xenon still cause damage. I have to actively fight them back otherwise ZYA lose a lot of stations to them. Stations are not invulnerable to them since they lose turrets like the Xenon do. The only thing that has changed is that turrets now can be lost in low attention combat again (like they could in an old patch) so the K and I often end up "defanged" after prolonged combat.

This also applies to other ships as well. My Osaka lost all its turrets in a battle with a K, and the K still had most of its so was technically winning from that point of view. However due to main batteries being as good as invulnerable in low attention combat and also never missing in low attention combat the result is that despite my Osaka losing all its turrets it could still slowly win against the K due to most of its OoS fire power being main batteries and the main batteries swatting away its escort S and M sized ships.

In my opinion all that is needed is the following changes.
  • Guns, such as main batteries, use turret hit chance logic in low attention combat. This would mean that slow projectile speed or limited turning guns like main batteries, or plasma cannons will practically never hit S and M sized ships. This way the Xenon S and M sized ships no longer are valueless due to being instantly obliterated by any nearby destroyers. In general this will improve the value of S and M ships in low attention combat against non-Xenon foes.
  • The Xenon strategic AI is improved to retreat K and I destroyers that have lost too many turrets. Currently they keep trying to attack targets when they have nothing to attack with. A lot of player complaints relating to the Xenon being weak is due to this as they come across Ks attacking a station that are just sitting there not doing anything due to all their turrets being destroyed. This would also open up new gameplay options for the player since they can chase away Ks and Is by destroying their turrets (fairly easy in a S/M ship), instead of having to destroy them fully (not really viable for a S/M ship).

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Buzz2005 » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 09:20

thats only ZYA Imperial Good, split are the only ones that are so weak with engine parts that they cant build enough ships without player help, other factions have 0 problems with xenons

I installed FOCW and only gave full options to xenons, rest is vanilla jobs, still didnt help, its OOS that super broken now, 2 Is and 2 Ks cant to anything to 1 split station, they just fly around doing 0 dmg, of course they lost all the turrets in first 30 seconds, there is endless OOS fights all over the universe, teladis 6 destroyers do 0 dmg to 1 K, they are just endlessly spinning going more up the plain (a bug reported many times) yet all the teladi destroyers have all their turrets so when I notice it I have to go high attention to be resolved

I dont ever expect for OOS to be perfect I just want things to happen in it, the whole game is based on stuff being destroyed and AI is now setup the exact opposite, asgard is just soo OP in OOS, I mod terrans to be -25 to argons and this one Asgard is just going around popping stations with 0 ability from argons to counter

totally game breaking for me, and I believe for a lot of veterans, to get to 4.1 patch and have it broken like that, sad :(
Fixed ships getting spawned away from ship configuration menu at resupply ships from automatically getting deployables.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Malchar » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:45

Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 01:48
Xenon still cause damage. I have to actively fight them back otherwise ZYA lose a lot of stations to them. Stations are not invulnerable to them since they lose turrets like the Xenon do. The only thing that has changed is that turrets now can be lost in low attention combat again (like they could in an old patch) so the K and I often end up "defanged" after prolonged combat.
I sometime feel to repeat the same thing, even with picture peoples seems yo not understand. belows is the xenon K front battery. The usual rule is ; two medium shields for a large turret. You can see here the 4 slots dedeicated to the 2 turrets. this groups is made of 2 large turrets and four medium shield. However the k macro specify to fill only one slots. It is why it is so easy to defang the xenons K. The same situation exist for the xenon I.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2533800371

I think it is egosoft will to allows cockpits players to easilly claim victory on xenons capital ships, and feel proud.

Now, if it is exact xenons can destroy a station here or here, it is now so diffucult that they are unable to conquiere a whole sector (or very rarely). It is universal. It dont target just the xenons. Stations are simply more difficult to destroy than in earlier versions. I very recently made the experience, sending 20 xenons K on a graphen station. Xenons suffered an humiliating defeat and were all destroyed. With the 3.20 parameters (oldest versions still available) the station was destroyed and all xenons survived.

Anyway, it is imo, once more an egosoft decision, to offers what they want to the fraction of players who want a peaceful world for a quiet business.

Nota from split vendetta to cradle of humanity xenons soft cap number defined in jobs had been slighty lowered, but hard cap is the same. At the same time xenons have more sector to defend, including two home world, and attack. Last the COH new factions have for special purpose to hunt xenons. I dont say it had a great impact. I just thing it is part of plan and we know where it goes and what is the goal.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Treycore » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 03:13

Malchar wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:45
Imperial Good wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 01:48
Xenon still cause damage. I have to actively fight them back otherwise ZYA lose a lot of stations to them. Stations are not invulnerable to them since they lose turrets like the Xenon do. The only thing that has changed is that turrets now can be lost in low attention combat again (like they could in an old patch) so the K and I often end up "defanged" after prolonged combat.
I sometime feel to repeat the same thing, even with picture peoples seems yo not understand. belows is the xenon K front battery. The usual rule is ; two medium shields for a large turret. You can see here the 4 slots dedeicated to the 2 turrets. this groups is made of 2 large turrets and four medium shield. However the k macro specify to fill only one slots. It is why it is so easy to defang the xenons K. The same situation exist for the xenon I.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2533800371

I think it is egosoft will to allows cockpits players to easilly claim victory on xenons capital ships, and feel proud.

Now, if it is exact xenons can destroy a station here or here, it is now so diffucult that they are unable to conquiere a whole sector (or very rarely). It is universal. It dont target just the xenons. Stations are simply more difficult to destroy than in earlier versions. I very recently made the experience, sending 20 xenons K on a graphen station. Xenons suffered an humiliating defeat and were all destroyed. With the 3.20 parameters (oldest versions still available) the station was destroyed and all xenons survived.

Anyway, it is imo, once more an egosoft decision, to offers what they want to the fraction of players who want a peaceful world for a quiet business.

Nota from split vendetta to cradle of humanity xenons soft cap number defined in jobs had been slighty lowered, but hard cap is the same. At the same time xenons have more sector to defend, including two home world, and attack. Last the COH new factions have for special purpose to hunt xenons. I dont say it had a great impact. I just thing it is part of plan and we know where it goes and what is the goal.
I’ll see if I can make a mod that fills out the shield generators on turrets and see if that helps the xenon

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Malchar » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 04:52

It may help a little, but the main problem, imo, is in the lowattention calculation.

Nota it is the only problem the K suffers, It also have a large thruster instead a xl one, that make it, one if not the most clumsy ship of the x universe.
The thruster maybe be a simple mistake from egosoft, since I think, at start, the K was planned to be a Large size ship, and not an xl one.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Ragnos28 » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 13:05

The best "mode" for increase Xenon strength was 3.3..but we can't play CoH with 3.3, so...here we are :doh:

Malchar
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Malchar » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:46

It is possible to pick up what we need in the 3.xx to re-introduce it in the 4.x. I work on it. Mainly it is only a few lines, but I also wish to solve some other minor things, like invisible weapons on s/m medium ships, and correct some irregularities.

SirConnery
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by SirConnery » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:08

There is the Xenon Hell mod on workshop.

Haven't tried it but looking at the comments it's quite a bit overblown if you only want to make Xenon relevant again. But if you want an eternal war mod I guess that would do.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by oddible » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:13

There seems to be a lot of posts suggesting that the the Xenon nerf was minimal but I'm not seeing ANY threat from Xenon at all. Maybe my game is just unlucky. None of the usual suspects. Nothing in Ianamus Zura IV. Nothing in Family Tkr. No incursion into Zyarth's or Family Kritt or Zhinn. In fact the ZYA are slowly taking Tharka's. There is a trickle though Frontier's Edge into The Void but it is a whiff. HOP are handily keeping Faulty Logic contained. Only area I haven't checked yet is Litany of Fury.

The bummer is this - and maybe it is a consistency issue - it takes several days of game time before this stuff becomes obvious and now I've got my basic infrastructure set up to impact the factions and push back the Xenon threat but there is no threat. And as everyone knows clearing out Xenon sectors is just a slog.

Do NOT make Xenon stations easier to kill - at least I can bide my time throwing sub-optimal fleets at the Xenon stations and have some reason to have an economy. Otherwise I'm just sitting there in a solo Odyssey poking out all the turrets and soloing the station in my pilot's chair and that is dumb.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Malchar » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 20:58

I m in test phase for a little mod for people who would like more active xenons. Target is to recover a situation like in the 3.xx. I chose the 3.2 which differe from the 3.3 with the surfaces elements s destruction, more frequent than in the 3.3.

I have raise xenon capital ships numbers in jobs, but tests prove I probably exagerated a bit. Xenons were not more number at the 3.2 than they are at the 4.1, despite they have more territory to defend and attack, and also have 2 more factions to fight.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2608768554

It is the situation after 48 hours. the void, getsu and the asteroid belt, for exemple had fall before Hours 24. IIRC, usually in a 3.xx games, xenons s owned aound 3 to 5 battleship and about 45 to 50 destroyers. At Hours48, here they have 12 battleships and 79 destroyers. I probably negleted the hard cap, and will have to rework the jobs.

Aside that I made some change on xenons ships ; raise xenon N speed to 301, made the M a real heavy fighter allowing it 4 weapon and two shield instead of 2 / 1. Its speed had dropped to 257 however. Corvette P have now 4 weapons and three turrets, shields had been moved on its back and she have now two engine instead of one. Speed rise around 340. I feel it honnest for a corvette. Miner S up it s speed from 143 to 223 and its cargo from 9500 to 12750. S is the heaviest Medium miner by far. It also gained a mk2 drill instead of a MK1. Mk2 drill is 3 time more efficient than the mk1. I didnt add it more turret despite it can host several more ones.

K ; I gave it, normal number of shields, to protect its armement. Shields had been changed from mk1 to mk2 model. K gain a XL thruster instead of the L it had. It seems fair to me since it is a XL ship. Armement had been slightly raise from 6 larges turrets and 7 medium, to 7 and 11. bottom large turrets are now on the flanks.

I ; I gave it, its normal shield dotation. Some battery had only the quater of the normal shields number to protect turrets. It is the reason why xenons capital are/were so easy to defang.

L gravitron turrets lose around 30 per cent damage to gain around 30 per cent range. Bullet velocity slightly raised.

I added an upgunned version of the K and I, available in moderated number for xenons. they may be removed if I feel a threat for balance. My goal is to deliver an experience close to the 3.xx for the 4.xx. That means active xenons, but still destructible by cockpit players in dogfight.

It will probably be ready in some days after tests to verify balance.

I work on xenons mods since may, a large part of the work already existed.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by A5PECT » Wed, 22. Sep 21, 22:54

I understand that the devs want to err on the former side of stability vs. change regarding universe and economy dynamics, and even agree with it to an extent. But the current state of Xenon goes beyond providing stability to just making things uninteresting. I don't want them conquering the universe while I'm not looking, but I also don't want them to become a complete non-threat over the course of a game.

It's not just the Xenon's crippling weaknesses in combat, but also their economy and logistics. They're constantly sending out transporters far across commonwealth space only to get shot down. Resources never make it to Xenon shipyards to maintain their fleets, and their presence in the universe slowly bleeds out over the course of a game.

My solution would be to greatly increase resource deposits in Xenon space, so they can source resources reliably. Then adjust the job distribution of Xenon invasion fleets that go out and attempt to conquer foreign space and defense fleets that guard their native sectors. The goal would be to strike a balance that favors defense over offense: where the Xenon can take sectors every once and awhile, but not maintain control over ones they take from other factions for too long. The Xenon should be able to take over a bordering commonwealth sector or two, so they actually leave a noticeable mark on the universe. But they should rarely be able to capture economy-crippling swaths of territory from npc factions (without player intervention)

Meanwhile, their core sectors should be very heavily defended, but also be rich in resources. This is to make them an optional goals for players seeking a combat challenge that rewards them with ability to greatly expand their economy.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in figuring out how to make it worse.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Panos » Thu, 23. Sep 21, 01:34

Malchar wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 20:58
K ; I gave it, normal number of shields, to protect its armement. Shields had been changed from mk1 to mk2 model. K gain a XL thruster instead of the L it had. It seems fair to me since it is a XL ship. Armement had been slightly raise from 6 larges turrets and 7 medium, to 7 and 11. bottom large turrets are now on the flanks.

I ; I gave it, its normal shield dotation. Some battery had only the quater of the normal shields number to protect turrets. It is the reason why xenons capital are/were so easy to defang.
If at least this is fixed, because is a bug they do not have full module installed, the Xenon will have a chance.

Imho Egosoft needs to take into account that Asgards are everywhere now. Need to buff the Xenon. Or if they do not want to do it for new player, add a game option in settings to use a beefed stronger Xenon option.

Treycore
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Treycore » Thu, 23. Sep 21, 04:22

Panos wrote:
Thu, 23. Sep 21, 01:34
Malchar wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 20:58
K ; I gave it, normal number of shields, to protect its armement. Shields had been changed from mk1 to mk2 model. K gain a XL thruster instead of the L it had. It seems fair to me since it is a XL ship. Armement had been slightly raise from 6 larges turrets and 7 medium, to 7 and 11. bottom large turrets are now on the flanks.

I ; I gave it, its normal shield dotation. Some battery had only the quater of the normal shields number to protect turrets. It is the reason why xenons capital are/were so easy to defang.
If at least this is fixed, because is a bug they do not have full module installed, the Xenon will have a chance.

Imho Egosoft needs to take into account that Asgards are everywhere now. Need to buff the Xenon. Or if they do not want to do it for new player, add a game option in settings to use a beefed stronger Xenon option.
I don’t think xenon being weak is a bug, I suspect it’s actually more a design decision

Waltz9
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Waltz9 » Thu, 23. Sep 21, 08:01

Just install a mod which improves the yields of astroids and you will have lots more xenon in your universe.

Malchar
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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Malchar » Thu, 23. Sep 21, 17:11

I player mostly xenons since may, when it was obvious x4 became a sim city in the space. IIRC it was true starvation was a problem in V4 first versions, but it is no more today. It can happen but it is very marginal.
Instead to raise ressources amount in xenons s sectors, I personnaly chose to upgrade xenons s ability to collect the existing. It may also avoid players s greed, who will look xenons sectors as an eldorado and make it primary conquest target.

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Re: Recommend a mod to put Xenon back to before the nerf please

Post by Panos » Thu, 23. Sep 21, 22:04

Malchar wrote:
Wed, 22. Sep 21, 20:58
I m in test phase for a little mod for people who would like more active xenons. Target is to recover a situation like in the 3.xx. I chose the 3.2 which differe from the 3.3 with the surfaces elements s destruction, more frequent than in the 3.3.

I have raise xenon capital ships numbers in jobs, but tests prove I probably exagerated a bit. Xenons were not more number at the 3.2 than they are at the 4.1, despite they have more territory to defend and attack, and also have 2 more factions to fight.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2608768554

It is the situation after 48 hours. the void, getsu and the asteroid belt, for exemple had fall before Hours 24. IIRC, usually in a 3.xx games, xenons s owned aound 3 to 5 battleship and about 45 to 50 destroyers. At Hours48, here they have 12 battleships and 79 destroyers. I probably negleted the hard cap, and will have to rework the jobs.

Aside that I made some change on xenons ships ; raise xenon N speed to 301, made the M a real heavy fighter allowing it 4 weapon and two shield instead of 2 / 1. Its speed had dropped to 257 however. Corvette P have now 4 weapons and three turrets, shields had been moved on its back and she have now two engine instead of one. Speed rise around 340. I feel it honnest for a corvette. Miner S up it s speed from 143 to 223 and its cargo from 9500 to 12750. S is the heaviest Medium miner by far. It also gained a mk2 drill instead of a MK1. Mk2 drill is 3 time more efficient than the mk1. I didnt add it more turret despite it can host several more ones.

K ; I gave it, normal number of shields, to protect its armement. Shields had been changed from mk1 to mk2 model. K gain a XL thruster instead of the L it had. It seems fair to me since it is a XL ship. Armement had been slightly raise from 6 larges turrets and 7 medium, to 7 and 11. bottom large turrets are now on the flanks.

I ; I gave it, its normal shield dotation. Some battery had only the quater of the normal shields number to protect turrets. It is the reason why xenons capital are/were so easy to defang.

L gravitron turrets lose around 30 per cent damage to gain around 30 per cent range. Bullet velocity slightly raised.

I added an upgunned version of the K and I, available in moderated number for xenons. they may be removed if I feel a threat for balance. My goal is to deliver an experience close to the 3.xx for the 4.xx. That means active xenons, but still destructible by cockpit players in dogfight.

It will probably be ready in some days after tests to verify balance.

I work on xenons mods since may, a large part of the work already existed.
Do you want to contact me to help you with testing and coding? If so please pm :)

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