[Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.10a

[alexalsp]

To prevent Steam from updating and saving save files, you need to disable Steam Clud in the settings, right-click on the game in Steam and select settings

[Hairless-Ape]

Advice request :
Would you say I'd rather :
- change the factory setting to maybe 20/40?
- assign dedicated Agents homebased to some factories (SPP?) ?
- set up another Outpost with 6 agents and have each outpost manage different resources?

1. Main outpost just import/export local resources

2.Secondary outposts:
-import resources of 1 or 2 resource types max from all factories in range.
-export those same resources to any factories that use them within range.
-export ship-building resources (if any) to the Main Outpost.

Note that "within range" is limited to 8 jumps regardless of your jump beacons, so if you have stations placed further apart, you will have to setup distribution for those with a bit more care.
For example, I may take a system 10 jumps away my my main systems because it produces good energy, and I simply have an export job to move energy from that outpost specifically to an "energy distribution hub" outpost I have setup near my main systems. As long as your worker job is moving materials specifically to one target outpost (not any factory in range), the 8 jump limit will not interfere.

This distributes the freighter load rather well and prevents congestion.

[aurelcourt]

Thank you, I'll do that indeed, sounds like a good plan

[Joelnh]

New Install is running much better, no issues yet.
Any plans to have a sort feature on the mission board? Or a Default sort ?

I am going to install Joubarbe's ADS, hope it works... to see how defensive grid etc works.
* Update, ADS does not work. it detects Zero Hour as Not a Litcube Install.

Another annoying thing is when attacking a pirate base, they say the same message dozens of times. Anyone know how to just mute that ?

Gave up for now on Changing Ring of Fire to OWP's.

[Alexeiy]

Advice request :

My initial industrial area is getting full of factories. 4 sectors and 40ish stations. So far only 1 outpost is managing all the logistics with its 6 agents.
The problem is that now some factories are starting to starve because of this logistical bottleneck.

My factories are on a 20%/20% refill/export.

Would you say I'd rather :
- change the factory setting to maybe 20/40?
- assign dedicated Agents homebased to some factories (SPP?) ?
- set up another Outpost with 6 agents and have each outpost manage different resources?
- other logic ?

The purpose is to centralise the resources to the main outpost, which is the shipyard/station builder of this region.

How do you manage your logistics ?

I use couriers with their manual waypoints for my logistics. A Baldric can easily cover 20 factories.

Tedious to set up, but they work flawlessly.

[aurelcourt]

Thank you,
Yes I agree it gives the best results, but I'm not fond of the couriers because it's a pain to set up and if you ever change or add factories, you have to update it every time !

I use them however to gather all the minerals from my outposts and centralize them.

[Joelnh]

I have learned that couriers are the most reliable as well.... too many times station agents are just sitting there and not able to find anything to do.
I have setup one loop per end product for production using 6 Zephyrus since they are very fast and normal TS.... so 12 couriers setup.
Haven't tried the save / load feature for couriers yet.

Anyone using any additional mods on-top of this that are working?
I only tried ADS, and it fails.

[Betelgeuse97]

I have learned that couriers are the most reliable as well.... too many times station agents are just sitting there and not able to find anything to do.
I have setup one loop per end product for production using 6 Zephyrus since they are very fast and normal TS.... so 12 couriers setup.
Haven't tried the save / load feature for couriers yet.

Anyone using any additional mods on-top of this that are working?
I only tried ADS, and it fails.

Did you give your station agents jobs? You must give them jobs (import/export jobs under "logistics" in the outpost management window) for them to work. Station agents poll jobs once per minute, and if they don't have any available jobs at that point of time, then they will poll again 1 minute later.

Only two mods that I know of are compatible with Mayhem 3 and ZH: backgrounds pack and the laser overhaul mod. ADS is not compatible with Mayhem 3.

[Betelgeuse97]

I found a crash to desktop when I flew through the South Gate. Not sure why, but attached are the save and galaxy in this Google Drive folder.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... zlbMpq8N-I

There's also a bug that attacking or killing a neutral trader whose homebase (a trading station) is in the same sector as the trader results in the trading station going permanently red.

Other than that, I noticed that the tall vs. wide idea is not fleshed out well in base Mayhem. Both playstyles should be viable in a 4X game (this mod leans more toward the 4X genre). So far there's only a few ways to play tall:

• Terraforming

• Mobile factories

• Trading

• Killing freighters

• Using all your station slots per sector

1. Mobile factories got an improvement in the form of looped production, so this is a plus.
2. Trading and/or killing freighters are viable but this is not consistent for obtaining resources.
3. Using all your station slots per sector does only so much, and eventually you're forced to go wide (get more territory) if you want a consistent way of expanding your empire.
4. Terraforming is currently randomized in that a random perk is given to a planet, if that sector contains at least one planet. My suggestion is to overhaul terraforming so that it's similar to Stellaris's trait system.

• Like usual, each sector can generate with 0-5 planets. Planets determine the maximum number of terraforming perks that can be picked.

• Each planet is worth 1 point. For example, a sector with 3 planets has 3 available points and up to 3 perks that can be chosen. The exact same perk or its variants (including its negative counterpart) cannot be chosen again.
  • Example 1: player can choose +2 station support but cannot choose +4 station support or -2 station support.
  • Example 2: player can choose increased EC production and increased food production. Player can still pick decreased waste production.

• Positive perks cost 1-4 points, example list below but not limited to just these perks. Some new perks would have negative effects that would refund points, allowing more expensive perks to be chosen if there's still perk slots left for that sector.
  • Increased waste/energy cell/food production (1 point each)
  • +X reputation with Y race (1 point). Also gives Z% more reputation from doing missions.
  • +X favor points with Y race (1 point). Also gives Z% chance of getting an extra loyalty point when a loyalty point is awarded.
  • +20 population (1 point)
  • Increased population growth rate (2 points)
  • +40 population (2 points)
  • +2 station support (2 points)
  • +4 station support (4 points)
  • +1 maximum perk (2 points)
  • -20 population (-1 point). Subtracts 20 people from the current population if the current population would exceed the new population limit when this perk is obtained.
  • Decreased waste/energy cell/food production (-1 point each). EC perk requires the outpost to have solar panels first; if this outpost is destroyed, this perk is replaced with a random negative perk that's worth -1 point.
  • -2 station support (-2 points). Destroys random factories in the sector if the number of factories would exceed the new station limit when this perk is obtained.
  • Decreased population growth rate (-2 points). Subtracts 20% of the current population from the current population.
  • -1 maximum perk (-2 points)

For example, a player sector with 3 planets can choose -20 population, +2 station support, and increased population growth rate to use up all 3 terraforming perk slots and all available points (3 points by default and 1 point given from -20 pops.

EDIT: Addressed exploit with decreased EC production.

[Hector0x]

Yeah i saw your report but did not try it out yet. Had my first look into X4 modding these days, but so far its not very successful.

So i should just get back and fix your issue. In the meantime you could try to delete various ships and stations in that sector (cheat menu). From my experience crashes are often related to some object in the current sector. When the issue is OOS or global the game usually freezes to death.


I never thought about a Terraforming overhaul before. Could be the way to really play tall. Don't know Stellaris too well but seems like a good idea to start with. I definitely don't like the current Terraforming invasion system and would prefer if the unlocking process did not involve a single battle but rather some other more long term disadvantage.

[Joelnh]

increasing how many Stations per sector would be nice to be able to build everything needed in one sector efficiently. Like a big city with suburbs around it feeding it.
I have been simulating this using couriers, I pick a sector name starting with A and build support sectors around it. And courier end product in, it's a pain to setup but has been working.
Main HQ Factory Sector, and Component Sectors.

Hmm, maybe a new Outpost type.... a Support Outpost. you setup workers to automatically collect factory resources and move stuff to main outpost which can't be more than 1-2 sectors away.

I have had one constant in my several playthroughs... Terrans Always Dominate by expanding the fastest.
Anyone else seen this ?

[Hector0x]

Got to be careful with increasing tall gameplay. I still have PTSD from choppy vanilla game performance and spaghetti station complexes.

And having no station limit also allows the player to just grind big fleets and roflstomping everything again.

I've read that a few people prefer Couriers lately. Are they really needed though?
My Outpost Agents have never failed me so far and i could not imagine how tedious Couriers must be.

If you want a central storage Outpost you just need to make sure that you don't overwork the Agents there. This only happens when you have too many import jobs. You can only have 6 Agents. When import is the bottleneck you should use more export jobs elsewhere.
Simply let other Outposts handle all factories up to like 2-3 jumps with their Agents and append a job preset where they also export to your central storage Outpost when something is above a certain cargo limit.

But the best (and easiest) setup i found so far doesn't even need a central storage. Because if some mega invasion hits it you cannot evacuate the resources fast enough. So i try to have minimum resource stockpiles everywhere. And redundancy where about 25% of all my Outposts always have enough resources to build ships or stations

Every Shipyard Outpost - 6 Agents - 8 jumps - only import jobs for ship parts and limited to a low amount (so if 1 Outpost already has enough Hull Plating to build an M2 or so it doesn't grab even more so the others can have some too)

Outposts without ship production - between 2 and 6 Agents, but sometimes even none - 2 jumps - complete job preset but with disabled import jobs for ship parts/crystals


All my Outposts are open for Trade and only some even have Traders. NPC traders help a lot to move freight between your Outposts. It doesn't even cost you anything because Outposts always have average price but the AI traders will still work for you, even without making any profit.
I always set buy and sell to maintain stocklevels for almost everything between 2.000 to 30.000 units, depending on the ware.

[Joelnh]

I am still really liking this mod combined with Zmap, have made some cool universes with pocket areas I utilize.
Amazing Work Hector0x, as well as Joubarbe and everyone else who worked on this.

The advantages of the Courier is that they can pickup/drop off multiple product in one run.
So they can be working with many stations. I set them up in 1 sector to bring maybe 500 to/from each factory in a end product line then back to base.
(i.e. waste to chemical factory then to teladianium then move teladianium to HQ).
As well as no limit to how many can be setup.
Drawback is the setup time.

A few questions... I am still not far into the game (restarted a few times).
Lasertowers, Drones, Jumpdrives, Reapers - are they removed (just remembered think jumpdrives are added using crystals)?
Big Ship bailing removed ? (noticed satellite network only shows up to M6.)
I will probably add that back in since I like the slim chance of finding big ships.

Possible Bugs / inconvenience
Looter / Tug go for the same item/ship. One possible fix - set one tug for small ships and large ships per station.
mercenaries sometimes turn hostile.
Terrans always top in sector expansion.

Improvement ideas.
Outpost Distance set per worker class.
Way to limit Salvage ships per race.
Alter way Sabotage works... chance to fail and spawn escaping enemy ships. Damage amount should be random to determine how successful they were instead of reducing station to 1 hit destroying it.

[Hairless-Ape]

For those who may have experienced issues with "Misspoken Sector names" when playing a map generated by ZMap,
I have posted a temporary solution on the ZMap install instructions page.

[Joelnh]

I have been at War with Teladi for a long time now, and have seen other wars start and end. Teladi started the war.
How do I end this war? Am I at the mercy of the AI deciding when to end it ?

[Hector0x]

diplomacy screen in ministry of war has a button to make peace. But its only clickable if they actually want peace. Once that is the case you will be notified with a big on-screen alert and this peace option will remain available for at least 8 hours.
There is no ticking war exhaustion and they also don't really care about how the war with you is going. It only depends on how well they are doing globally. If they are the largest or second largest faction they usually don't want to end the war (because why should they?). Small scale border skirmishes over 1 or 2 sectors followed by a quick truce agreement are only possible against fairly weak factions who are more peaceful and cooperative. Most big factions want to dominate.

AI vs. AI wars are generally shorter and more frequent than player wars because NPCs get truces in a different way.

If your Teladi are just too powerful you will need to repair reputation old school by killing enemies in their sectors. Khaak queen or Xenon fleets can help a lot with that.
Or when you loose a sector they must also offer you a truce. Because they attacked you first the next truce with them has to be much longer and protects you for an extended duration. So they cannot attack again for 1-2 days. But only a truce will do that. Repairing reputation is not a truce.

[Joelnh]

diplomacy screen in ministry of war has a button to make peace. But its only clickable if they actually want peace. Once that is the case you will be notified with a big on-screen alert and this peace option will remain available for at least 8 hours.
There is no ticking war exhaustion and they also don't really care about how the war with you is going. It only depends on how well they are doing globally. If they are the largest or second largest faction they usually don't want to end the war (because why should they?). Small scale border skirmishes over 1 or 2 sectors followed by a quick truce agreement are only possible against fairly weak factions who are more peaceful and cooperative. Most big factions want to dominate.

AI vs. AI wars are generally shorter and more frequent than player wars because NPCs get truces in a different way.

If your Teladi are just too powerful you will need to repair reputation old school by killing enemies in their sectors. Khaak queen or Xenon fleets can help a lot with that.
Or when you loose a sector they must also offer you a truce. Because they attacked you first the next truce with them has to be much longer and protects you for an extended duration. So they cannot attack again for 1-2 days. But only a truce will do that. Repairing reputation is not a truce.

That explains why, they are the biggest faction by about 20 sectors and are at war with everyone..... totally not teladi profittssss way. Looks like I will have to join coalition against them.
Thank you for the info.

[Joelnh]

One thing I have noticed, if i do the mission where the Xenon spawn from Jump Beacon 1 sector over.
If I don't destroy that Beacon it will continue to kick out Xenon over time.

I have been taking advantage of this to have Xenon clear out Sectors for me and then I kill them and take over.
So far acquired 2 sectors this way and 3rd in process.

[Hairless-Ape]

Now that's innovative

[Joelnh]

Is there a way to kick start the OCV?
The invasion notification hasn't been sent and they stopped taking sectors.

Maybe a script that can be run ?