[MOD] Faction War/Economy Enhancer v5.5

[Mysterial]

This mod does not increase the number of Xenon ships by any significant amount. Certainly not the Is - in fact, I have some stuff to try to keep them out of offensive actions for the early game. As far as I remember there should only be 2 or 3 Is in the universe at once.

[Eagle_Four]

I also don't think it was a spawning out of nowhere, but due to the bonuses of the catch-up module (e.g. due to lost battles) a very fast build and if you don't pay attention to the xenon for a while they produce XL's very fast with several shipyards. I was regularly overrun by a sheer overwhelming number of I's and had from a certain point no more chance. Only by turning off the catch-up module stopped that.

[Mr_Blastman]

I am aware a couple people have said that. But I can't reproduce, there is basically always someone saying the performance is worse (every official beta version gets those reports in the beta forum too) and the game doesn't provide any way to analyze performance. So unless one of the affected wants to binary search the files for the problem area or it starts happening to me and becomes fruitful for me to do so, there's little I can do about it.

just a touch of info ... something in the order.restock.subordinates.recurse and order.restock.subordinates is whats drastically dropping fps ive found ... without those 2 specific scripts i gain like 30fps back

So has this been fixed in recent updates, or do I need to figure out how to delete these scripts?

My game has become an incredible slog whenever I open the UI, and I'm only on day 6. Noticeable pauses and hitches, and sometimes(often even) in system with a lot going on. It was never this bad before adding these faction enhancer mods in my last playthrough, not until day 12 at least.

[Mysterial]

It was fixed.

[Scoob]

Hi,

I'm on day four currently and the Xenon seems to have really upped their game. They're regularly fielding three Xenon I's at once - and those are just the ones I see, that are directly assaulting one of several front lines I'm holding. When I go to invade their sectors, I'm invariably met with an overwhelming response. With the same basic mod set, they're far far more effective than they were in v5.1 HF3.

I use other mods, such a VRO, XR Ship Pack (jobs.xml deleted) and Ship Variety Expansion (with mod to remove jobs), nothing's really changed in my mod list, other than updates as they come out.

I've been liking the difficulty ramp-up, however, if they keep improving like this - while not gaining any additional sectors / resources - it might get a bit much. I also shared my mod selection with a friend, who wants an easier time of it as they're still learning. Bit concerned they'll not be able to cope with these super aggressive Xenon.

For the record, I have several Battleship fleets at various locations holding Xenon incursions at bay, protecting the allied Faction's assets and enabling them to maintain a strong economy and decent fleets. I use FOCW to increase the Fleet quota's slightly for allied faction, not Xenon, they don't need it. So, I'm generally holding them back pretty well. However, simultaneous (within a few minutes) attacks on several fronts by major Xenon I led fleets is...taxing lol.

Is there any way Xenon aggression can be lowered a little? Any config I can tweak?

[Mysterial]

Vanilla only has one Xenon I squadron eligible to go on invasions. So almost certainly the extras are coming from another mod.

The only designed ramp that happens for war behavior is at ~40 hours.

[BlackRain]

Hi,

I'm on day four currently and the Xenon seems to have really upped their game. They're regularly fielding three Xenon I's at once - and those are just the ones I see, that are directly assaulting one of several front lines I'm holding. When I go to invade their sectors, I'm invariably met with an overwhelming response. With the same basic mod set, they're far far more effective than they were in v5.1 HF3.

I use other mods, such a VRO, XR Ship Pack (jobs.xml deleted) and Ship Variety Expansion (with mod to remove jobs), nothing's really changed in my mod list, other than updates as they come out.

I've been liking the difficulty ramp-up, however, if they keep improving like this - while not gaining any additional sectors / resources - it might get a bit much. I also shared my mod selection with a friend, who wants an easier time of it as they're still learning. Bit concerned they'll not be able to cope with these super aggressive Xenon.

For the record, I have several Battleship fleets at various locations holding Xenon incursions at bay, protecting the allied Faction's assets and enabling them to maintain a strong economy and decent fleets. I use FOCW to increase the Fleet quota's slightly for allied faction, not Xenon, they don't need it. So, I'm generally holding them back pretty well. However, simultaneous (within a few minutes) attacks on several fronts by major Xenon I led fleets is...taxing lol.

Is there any way Xenon aggression can be lowered a little? Any config I can tweak?

I think VRO might add some xenon jobs?

[Scoob]

Vanilla only has one Xenon I squadron eligible to go on invasions. So almost certainly the extras are coming from another mod.

The only designed ramp that happens for war behavior is at ~40 hours.

Really, that few? I have noticed that if I invade a sector, then retreat, I'll often have a fleet follow me. So perhaps I'm seeing "defence" Xenon I groups?

I think VRO might add some xenon jobs?

Does it? I didn't think it added any extra Xenon jobs, I'll have to check on that. My mod list is static though, just updated for v6.0, and this fresh v6.0 start is quite a different experience to my 5.1 HF3 game.

I'll ask on the VRO discord and try to get some clarity...

Edit: VRO does not add extra jobs, however, I did find the cause...

Somehow, which is a mystery to me, the jobs.xml for the XR Ship Pack mod had been restored in my game folder, after I previously deleted it. If I had the Steam version, and the Workshop had done this automatically, that'd make sense, however, I use the GoG version so got the mod from Nexus. Weird!

[Scoob]

I have another query, which I think is relevant based on what this mod does...

In my game Rhy's Defiance was taken over by the Xenon. So, they owned Matrix #585 next door, as well as this ex-Split sector.

I liberated BOTH Rhy's Defiance (first) then later #598. I now have a Station (to take ownership) in #598 and am running a mining operation from there, supported by a warehouse for easier selling. It's doing well.

My hope was that ZYA would move to re-take Rhy's Defiance as it's cleared of Xenon and currently neutral. I have no need of this sector myself.

ZYA, while being mildly harassed by ARG, aren't really pushed militarily at the moment and their economy is fairly strong - supported further by my mining operations. Is there anything I can do to encourage ZYA to take Rhy's Defiance?

Does anyone know what triggers a Faction to take back a sector? I'd have though that i) originally being theirs, and ii) now being neutral, they'd be in their like a shot. However, as the sector does not offer any resources other than Scrap, perhaps it's simply not attractive?

[Mysterial]

The faction still needs to build enough ships for a mild invasion force. They aren't going to trust that no enemies are hiding in there.

Also, normally the AI won't schedule multiple invasion attempts at a time to reduce stalls that result in none of them actually happening. I could probably relax this for neutral, uncontested sectors.

[Scoob]

The faction still needs to build enough ships for a mild invasion force. They aren't going to trust that no enemies are hiding in there.

Also, normally the AI won't schedule multiple invasion attempts at a time to reduce stalls that result in none of them actually happening. I could probably relax this for neutral, uncontested sectors.

It's interesting actually, the ZYA faction have had ships running "Protect Position" (I can see their orders, they love me) in each adjacent sector. So, they're camping the West gate in #598 and the North gate in Family Crit - pretty sensible if they were still enemy sectors. Anyway, I thought this might be a prelude to invasion and them establishing a stations there, but no, they seem to have moved their forces away, with only a very small Corvettes (with fighters) group remaining at the West gate in #598.

ZYA are quite strong economically, with several Raptors roaming around. However, they are being pushed by ARG (lost colonies) so perhaps they're focused there. Also, will ZYA see any value in this sector as it has no resources other than a little scrap?

[Mysterial]

The AI doesn't really care about sector resource numbers. If it's adjacent, neutral or hostile, and not specifically excluded by data settings or other systems, then it's fair game for invasion.

[Scoob]

The AI doesn't really care about sector resource numbers. If it's adjacent, neutral or hostile, and not specifically excluded by data settings or other systems, then it's fair game for invasion.

Cool, I'm a little more discerning, so they can have it Sector is there for the taking, though I assume the faction logic never allows one faction to leap-from another's territory to capture a sector? If ARG snagging it, they're not far away, that'd be fun.

[Bababa]

Hi id like to disable the command of AI killing satellites. Could anyone tell me what line should i change/delete? Thanks

[dagger929]

Hey Mysterial,

Love the work. Tried to post this on steam but it has a character limit. My debug is throwing a few errors regarding syntax, which is causing some files to be skipped.

Here's what I was going to post there, including the fixes.

Hi Mysterial.

Can tell this was a labor of love man. Thank you so much for all your mods.

There's a few errors in my debug log. I've gone ahead and corrected them in the mod themselves. Posting in case you want them.
First was the T/0001 file.

Your end line has a - and it throws an error, making it skip the file:
</language>-

corrected:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<language id="44">

<page id="7171" title="Mysterial's Mod Text" descr="Text for the missions created by Mysterial" voice="no">
<t id="2100">Production efficiency from war pressure</t>
<t id="2101">Build efficiency from war pressure</t>
<t id="2102">Planetary Support</t>
<t id="2103">Planetary Guidance Beacon</t>
</page>

</language>

Next error was:
[=ERROR=] 0.00 LIBXML2: file:///extensions%2Ffaction_fix_pack_catchup%2Flibraries%2Fparameters.xml?ext=xml%20xml.gz line 15, error 5: Extra content at the end of the document

[General] 0.00 ======================================
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 0.00 Error loading from XML merge/patch file 'libraries\parameters.xml'. Check the log for further information. Skipping file.

Fixed:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<diff xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<add sel="//scriptparams">
<category name="ffp_catchup">
<!-- game age before drops can start ticking for anyone; note that earliest possible drop is this PLUS min drop interval -->
<param name="game_age_for_drops" value="4h"/>
<!-- minimum catchup value for drops to be running (if catchup value reduces later the drop timer will be paused, not removed) -->
<param name="min_catchup_for_drops" value="0.2"/>
<!-- delay between drops for the minimum catchup value that we will allow them to occur -->
<param name="base_drop_interval" value="4h"/>
<!-- tick interval (set primarily for performance) -->
<param name="drop_tick_delta" value="1min"/>
</category>
</add>
</diff>

[Mysterial]

My debug is throwing a few errors regarding syntax, which is causing some files to be skipped.

I don't see anything extra at the end of the file here. I thought maybe you're running Linux and the parser is more strict or something but I opened the files in multiple editors here and there is nothing visible or selectable at the end of the files with no errors in game. So I don't know how your files would be in that state.

[Warnoise]

Hi, I'd like to disable the changes this mod brings to Capital ship combat AI (IS). Can anyone tell me what lines I should modify?

Thanks

[Scoob]

Hi,

I think I might be getting some sort of weird mod conflict with RoR - it only started after I installed RoR - but wanted to check.

With all modules active, if I were to totally wipe out the Xenon, can this mod cause them to respawn? Twice now, I've had long cleared sectors suddenly FULL of Xenon - including fully functional Shipyards and Wharfs - which then decimate anything that's already there.

I had it happen once, in a neutral sector - lots of miners go there, but no one owns it - where TWO Shipyards and TWO Wharfs spawned in along with a Solar Power Station - all FULLY complete and armed. I reloaded, and took ownership of that sector and it did not repeat. However, many hours later, the same thing has happened in another Neutral sector, this time along with large amounts of ships, that are currently streaming into neighbouring sectors.

Note: first sector was always neutral, second was once owned by XEN, but cleared out by me a long time ago.

Edit: We (well, someone else checked the script) discovered that new stations will be created in a neutral sector if a faction is destroyed. I thought I'd read elsewhere - though it may be from an older version of the mod - that it was possible to totally destroy a faction and have it gone for good. I suppose that's still true, but only if there are no neutral sectors remaining.

[Mysterial]

Edit: We (well, someone else checked the script) discovered that new stations will be created in a neutral sector if a faction is destroyed. I thought I'd read elsewhere - though it may be from an older version of the mod - that it was possible to totally destroy a faction and have it gone for good. I suppose that's still true, but only if there are no neutral sectors remaining.

It's only enabled for the Xenon these days, but yes they will respawn in a random neutral sector. The mod adds a value to parameters.xml that can be used to modify it with another mod if you really want to get rid of it.

[Scoob]

It's only enabled for the Xenon these days, but yes they will respawn in a random neutral sector. The mod adds a value to parameters.xml that can be used to modify it with another mod if you really want to get rid of it.

Thanks. I didn't want it, or expect it, but now it's happened I'm sorta liking killing Xenon again lol. I might disabled it though if I get tired of them coming back. Good to have the option.