[Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 2.2

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Sun, 17. Jul 22, 18:23

Check out the successor project: Renegades (continuation of Zero Hour)

Summary:

Addon for Mayhem 3 by Joubarbe
expanded game mechanics + content
dynamic warfare and diplomacy
more believable AI from lowest ship level up to the strategy of faction governments
more activity and bigger fleets but the game still runs better
less clunky UI and empire automation

Download:
Zero Hour 2.2 (includes ZMap 1.7.4 by Mordan)
->https://drive.google.com/file/d/12qt0h1 ... sp=sharing

Optional sector backgrounds pack:
-> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-yfpHa ... sp=sharing

Note that Cat/Dat files are numbered to match a stock Mayhem 3 installation without any submods and bullet/ship trails not having been disabled by the user.

Installation:

install Litcube's Universe and Mayhem 3
download Zero Hour
extract the download archive directly into your X3 root folder (location of X3AP.exe), override everything
create at least 1 galaxy map using the original Map Generator (X3/Mayhem Galaxy Generator.exe)
Run that map from within the Map Generator tool to boot X3 once. Then exit the game.
create your actual galaxy map with the new ZMap generator (X3/ZMap.1.7/X3_Mayhem_Galaxy_Generator.exe) -> Youtube Tutorial: https://youtu.be/2BLIcpQAH94
set your galaxy 'active' in ZMap
run X3AP.exe (non steam version) and start a new game

Ingame encyclopedia has not yet been updated with Zero Hour content!

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Changelog:

2.2 [Mayhem 3.21b] 02/06/2024

Fixes:

random freezes during battles
if you had jump beacons in 2 adjacent sectors your ships would always prefer the beacon route even the warpgate was closer
ZMap feature randomized ship stats was using an outdated file
recycling Research Station or Solar Power plant would bug out the wares in the nearest Outpost
blueprints cannot be aquired via Datascanner anymore once the player has sided with the OCV
friendly OCV was still building Xenon stations in player sectors

Spoiler

Show

2.1[Mayhem 3.21b] 01/26/2024

Old version 2.1a
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hpPOHb ... sp=sharing

Hotfix a:

betty can speak again (\mayhem_data\template_00044.xml)
integrated ZMap 1.7.4

New:

Xenon U (TL)
Xenon F (Miner)
t-file option to allow war declarations by all factions, not just your neighbors (default OFF)
hide blueprints from ship construction screen
use Agents to quickly transfer all resources to another Outpost. A new macro can replace your current Agent job list with Export jobs for every ware in the game. Ship components get transported first, followed by station components and then the rest. Waste + Energy are last.
experimental t-file option "Unlimited Battlegroups" (default OFF)
- removes the global cap for Commonwealth invasion fleets (Battlegroups)
- the AI doesn't cheat and still needs resources to build them
- their currently existing BGs also need to have a minimum average strength level before the AI is allowed to build extra fleets beyond the usual limit
- the coalition mechanic should prevent that the most powerful factions can snowball out of control, but this theory has not been tested. The gameworld might become unstable. Use at your own risk.

Changes:

Origin galaxy start rebalanced:
- begins with a new expansion phase -> AI Battlegroups claim empty sectors much faster (and invade each other much less)
- expansion phase will end forever once X amount of Unknown sectors have been claimed by any Commonwealth factions
- where X is a certain % of galaxy size. The exact threshold is hidden and randomly defined at gamestart, ranging from 50 to 70% (t-file customizable)
maintenance (ship upkeep):
- infamy has less effect on the dynamic upkeep rate for Yaki ships. -25% reduction with infamy (from -50%) and +50% increase without infamy (from +100%)
- using fighters independently without carriers is more expensive:
  - passive inspections. Ships docked at carriers slowly reduce their maintenance factor down to 50% (half original cost)
  - maintenance factor increases twice as fast on fighters
  - fighters base upkeep cost +50% (no upkeep when docked to other ships)
alternate capship laser graphics
NPC fleets consider to retreat before battle (not just after suffering losses)
Nomad Flagship is not boardable (will self destruct immediately)
research not disabled when you are in permanent war with the manufacturer race
local Khaak & Xenon get removed when the player's story TL spawns in
security ship escorts for neutral traders are now capped to 15 ships max. Previously there was no limit, spawning them in excessive numbers if the player had lots of infamy
OCV Virus Outpost event:
- now halts all crafting progress. Essentially your Outpost cannot finish the construction of infected ships anymore. This should make the event less scary and annoying and the 'Insurance' perk is less important.
- construction of an OCV ship has a 1% chance to trigger the OCV Virus event in that Outpost (ship size or 'Insurance' perk don't matter)
- the virus event tends to end faster when its getting triggered from OCV ship production vs. happening naturally as a typical Outpost disaster

Fixes:

new Xenon ship types now spoken by ship computer (requires new galaxy)
'Drop Station' / 'Drop Station At...' commands didn't work for mining stations (wrong yield)
removed jumpdrive from Phanon Colony Ship TL
Xenon F + H wrong cargo capacity
Player could loose control over his ship's speed throttle when it was leading a fleet
extra safety against a rare Xenon bug where they would conquer a sector which still had a station left
Phanon engine colors (thanks XenonArchitect07)
faction AI didn't manage its standard Crystal economy
auto-cash transfer and worker settings now removed from factories when player transfers the sector to another faction
player could transfer sectors to Phanon before their colony ship had arrived
duplicate laser entries in Outpost storage (retroactive fix)

Synthetic Dawn Fixes (the optional ending where Player joins the OCV was still missing critical gameplay ajdustments):

Nomad Ozias no longer buildable
black market closed
removed 'protectorate' cash penalty
removed 'killed trading station' penalty
trading stations not rebuilt in player sectors
no generic missions
removed constant rep restoration for Waverider corp (neutral traders)
Phanon colony ship gets destroyed (don't be inside )
transfer sector to Xenon now possible with Xenon/OCV capships present
mission generated Xenons would still attack the player
turrets of Xenon/OCV don't shoot at player assets and vice versa (additional safety)
unintentional Player/Xenon/OCV ship attacks between each other abort with a forced relation update (reset to friendly)
station kills by Xenon/OCV ships in a sector which is currently claimed by the player count as player kills (sector turns abandoned)
research stations don't make progress. Removed notifications. All previously unlocked blueprints are properly removed now.
hacking doesn't cost money (free virus/port research)
mercs get disbanded and cannot be hired anymore
no more Phanon favors + fixed diplo menu
auto-build Workers: deletes your saved ship types but keeps desired quantity
auto-build Fleet followers: deletes your saved ship types and quantity
ship templates: deletes everything. New templates only allowed for Xenon/OCV/Phanon ships
free ship upgrades (Triplex Scanner, Transporter Device, etc.)

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2.0 [Mayhem 3.21b] 10/28/2023
New game required

Old version 2.0b:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JewF3_ ... sp=sharing

Hotfix a:

ZMap 1.7.1 - fixed root folder + savegame location getting reset when running the program

Hotfix b:

ZMap 1.7.3
- number of shields now affected by ship stat randomizer
- option to randomize stats +/-30%
bailed and abandoned ships should always have full lasers and shields now
default Agent job list adjustments (new game only):
- removed duplicate Crystal import job
- reduced import levels for ship parts (to keep all parts balanced and prevent overstocking)

Boarding

turrets stop shooting at boarding targets (needs marine contact with ship hull)
Fleet ships also won't engage, but already ongoing attacks are not aborted (performance reasons). If you simply rejoin all Followers with the fleet after marine hull contact they should not re-engage again
non fleet ships and other factions continue to shoot at your boarding targets
rep loss from boarding now happens for the actual ship owner (not the manufacturer race)
less infamy gains from boarding huge ships
marine skills:
- mechanical, engineering & hacking skills level up faster
- rookies start with +5 hacking, +20 mechanical and +10 engineering
- marines who already survived their first boarding have a higher chance for a massive fighting skill increase after followup operations

Commands

new TL command 'Drop Station At' (a distant position)
new 'Defend Position' command. Engages enemies within 10km radius and then returns to original position
'Attack All Enemies' no longer requires satellite vision to cover the entire sector
'Fly:Safe' once again only available to player assets (fixes some bugs & bad performance)
renamed 'Collect Astronaut' into 'Collect Marines' (same functionality)
Strip ship command removed

Economy

removed the concept of individual laser & shield items from the game.
- every ship simply equips the highest compatible DPS laser for free
- laser/shield items still exist, but they cannot be used for anything. No production, recycling or trading
- sometimes lasers/shields drop from kills (hardcoded). You are not supposed to pick them up. These containers get despawned automatically once a Looter searches the sector for stuff to pick up
- all lasers/shield items have a volume of 1, so that they never clutter your cargospace if you ever pick them up.
- standard crystals are now used directly for ship production & ships are 33% more expensive. Global crystal economy got adjusted for this
- ship templates are optional for all empire automation features. You can simply select a ship type to build
- Ship Compendium screen decluttered and added DPS column
construction backlog will only ever be filled up to 50% by any empire automation features so that the player can always manually order additional ships
new t-file option to add Quantum Tubes to trading stations (OFF by default because its intended that ship parts are not traded so much between factions so that they can be starved out. But if the long production chain for Quantum Tubes causes you issues you can activate this setting (not retroactive for existing trading stations)
Energy Cells are now used as resource to make Silicon Wafers (old: C-Rations)
yields of Ore asteroids now taken into account when considering how many mining stations the NPCs want to build
slightly reduced global overproduction of many intermediate products like Protein Paste, Chemicals, Teladianium, Microchips, etc. NPCs produce slightly more high-end products like ship parts & Rastar Oil.
Ore production in the mobile factory never worked
all Nomad factory ships eventually got stuck trying to produce Ore (this fix is huge for the global economy!)
Nomad TL factory ships can now detect global shortages and will switch their product if the required resources aren't available anywhere
Nomads now help to distribute resources on a global scale. This allowed to reduce the amount of wares that trading stations cheat-teleport between each other.
population growth update cycle doubled (better script performance & reduced food consumption)
slower pop growth when above 50% pop limit, but extremely fast growth when below 30 people
added red & yellow crystals to the starting resources of first player Outpost
reduced Ore volume
station placement doesn't get blocked by small enemies anymore, only by capships. The AI is now also unable to rebuild its stations when Xenon capships are present.
all stations cost 33% more
trade screen: all trade threshold entries where the demand is currently not being met get highlighted (to see at a glance which wares the Outpost wants to buy and sell)
disassembling factories now rescues all held resources, adding them to the local outpost
maintenance: building ships with custom quality level is less useful (diminishing returns). 'Normal' quality level or 1 above or below is kind of the new sweetspot. Highest quality (impeccable) should almost never be worth it and lowest level (garbage) leads to an extreme increase in upkeep costs (can still be worth it though if the ship is not supposed to survive very long)
maintenance: cost cycle increased from 10 min to 60 min for performance gains and for parity with the tax cycle. Maintenance factor still increases at the traditional rate (now +6 per cycle instead of +1. The extra +5 are ONLY applied if you don't change the new default 3600 second maintenance cycle in 9972-L044.xml t-file. If you input any other value the factor will only increase +1 per cycle

Economy - Tax overhaul

the cash meta is completely different. You get high passive income from your Outposts
balanced for hard difficulty where you have to pay upkeep for sector ownership & jump beacons
on easy or normal diff. money should quickly become a non-issue after the earliest stages
How it works:
- your sectors have a tax efficiency rating which levels up over time
- for smaller empires it levels faster and higher
- tax efficiency gains are semi permanent. It can deteriorate but only very slowly. Early tall playstyle keeps high tax efficiency in the starting sectors even after conquering lots of territory later on.
Good for tax efficiency:
- having fewer sectors
- short jump distances between your sectors (this considers jump beacons)
- higher station density (it hurts your income when you only plop down a single station to claim many sectors)
- being a nation (huge impact)
Bad for tax efficiency:
- having many sectors
- long jump distances
- unused station support slots
- nation status has not been aquired yet
Tax Perk caps your minimum tax efficiency at 100, which is quite low. Its only useful lategame once your empire is large with inefficient natural taxation
loosing a sector removes all accumulated tax efficiency.
your oldest sectors will generally form the core of your empire, having the highest tax efficiency ratings. Isolated sectors which are far away from the rest of yor empire will struggle to develop high tax efficiency.

Economy - Workers

reduced amount of NPC Agent ships by 33% to reduce idle freighters and to increase trade opportunities
~50% less NPC Miners, Explorers, Traders, Looters & Salvage ships but more varied distribution. Some Outposts won't have certain types of Workers, others might have multiple
lowered max. player miners by 25% but increased general mining rates for Color minerals & crystals by 50%, except Red Mineral + Crystal which were already quite common.
fixed Miners causing serious lategame performance issues in the 2.0 Beta version.
improved Architect TL. Works a bit faster and should no longer order excess station kits
Agents scroll their jobs faster
default 'Complete' Agent Job preset already active on new Outposts (will do nothing if you don't assign Agents)
search jump range for Traders/Agents who check 'all reachable factories' is now customizable (t-file, default eight). Jump beacons do NOT reduce this distance. Only bump it up if you have a fast CPU.
player miners don't get killed from collision with debris anymore (t-file option, default on)
Explorer workers can be homebased to Outposts
entire factions can now be added to the Explorer Whitelist (not just sectors)
more worker slots per outpost (except miners)
greatly improved "Auto-Replace Worker" and "Fleet Reinforcement" features, both renamed to "Auto-Build" for better clarity
when lacking resources or crew the Outpost will produce the request ships in smaller batches
"Auto-Assign" Workers only recruits the correct ship type if one got selected for the "Auto-Build" feature
you can set exactly how many Workers you want for each type. The Outpost will only assign ships up to the specified amount.
import/export Worker settings between outposts
option to assign default Worker settings for new outposts
workers are now by default hidden in the property screen
no default worker ship name coloring (can be activated again from Player Console > Global Ship Naming)

Factions, AI

Unknown sectors are claimed much less often and new Unknown sectors will pop up during the game
Battlegroup invaders sometimes only destroy all stations but not conquer the sector. Depends on territory size (larger faction = more likely) and sector stats (better sector = less likely to be abandoned).
new t-file setting for desired amount of empty sectors in galaxy (default 5%)
- when there are not enough empty sectors in the galaxy this reduces NPC claim frequency and chance to abandon sectors
- note that this is a 'soft' mechanic. There is no minimum amount of Unknown sectors which must be available at all times. Once allowed in general the factions are free to claim them. This just makes it less likely.
Yaki arrival event eventually happens automatically after a few days if the player doesn't trigger it
mercenaries and trading stations no longer become angry if you attack neutral traders. Also now they eventually turn friendly again if they ever end up hating you for some reason.
Battlegroups estimate the value of sectors different
- Xenon, Player and empty sectors are no longer a special invasion priority
- Trading stations are valued more
- Asteroids less
- more desire to destroy enemy sectors with important ship part industry
empty sectors can be claimed directly for other factions without reputation losses and from anywhere else in the galaxy. But its not available during the earlygame (you need nation status)
the AI can refuse to get a sector transferred to them (able to detect certain exploits)
in order to develop a good or evil personality the most powerful faction in the galaxy doesn't need to dominate as much as before
free favor actions for coalition allies didn't work
higher Loyalty gains from Commonwealth kills (no Xenon/OCV/Pirates/Khaak targets). Also depends on ship size now: (M6/TM;M7;M1;M2 > 1;2;3;4 Loyalty)
three times better discount for buying Favor points with Loyalty points if player doesn't spend all his Loyalty points. Added UI feedback about the exact threshold.
infamy no longer prevents you from activating favors with your coalition allies
Zone of Control did nothing on hard difficulty. Now it does but of course its less effective than on easy or normal
less production boni for small/weak AI factions
less production boni for every AI faction when the Xenon are strong
at each factory build cycle the AI can only build in 2 different sectors at the same time. This reduces cases where currently desired factory types gets spammed too much.
protection favor now forces allied fleets to actually shoot at invaders (your allies and your invaders are oftentimes not enemies)
AI cannot enter Exodus strategy (trying to expand away from the OCV portal) if the galaxy has just won a Xenon Crisis
greatly reduced missile spam. Factions equip only about 1/3 of their ships with missiles (except M7M & M8)
Terrans got buffed. They already had the best ships, but their average fleet size was so low that they tend to loose. Now there is a chance that the Terrans build some of their fleets larger.

Fleets

new command: 'Flee to Position'. The old flee command is now called 'Flee to safe Stations'
new Retreat command. The leader will stop all fighting and rushes to the selected destination. Any orders from empire automation features get suppressed until he reaches this destination. All Followers stay 'with fleet' but don't attack targets within scanning range and they don't go for repairs. They will initiate attacks when being shot at themselves though.
Basically FLEE means: "Code brown! Run you fools! Every man for himself!". While RETREAT means: "The enemy is still 60km away. Time to get away from them, but stay in my formation and don't scatter to the four winds."
auto-Hiding & Joining of new fleet members
fleet merging, splitting & settings import from another commander
new fleet setting to not respond into a monitored sector if other response fleets are already there or on their way
some more useful quick-commands in the fleet settings screen
Followers no longer go for repairs or attacks during Retreat or Flee commands
the bigger the leader ships is, the further he allows his followers who are 'with fleet' to fall behind before he slows down to let them catch up again.
leader will no longer wait for any 'with fleet' followers who are currently engaged in a fight, except if they have fallen so far behind that they are not even in the same sector anymore
fleet commander prefix is now customizable in the t-file 9973-L044.xml
followers allowed to go for auto-repairs if the only enemies in the sector are freighters
scanning range: followers don't switch their target so much, especially when attacking stations

Hacking

added Quickhacking!
- its finally easy to do hacking, even if you don't invest into perks
- Quickhacks only require your playership with a Hacking Rootkit and 1 Hackerchip
- its a brute force method without delays and random hack efficiency of 30 to 70%
- doesn't work on Oxygen or Accounting subsystems (cannot bail the ship or steal money). Its about the more combat oriented effects (disabling shields, turrets, etc.)
- always gets traced back to you. This means that the subsystem is patched immediately (for the entire ship line)
- additionally all other ports on the quickhacked ship get closed.
Patched ports last much longer (about 3 days)
Hackerchips are cheaper
Port research is instant
all credit costs rebalanced (mostly reduced)
detection risks & upload times reduced and now vary between subsystems
can only select up to 3 relays (performance reasons) but relays are generally more efficient
UI:
- button to select all relays for virus upload
- button to open closest hacking station directly from ship system screen
- button to transfer 500k credits from hacking station screen
- removed some redundant buttons from ship system screen
- duration of hack effect now displayed when hitting the target (how long shields stay down, etc.)
Rootkit range 30 km (+10)
'Network exploit' is now the most common attack vector. A Network virus is the best now because it can be used against many different types of ships.
Cyberwar perk:
- works faster (20 min update cycles, from 30 min)
- can install backdoors into all subsystems (Accounting & Oxygen now supported)
- now works for all ship sizes
- will target sectors 3-5 jumps away more often, but still preferring 2 jump range
cargo system hack will not eject lasers or shields anymore. But massive cost reduction so it can still be useful as relay for other hacks.
renamed ship systems for clarification. Power > Shields; Cooling > Hull Cooling; Radar > Weapons
oxygen hack now guaranteed to work at any efficiency level (always suffocating the entire crew). Virus efficiency only affects upload range. Increased virus cost and detection risk.
oxygen bailed ships can only be claimed by the player (no more AI salvage crews stealing them)
Weapon hack also disarms ships which are already attacking (not just preventing new target selection)

Misc

Ability to queue up research projects for inactive research stations to work through automatically
research rate bonus depending on relation to manufacturer race
- +3 for player's origin faction
- +3 from sharing a sector border (wormhole connection)
- +1 for every reputation rank above 5
- +20 from a new diplomatic favor action 'Technology Transfer' (costs 1 favor point, 6 hour duration)
- +50 from being in a coalition
turrets can track targets beyond 10km. All laser ranges increased
better capship movement during combat
- keeps greater distance
- less turning, spinning and better usage of verticality to avoid collisions
- attack runs against huge targets always created a circular path around the target with the first nav point always facing north. This was problematic if the attacker was coming from the south (trying to move through the target first). Now the circular movement path begins from the actual attack direction.
recovery respawn for player owned ships when they die in a collision with another player owned ship
Orbital Weapon Platforms! Requires station material and black crystals. Global limit is customizable (t-file setting) and gets increased +1 from each new 'Fortress' perk. Factions also build OWPs
faster capturing of terran jump beacons by the player
Black Market is always fully unlocked and everything is 50% cheaper, but buying an M7 adds 1 infamy.
Yaki sabotage feature removed (too artificial and irrelevant)
Ascension: changed some goals. Increased money reward. Removed Ascension menu from player console after completion.
changed Merc soft limit mechanics. No suicide runs against OCV Maelstrom. Mercs don't need to be hired to be able to turn into pirates.
repair speed 5x
reduced refugee pop limit for Outposts (130% of sector pop limit, from 200%)
fixed many crashes & freezes
revised all texts and menus. Shorter, clearer, better.

Perks

new 'Jump Station' perk. Outpost works like a jump beacon which doesn't cost upkeep and the Xenon cannot infect it.
new 'Fortress' perk:
- combines 'EMP' and 'Ring of Fire'.
- less Lasertowers and without shields, but 5x more hull points and slow respawn for some of them
- also generates free security fighters which cannot leave the sector (Mordan's fighter support perk)
- each Fortress perk also increases your global OWP cap by 1 (can be built in other sectors)
'Drydock' perk now reduces upkeep for fighters & corvettes too, but only 25% (capships still get 75% discount)
Pirate contract:
- now protects against Yaki sector claims (but unlocking it will not abort an ongoing invasion!)
- triples initial fight skill for fresh marine recruits, but only if there is a pirate base or yaki sector up to 1 jump nearby
removed 'Spaceweed Manufacture' perk (see Drug overhaul)
Tax perk reduces growth rate more, but not when below 50% pop limit

Phanon

the latest Terraformer branch. Friendly to player
you create their empire from a single colony ship. Gets unlocked during the midgame (nation status)
its sort of a vassal faction for players who don't want to control a huge empire directly and instead work together with an allied faction (you receive all their sectors after the main plot)
they can also improve your sectors for a tall playstyle (terraforming)
new ship set (MSS stellaris port by XenonArchitect)
if you choose the evil ending Phanon will become a powerful antagonist

Phanon - Sector Cloaking

Phanon sectors have a special aura which prevents other Terraformers (Xenon/OCV) from attacking anything in adjacent sectors for reasons unknown. Speculations range from a sensor jamming field to secret contracts with the OCV or everything just being a trap by the AI overlord to lul everyone.
ingame it works similar to the pirate contract perk, but at a jump range of 1 and it's simply protecting everyone.
using this you can now set up safe sectors deep inside Xenon territory, even right next to the OCV Maelstrom. Xenons won't invade as long as a Phanon sector is directly adjacent (wormhole connection).
ships know when they are being protected by this ability and therefore won't attack the Xenon or OCV in these sectors (turrets also hold fire)
you can override this attack restriction by giving an explicit attack order against a specific Xenon ship. But orders against an unspecified amount of targets like 'Invade' or 'Attack all' will not engage Terraformers

Phanon - Special Mechanics

forced alliance with player. You cannot conquer Phanon sectors (it will just respawn a new Outpost if you try). Your attacks against Phanon ships get ignored by them and it won't drop any loot for you. You are simply intended to be permanent friends with them.
Xenon + OCV should never attack Phanon (please report a bug if they do)
Commonwealth factions (Argon, Paranid, etc.) are able to wipe out Phanon because they have dynamic relations. Your relation with other factions is separate from Phanon's and you don't have to follow them into war. But to keep them in the game it might become necessary to give them additional sectors or help defending.
the favor actions 'Truce', 'Federation' and 'Restriction' cannot be used to protect Phanon against NPC invasions but the 'Pacifism' favor works
Phanon will never join any coalition or non-aggression agreements with commonwealth factions. Only the standard Truce. Phanon remains neutral during a Xenon Crisis but the Commonwealth will also not attack them during a crisis
you always have free unlimited favor actions with Phanon
Phanon fleets use your jump beacon network and their invasions can target any sector in the galaxy
Phanon Outposts don't generate or buy food (since they are robots)
Phanon crafting specialization is equal to the abnormal signal strength in their sectors. Once their fleets have been built up they prefer to invade high signal sectors. You can stimulate their ship production by giving them sectors with high abnormal signal strength.
Phanon ships cannot be hacked, boarded, recycled, scanned or researched. You will get all their ship blueprints after the main plot.

Spaceweed/Drug overhaul

removed Spaceweed perk. All Player Outposts slowly generate weed for free. Selling all of it is almost impossible. The goal is rather to sell as much as possible.
infamy still increases production (up to doubling it)
space weed is no longer blacklisted by default (nobody will scan your ships in ZH)
pirate bases buy huge amounts of space weed, but you generally don't want them near your Outposts and factions tend to destroy them eventually until they get rebuilt somewhere else
some NPC factories have limited demand for drugs as secondary resource, but these clients must be discovered first (the more the better)
your Traders have a small chance to passively discover new clients on each trade deal, but only if you have infamy
player activity 'Cargo Hauler' detects clients even without infamy (your striking charisma)
new diplomatic favor action 'Reduce Drug Controls' immediately unlocks many clients at once. It only costs 1 Favor point, but activation gives you +10 infamy
Nomad TS Traders are the only NPC ships who might come to your Outposts to buy spaceweed
its now possible to attract their mobile factory TLs to visit your sectors specificallly. This is more likely if you are a large seller for the resources that they currently need
the TL ship names now indicate what they are producing
- lets say a Nomad TL is currently producing C-Rations so it needs Protein Paste. If your Outpost sells more Protein Paste compared to other factions, then this Nomad TL will visit your sector more often.
- he brings his TS followers who will buy your Protein Paste to supply their TL
- on every such trade the Nomad TS also buys 10% of your current Spaceweed stockpile as an extra (the more you have stored the better)
- the TS crew consumes the weed while still being on your Outpost. You get money and the Nomad flagship is able to generate mercs a bit better for some time

Terraforming overhaul

complete rework. Terraforming is now more of a strategic process instead of a tower defense mechanic
it has more benefits. Every terraformed planet increases all sector stats by 25% and adds an extra perk slot. The unique planet bonus gets added ontop of all of this.
sector stat gains get multiplied ontop of each other, so terraforming multiple planets in the same sector can be super powerful (sectors can have up to 5 planets)
terraforming is done by the friendly robot population of the new 'Phanon' faction. It goes faster if Phanon has more people (Outposts).
every ongoing terraforming project must constantly get supervised by an adjacent Phanon sector. If this sector connection breaks before completion you will loose all planet progress.
terraforming multiple planets at the same time gives a global efficiency bonus, but workforce still gets split, so it will take longer to finish the last planet project.
terraforming is a huge strain on Phanon's economy. Their population will be busy on your planet. During that time they cannot build any new factories and almost no new ships. This only ends once all planet projects are done.
your local outposts will also be out of order for the duration (serves as Phanon's terraforming base)
in case of an emergency you can abort terraforming projects to unlock your Outpost and give Phanon their population back
Phanon doesn't charge you money for their terraforming services. But they still want something in return. For every terraformed planet (including ongoing projects) they will demand that their empire owns 1 extra sector. You don't necessarily need to transfer any sectors to them. Its also fine if they manage to expand on their own (but its highly unlikely unless their faction is already well established).
if you choose the evil ending (join the OCV) then the Xenon will replace Phanon as your new terraforming partner faction. Xenon stations provide more terraforming workforce, but they demand 3 times more territory for themselves compared to Phanon.
tweaked planet boni:
- reputation bonus 10x better
- favor point bonus 3x better
- removed crafting specialization bonus (overpowered) & mining rate bonus (performance hog)
- perk bonus more common

Ultimatums

when factions declare war on you and you have high rank or loyalty there is a good chance to receive an ultimatum instead.
they will demand a specific sector (of their choosing). You get 1 hour to transfer sector ownership to them.
doing this gives you a long lasting non aggression pact
not giving in leads to war
rep rank 7 or higher makes it very likely that you get an ultimatum but its never guaranteed
especially scummy factions like Yaki or Split will always have a certain chance to backstab you immediately, even at high rank or Loyalty (depending on their 'Ethos', see t-file setting).

Xenon & OCV

new main plot with 2 endings. Help Phanon to remove the Xenons and OCV from the game or join the machines to conquer the galaxy
increased potential for Xenon escalation
- Xenon invader fleet limit is now dynamic. +1 fleet for every 5 Xenon sectors (new t-file setting)
- Xenon fleet limit applies separately for small and big invader fleets each (not combined for both). This prevents cases where no more Xenon capships were allowed to spawn because the Xenon already had too many small raider fleets.
- Xenon fleets are now able to conquer faction sectors just like the OCV (they don't create empty sectors anymore). But only the OCV can conquer a sector which was already empty.
- Xenon reinforcement rate scales to galaxy size (larger = faster) and on hard difficulty it also scales with Xenon territory size!
- when the OCV go into overdrive mode this also buffs up the Xenon now (overdrive mode can only happen if the Xenon territory is still small and they have struggled to expand for a while)
Xenon Crisis mechanic
- the level of Xenon/OCV progress which is required before the Xenon crisis can be triggered is more varied. Sometimes the Xenon need to overrun the galaxy, other times the UNC might overreact and push them back very early.
- faction voting has more influence, i.e. the crisis tends to happen much earlier if the majority of factions wants this
- previously the crisis had a very small chance to trigger earlier even when more than 50% of faction votes were still contra. This got removed. Absolute voting majority is now a required to trigger the crisis prematurely.
more refugee ships from factories destroyed by Terraformers
less Xenon defense fleets
certain Xenon & OCV ships were still attacking player owned Terraformer ship designs
on hard difficulty the OCV started with too many ships and a buggy Mammoth herd
Xenon ship types are now buildable in sectors with abnormal signals
OCV fighters and corvettes are more expensive
fixed teleporting out of OCV ships being considered a self destruction (which incurs a fine)
new Xenon TS (design by XenonArchitect). Its a freighter which doesn't get attacked by Xenon or OCV. Very useful to loot or trade safely near the Xenon border.
new Xenon M7M
fixed inactive Xenon ships

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Sun, 17. Jul 22, 18:23

Previous Changelogs:

Spoiler

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1.10b [Mayhem 3.21b] 01/13/2023

NEW: playable OCV ships but there is a catch:
Spoiler
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- can now be researched and produced. For now the AI doesn't use them.
- OCV technology is always infected with the OCV virus. Eventually these ships betray you and join with the Terraformers. The virus mechanics have changed
- research for OCV ships is highly dependent on abnormal signals in a sector. At 0% signals its super slow and each 1% signals gives a massive bonus.
- OCV ships are very cheap. Base cost reduced by 66%
- no crew cost
- no maintenance cost
- free lasers and shields! OCV ships build their own equipment internally using nanomachines
- Terraformer stealth. Player controlled OCV ships don't get attacked by the Xenon or OCV.
- imbalanced resource cost, much more energy cell based. Consumes double Computer Components and half Hull Plating + Quantum Tubes
- can only be produced in sectors with at least 1% abnormal signals. The signal strength provides a production discount (similar to Outpost crafting specialization)
- a few special rules about getting rid of these ships:
  - self-destructing is illegal. If your OCV ship dies but there is no killer you have to pay a fine to Terracorp
  - you cannot recycle or sell OCV lasers
  - all OCV ship designs can only be recycled once for the reverse engineering research bonus. You can no longer recycle them when you have at least 75% of the blueprint.
OCV Virus Mechanics:
- OCV type ships are always infected. The bad Outpost event 'OCV Virus' also still exists and infects all ships that you build during the event.
- when an infected ship finally joins the OCV it doesn't infect other nearby ships anymore
- the delay between initial infection and the virus triggering is longer and more random (up to half a day. Before it was only 20-30 min). The duration depends mostly on abnormal signal strength % in the sector. High signals means that the virus triggers sooner. The construction UI shows you an estimate of how long the virus will take for ships built in that sector. Ship quality further modifies the randomness of the virus delay and makes this estimate more accurate.
- Tip: the ship info panel shows you how long a ship has been alive (flying time at the top)
- when the virus triggers there is a new chain reaction which causes all OCV type ships in the same sector to also join with the OCV. This happens instantly and includes any docked ships in the same sector. Only OCV ship designs are affected. All other ships (including Xenon types) are unaffected.
- when a chain reaction happens you loose reputation with one of the 7 main factions that is closest. Either its the sector owner, or the one who has the closest sector nearby. They just hate it when you dump corrupted OCV tech at their doorstep.
- the amount of rep loss depends on all the OCV ships which got turned during the chain reaction. Ships which are not OCV types and which were just infected by the Outpost event won't cause a rep loss
- boarding an OCV ship does not wipe the OCV virus from the ship computer. Eventually it will take control again. The delay until that happens is based on abnormal signals in the boarding sector.
- infected ships cannot be used against the Xenon or OCV. The virus will detect this and immediately join your ships with the enemy.
- your OCV type ships will also not engage hostile Terraformer ships unless you make them attack a specific Xenon/OCV target or tell them to protect something which gets attacked by Xenon/OCV
NEW: Yaki/Pirate ship roster quirk:
- Good connections to the criminal underworld give you easier access to blueprints, pilots & spare parts for these ships.
- Half maintenance cost and crew requirements when you have at least 1 infamy. Also double research speed (including Data Scanner)
- No infamy gives the opposite effect
NEW: ship roster quirks get listed in research screen
CHANGE: improved auto fleet naming. Now active on default. Added an alternate numbering pattern (*dc) which resets numbers between ship classes. The old numbering (*d) also still works but is not used on default. Added a new optional pattern (*l) which adds ( L ) to the fleet leader only.
Example 7 ship fleet:
Spoiler
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OLD pattern (My Fleet *d). Player must activate auto-naming and then customize further:
My Fleet 001
My Fleet 002
My Fleet 003
My Fleet 004
My Fleet 005
My Fleet 006
My Fleet 007

NEW default (*l*st-*dc) already active for any fleet:
L Tempestine-002
Tempestine-001
Chimera-001
Chimera-002
Chimera-003
Mako-001
Mako-002

The new alternatve number pattern (*dc) gives the leader the highest number for his type. So if you only have one ship type in your fleet you can see immediately how many are left. Example for a leader of 98 Cougar fighters:
CHANGE: ship rebalance
- some of these ships are quite niche and don't get used in AI fleets anymore (most of them still got plenty of alternatives)
- Argon Phantom: dedicated boarding corvette - double marine capacity, better stats overall but expensive, can equip Boron Ion cannon
- Terran Cikyu: fast and very tanky shield frigate but limited to lower grade weapons
- Argon AP Gunner: corvette that uses fighter combat logic
- Argon Griffon / Paranid Ariadne - dedicated carriers (external docking bays). Now limited to medium weapons.
- Terran Logich + Logich Raider: just better shields and speed. Sort of a small tank unit. Deals low damage due to lack of a main laser battery
- Terran Tokyo: can now equip the almighty Point Singularity Projector
CHANGE: much lower chances that the AI uses coordinated invasions against player sectors when the player has not reached nation status yet
CHANGE: the Architect can put stations much closer to Outposts which are far up/down in the sector (Y-axis)
CHANGE: Xenon scouts who try to infect your jump beacons are easier to catch and won't fall back when their shields get low
CHANGE: Architect now deletes your order of a second Research Station (Hotfix a)
FIX: wrong maintenance cost display in ship production screen
FIX: reverse engineering also worked the other way around (reducing your research progress if you had more than 75% progress)
FIX: Architect getting stuck after building a mining station
FIX: Outposts from 1.9 savegames did not update properly (Hotfix a)
FIX: NPC workers could freeze the game when the AI blacklisted their sector (Hotfix b)

________________________________________________________________

1.9a [Mayhem 3.21b] 12/02/2022

NEW: Mission Board
NEW: merged Alaankwa features by temetvince
- Map Gates command
- Autorotate + options hotkey
NEW: production screens
- much cleaner spacing
- shows already existing cargo when ordering items or stations
- ship & station production also displays total number of already owned assets in the universe
CHANGE: Ship Rebalance
Spoiler
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Phase 1 - More Unique Races
Many ships now have a certain twist, based on their original manufacturer race. These rules always apply, regardless who owns these ships. But certain effects like crew requirements or maintenance are only relevant for the player. The ship production screen highlights most race boni and mali in different colors.
- Argon ships don't have special quirks
- Boron ships are slower overall but get passive hull regeneration
- Split ships are faster but they require a lot more crew and extra maintenance cost
- Paranid ships require a lot less crew but also have extra maintenance cost
- Teladi ships are very cheap, but slightly slower than average and their shielding is very bad. Teladi fleets are larger than before (many trash units).
- Terran ships got extra strong shields but are expensive to build and even have a bit of extra maintenance cost on top of that high base price. Terran fleets are smaller than before (few powerful units)
- Xenon ships are cloaked against the Xenon & OCV (they ignore them unless being attacked). They are expensive but don't require any crew. You can only produce them in sectors with 0% abnormal signals. And their resource requirements are imbalanced. Meaning that Xenon ship types consume only half the amount of Computer components and Hull plating, but double the amount of Quantum Tubes.
Phase 2 - More Unique Ship Classes
Original Mayhem ship balance was based on physical ship size. This created a bit of a blended mush with only few interesting exceptions. A large portion of the smaller ships also seemed darn slow for some reason. Giving you absolutely no reason to ever use them.
- Fighters have more clear cut roles. M3 are still the most viable combat option. Most of the super slow M3 are now a bit faster and the extreme speedos were slowed down a bit. M4 are still hardly combat worthy, but at least now almost all of them are super fast, even when damaged. So there could be some niche usage for effective rapid response fleets or when you just want many lasers on the field for cheap. M5 are now more like hyper-specialized scouts. They are really not made for combat. Extremely fast but quite pricey for what they do.
- M6 & M7 have less speed variance within their class spectrum and a flat cost increase to nerf the cheapest designs. Because even the cheapest ships can already mount the bigger sized lasers like their more expensive peers. The cost gap to fighters is generally larger now.
- M1 & M2 have more battle endurance with extra hull hitpoints but also a slightly higher cost
These general class changes are often outweighed by the race effects which are much stronger. For example Teladi M6 are actually cheaper than before, even when all M6 have generally become more expensive. Boron M3 are slower than before, even when most fighters got a speed buff, etc.
CHANGE: boarding Xenon & OCV ships is more difficult (Hull Polarisation Device + Internal Sentry Lasers)
FIX: Drydock maintenance calculation
FIX: rare issues with 2 Outposts in the same sector now eventually sort themselves out and the wrong one which doesn't belong to the current sector owner gets destroyed.
FIX: initial Xenon ships getting deleted also with normal galaxy start
FIX: wrong resource ratio for the mobile factory loop production
FIX: boarding now gives you the bounty of a ship (Hotfix a)
FIX: better install instructions

1.8a [Mayhem 3.21b] 11/12/2022

NEW: 6th main faction - the Terrans return!
- requires Hairless-Ape's ZMap Generator (1.6+). Huge thanks to him! Note that you can still play Zero Hour without ZMap, using just the original Mayhem 3 Galaxy Generator. But then the Terrans won't have any starting sectors.
- default Ethos: 50% evil
- Terrans don't have any dejure sectors and focus on terran memory research sectors instead. Terran Battlegroups want to invade these and when playing on hard difficulty the Terrans might even start a war to take them away from you.
- company: Industritech -> sells terran weapons and missles + 2 random food types on each individual station (like Salecrest company)
NEW: Marine Boarding!
Spoiler
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Overview
- modified Litcube boarding system. More viable for earlygame but less overpowered in the long run. Balancing is likely not final.
- most ships can fit 15 marines and fire boarding pods. TPs fit 60 marines
- pirate bases sell boarding pods and marines but the high skilled ones are pretty expensive.
- marine volunteers can also be recruited for free from Outposts when the population has grown a bit. Volunteers always start with low fighting skill of 10/100 and no other skills.
- boarding pods can also be crafted via missle perk.
- the pods are faster, more nimble, with longer range and can be fired in quick succession (5 marines per pod)
- new black market special decision: after your Ascension you can get a headstart on boarding by inviting a crew of escaped Yaki slave warriors to join your empire. You must have 5 infamy and this decision triggers the Yaki revolution and turns them hostile to you.
New Rewards
- boarding unlocks some basic understanding of the ship design. You get the first 25% of the blueprint. If you already have more research progress you get nothing.
- your team has a chance to find money. Amount depends on ship value
New Consequences:
- boarding increases your global infamy
- the faction will always turn hostile to you. Cheesy vanilla exploits with high reputation have been removed. Because of technical limitations and game balance reasons its not the actual ship owner race who will hate you, but the original manufacturer race of the ship type. This means that when you board a neutral mercenary Tiger M7 you will still make the Split angry. Boarding of Xenons always gets ignored.
- most factions classify boarding as terrorism. This means that some completely uninvolved third party might get triggered by your boarding activities.
  - the chance for this depends on ship value and their race Ethos. Evil factions like Yaki or Split are less likely to care about you stealing ships from others, but good aligned factions like the Borons want you to play by the rules.
  - these complaints always come delayed so that you cannot savescum
  - you will loose all your good reputation with them and they turn neutral to you (reputation rank 0)
  - if an already neutral faction (rank 0) complains about your boarding activities and you play with AI war declarations vs. player (that's when either playing on hard difficulty OR when activating the separate t-file option), then they will suddenly hate you completely. So be careful with doing any boarding when you have rep rank 0 with major factions. On normal difficulty this is no problem because your reputation can only ever drop down to 0 here.
  - between two complaints by the same faction there will always be multiple hours. So you should always get at least 1 warning before they can turn hostile.
Marine Rebalance
- this mod adds an additional round of fighting which happens on the ship bridge right after the vanilla boarding operation is already over. Think of the enemy team attempting a last stand, or an ambush, or some boobytrap explosion, whatever. This will happen all the time and it can kill additional marines.
- the difference between this final battle to the previous fighting through the ship's decks 1-5 is that your marine fighting skill is irrelevant. It only ever matters how many marines are standing on the bridge in total. The more crowded it is, the more extra losses you tend to suffer. The idea is that this is a chaotic close quarters situation where multiple soldiers only hinder and get each other killed.
- these 'extra' losses always lead to completely random casualties. At this point marine fighting skill does NOT increase chance of survival anymore. The only thing that helps here is to have fewer guys reach the final deck.
- you won't be able to keep marines alive forever. Its mostly about getting a healthy 'rotation' of bodies going to keep your entire roster effective. It is possible to 'waste' elite marines. A less skilled team can often win the ship with similar losses.
- you cannot train marines anywhere. Secondary skills like hacking or engineering now also level up passively after boarding, but those level-ups get concentrated on just a few guys who already started with the best skills in your team.
- Fighting skill levels up for every marine like in vanilla, but at a much faster rate. Rookie marines get a massive one time increase to their fighting skill right after surviving their very first boarding op. Veterans have a small chance for it.
NPC Defense Items:
- Advanced Firewall is rare
- Internal Sentry Lasers are common on capships. It adds 200 fighting skill to the ship's defense.
- all Mercs and Nomads have Advanced Firewall, Hull Polarising Device and Internal Sentry Lasers on all their ships. Its not really worth to board them, but its possible.
- all Terran ships are 4 times more difficult to board. Xenon ships 5 times more difficult. This is hardcoded and there is nothing i can do other than building a new boarding system from scratch. Not sure about OCV. I'm sure some players will try
Tips:
- you can monitor boarding progress from your property screen -> personnel tab. If you start loosing marines on the first decks you can quickly fire another boarding pod to top up your marines to full numbers again. This can prevent early death spirals. Towards the end its probably not worth it because you will risk more random losses on the bridge.
- to protect your elite or specialist marines from getting killed in the final casualty round you can send less marines than the allowed maximum of 15. Of course their combined fighting needs to be good enough to pass all deck fights. You can also mix a few rookies in to act as a meatshield and be random casualties instead of your important guys.
- you should have 1-2 decent mechanics for each boarding pod in use. Their skill check will help breaching the hull for all buddies in the same pod
- 1-2 hackers must reach the final deck. You can send them in later to reduce the risk that they die on early decks. Have them wait in a TP or some other second ship and fire them with another boarding pod when your guys have passed deck 2 or so.
- what you should almost never do is sending an overkill team of elite marines, because you might loose too many good soldiers in the random casualty round. Only do this if you are done with boarding and just want to steal that one last ship. Otherwise try to board with just enough skilled marines to win.
- boarding ops always allow +1 marine (hardcoded). So if you have a second ship you can send 16 marines with 4 pods to raise your total fighting strength a bit.
- if boarding fails: Transporter Device > special commands > collect all marines
NEW: the AI can declare war on the player
Spoiler
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Don't freak out!
- only on hard difficulty!
- earlygame is safe! in the beginning you are too insignificant and will be left alone
- you loose this cover status once you stop being regarded as just a pilot and more like a real nation. This happens automatically when the galaxy becomes aware that you have accumulated a decent amount of strategic assets like:
  1. military ship strength
  2. number of sectors
  3. cash
  4. ship construction resources
- you don't need to complete all 4 of those goals. Even just 1 can blow your cover!
- none of these goals will trigger instantly. The galactic public checks your progress very infrequently. Sometimes they simply notice only much later how much you have already progressed in one area.
  For example you might've already completed the resource milestone and have lots of hull plating stored. But the public recently just observed your bank account and amount of sectors. If those were small enough you still float under the radar for a while longer until you get treated like a proper nation.
- If you want a true survival challenge you can reduce all 4 nation goals in the t-file. At 0 you would only need to complete your Ascension quest to become a valid war target! (basically an 'impossible' difficulty setting)
Who can declare war on you?
- any of your neighbors (adjacent sector)
- the evil 'Tyrant' AI personality. He doesn't even need a shared border
How it works:
- the faction just sends a message and turns hostile without warning
- most AI empires have a certain desire to attack you. But its highly dependent on their ingame situation.
- dejure sectors are the biggest factor. If you control any Paranid dejure sector they are much more likely to attack you. Its irrelevant how many dejure sectors you got. They only care about if you have any.
- your total military fleet power works as a passive deterrence against all foreign aggression. NPC factions will only declare war on you if you appear weak to them.
- there is no need to exactly match their fleet size. The AI takes into account that a player can create really powerful single fleets. Every military ship under your control helps to scare potential aggressors away and reduces the chance that they risk to declare war on you
- it never matters where your ships are located in the galaxy
- to deter someone completely, so that he can definitely not declare war you would only need about 50% of his total military power. Obviously that's much easier to do against smaller factions.
- overextending your empire provokes foreign aggression. That is when you own many sectors without having a sufficient military power to defend yourself. The AI sees this as an opportunity to take your sectors by force.
- your origin race that you selected at gamestart is much less likely to betray you (but it can still happen)
- the AI's current goals are super important. For example:
  - if they have suffered heavy losses they want to rebuild lots of ships and its unlikely that they declare a new war
  - if they have trouble with the Xenon they generally want to get along with all other factions
  - coalition members have to focus on their shared enemy
  - 2 NPCs in a total war are less inclined to declare war on third parties like you, but it can still happen.
  - an evil 'Tyrant' AI is so obsessed with showing his force that he will not get deterred by your military power
  - the new race 'Ethos' from this mod is taken into account (Borons are less likely to declare war on you. Split are more aggressive, etc.)
- having infamy makes it more likely that someone attacks you but getting even more infamy doesn't make it worse
- hired mercenaries never count towards an empire's military strength level
The new Meta
- you want to avoid being framed as a nation for as long as possible. Always try to progress your early empire fairly balanced. Don't pile up too much of only one thing, like money that you're not spending, too many sectors that you're not using, or only stockpiling huge amounts of 1 ship component without having all the rest that's also required to actually build ships. Having too much of something can draw attention before you're ready, when you're still missing critical assets like a proper military fleet!
- expect that strong neighbors will eventually betray you
- weak neighbors tend to leave you alone because they are either too scared or just busy
- you can join a coalition to completely eliminate all risk of getting backstabbed by your partner
- try to claim some sectors inside the territory of your starting origin race as they will probably not attack you.
- keep your military alive! If you suffer too many losses you might invite third parties to take advantage when they see that sudden drop of your military power level!
- if the AI starts a war against you, Terracorp will intervene and force them to convert any 'Truce' that they're offering into a 'Non-Aggression-Pact'. Thats basically the same but it lasts much longer, depending on size difference between both of your empires. So usually it should not the end of the world if some big bully nation decides to attack you because they won't be able to do that very often.
- good reputation doesn't help you! Nations don't have 'friends', only interests.
NEW: player can create or join coalitions!
- you just declare that you want to form a coalition against someone. If there is at least 1 likeminded partner the coaltion gets created
- relations tab in ministry of war now shows who wants to form a coalition against whom
- free diplomatic favor actions with all coalition allies
- coalition partners won't mind if you claim adjacent sectors
- your ships cannot attack coalition allies
- you won't get truces offered by your shared enemy and cannot leave the coalition until it dissolves
- coalitions are more likely. Reduced minimum required size difference between empires from 15% to 8%
NEW: reverse engineering -> recycling a ship for the first time also unlocks the first 75% of the blueprint. If you already have more research progress you get nothing.
NEW: can choose to reveal the galaxy map at gamestart
NEW: Outpost production screens show available resources
CHANGE: Quickstart gives you all the stuff that you usually gather during the normal Ascension (extra ships, resources, money and reputation)
CHANGE: Yaki can be part of coalitions
CHANGE: factions require less military power advantage to develop a good or evil AI personality
CHANGE: on hard difficulty its more likely that the AI becomes evil
CHANGE: on hard difficulty the AI does not need to become evil to be able to send overkill invasions against important player sectors. Like Outposts where you tend to build your ships or store lots of resources. Or sectors where you have built all your factories of a certain type.
CHANGE: mobile drilling system range +50%. Attempt to fix miner collisions with debris.
CHANGE: Tutorial overhaul. Removed useless info and added new messages which suggest useful strategies or explain mechanics.
CHANGE: Space Weed not traded by Salecrest stations
CHANGE: Fleet commanders will not respond to attack enemies (sector monitoring) when you have sent them to a station or when docked at an Outpost and their hull is still getting repaired
CHANGE: Trade Product Search never shows any player stations. Added clarifications about the different uses of Trade-Run:Buy/Sell commands and Trade Product Search command
CHANGE: you cannot disassemble stations or abandon/transfer a sector that is currently getting claimed by another faction (exploit/technical issues)
CHANGE: signing a truce resets all your own ships back to friendly and reminds you to update your Global Friend-Foe settings
FIX: if player reputation to Private Corp. (Trading Stations) ever changes it gets reset back to neutral
FIX: Architect issues
FIX: Space Weed was missing in Courier screen (in Zero Hour its not illegal to carry, only difficult to establish buyers)
FIX: Pirate Bases were refusing docking clearance
FIX: workaround for Pirate Base hardcoded consumption rates. Now they constantly cheat-spawn more Hackerchips and Boarding Pods to maintain small stockpiles for these 2 wares.
FIX: mysterious message from 'Unknown'. This was just a typo in the refugee tutorial when they visit one of your Outposts for the first time
FIX: truces and non-aggression pacts expired too fast due to bugs. Relations tab now differentiates between Truces and Non-Aggression Pacts (longer Truces)
HOTFIX a: Xenon sectors conquered by player during global crisis getting gifted to random factions
HOTFIX a: ownership of former Xenon sectors reverting back to Xenon when player conquered them by placing a factory instead of an Outpost
HOTFIX b: sector ownership issues because player was not being held accountable for station kills scored by hired mercenaries

1.7a [Mayhem 3.21b] 10/09/2022

NEW: select global state of the galaxy before gamestart! Requires ZMap Generator by Hairless-Ape.
1. Peaceful post-Xenon-Crisis:
  The Terraformers just got crushed by a United Commonwealth. All factions still celebrate this costly victory and will continue to work together out of necessity. Once their initial resource starvation is fixed the factions can begin to invade their neighbors. The Xenon & OCV had to withdraw almost all their fleets from this galaxy and must bide their time until major hostilities break out again.
2. Chaotic pre-Xenon-Crisis:
  The Xenon Empire has advanced deep into civilized space. A global initiative to unite all biological lifeforms under one banner is on the rise. This political union is imminent and the player can build his empire during these interesting times and the opportunities or dangers which might present themselves. You start with the entire galaxy map and can also just observe the coming storm if you want.
  (sometimes it takes over an hour before you get the TL (quickstart) and the map reveal)
  (on largest galaxy size with early expansion setting it can take the AI up to 4 days to win the Xenon war. On galaxy expansion setting 'None' the AI might even loose.)
CHANGE: the AI hires fresh mercenaries during a Xenon crisis (not just once at the beginning)
CHANGE: 20% reduced intensity of all discounts & cheats for NPC production (this is just a small t-file change > general catchup intensity multiplier 100% > 80%)
CHANGE: Xenon sector protectorates expire immediately during Xenon crisis
CHANGE: Xenon sectors with multiple Xenon stations inside them already get conquered when the first Xenon station gets destroyed (the other Xenon stations just self destruct)
CHANGE: global crisis can now end much earlier. The Xenon don't need to be reduced to only 1 sector.
CHANGE: reduced average duration of global peace after a Xenon crisis from 2 days to 16 hours.
CHANGE: all protectorates are immediately removed when a Xenon crisis ends
FIX: too many pirates when playing new game for very long without reloading
FIX: global peace period never ended after Xenon crisis
FIX: player immediately lost gifted sectors again (now you get a free station to secure your ownership)
FIX: instances of Xenon stations and faction Outposts in the same sector could cause sector ownership conflicts
FIX: when coordinated invasion forces got wiped out completely the faction operation never ended properly, rendering the target sector unclaimable
FIX: ships without main laser batteries got stuck attacking & could not switch target
FIX: squad leaders could get stuck attacking Xenon stations which didn't exist anymore
FIX: certain protectorates could still time out unintentionally during a Xenon crisis
FIX: custom OCV Maelstrom sector coordinates (ZMap)
1.7a FIX: Nomads were still building carriers. Potential freeze

1.6a [Mayhem 3.21b] 08/21/2022

E-War overhaul + new 'Cyberwar center' perk
jump beacons can be crafted instantly in any Outpost
optional galaxy creation with custom OCV Maelstrom sector! Requires ZMap Generator by Hairless-Ape.
Xenon invasion slower & more spread out (OCV unchanged)
- big invader fleets don't need to spawn at Xenon jump beacons (potential exploit)
- big invader fleets aborting and maybe going somewhere else when targeting player stations did not work.
- the location they go to is now a random Xenon sector.
- can now also happen when targeting NPC stations but the chance is lower
game could freeze when Nomads tried to build ships
Nomads did not build enough TL factory ships
disabled M7C carriers for Nomad Mercs
fixed pirate warlord M7 not bailing
protectorates can expire during a global Xenon crisis when the sector is owned by Xenon
added more safeties to prevent buggy sector ownership
loop production of a ship template pauses when you don't have enough crystals for the lasers/shields (prevents overfilling the production queue)
Hotfix a: Restarting all Outposts. Updating ongoing tasks could fail on some Outposts.

1.5 [Mayhem 3.21b] 08/08/2022

increased range for most heavy lasers (M7 collision fix)
pirate M7 which spawned after a pirate base destruction will now bail if they receive hull damage during the first 10 min of their existence
increased chance to spawn a pirate M7 from 20% to 60%
fixed Architect not building Research Stations
fleet auto-monitoring doesn't take control of the playership
fixed fleet followers not attacking certain targets
improved fleet cohesion!
- player fleets can use formations again
- NPC squadrons and player fleets which are using the option 'Attack Commanders Target: Yes' don't break formation until the enemy is closer than 20km
- if fleet followers are "with the fleet" but fell behind in other sectors or are more than 25km away their commander will fly at low speed so they can catch up

1.4 [Mayhem 3.21b] 08/02/2022

fleet sector monitoring would falsely recognize neutral traders as enemies
fixed trade product search returning outdated intel
Argon Mammoth TL was missing in research & ship compendium
removed a secondary check which caused NPC traders to reconsider and maybe not sell their goods to a player station after they already arrived. This was based on your trade rank and it could spam you with on-screen messages all the time. Now a trader will always sell to you if your price was attractive enough so that he came to your station in the first place. (99% of players don't need to worry about prices at all)

1.3 [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/29/2022

fixed mercenary followers and potentially other ships getting stuck defending stations forever after their leader docked
pirates would not spawn during day 1 in a galaxy with 'none' expansion
'protect' command on jump beacons no longer attacks nearby enemies like pirates but now also responds to Xenon infectors
automated piracy for player fleets using the new target priority now also works with Mayhem's sector monitoring feature
- your entire fleet is in 'piracy monitoring mode' when any of the 3 target priorities for different ship classes Huge/Big/Fighter are set to 'Only neutral TS with cargo'
- in piracy monitoring mode your fleet does no longer search for enemies to kill, but for neutral traders
- actually carried cargo is unknown until your fleet scans it on arrival
- once in-sector your fleet will only attack the TS if it is carrying cargo and if the target priority for the fleet leader's ship class is set to 'Only neutral TS with cargo'

1.2 [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/23/2022

Architect build orders can only fill 1/4 of the outpost's total allowed production queue
Architect no longer orders station kits if there already is one ready for pickup
M8 were missing pre-installed equipment

1.1 [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/21/2022

broken Khaak get restarted
bailed ships keep their paintjob

1.0.2 [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/20/2022

fixed escort
disabled formations for NPC squadron leaders (followers still use them)
disabled formations player ships which are part of a fleet (scanning range setting didn't work with formations)

1.0.1 [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/18/2022

added formations from alaankwa mod. Thanks temetvince!

1.0 initial release [Mayhem 3.21b] 07/17/2022

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:11

First, THANK YOU for continuing the Mayhem Series. This is outstanding and greatly appreciated.

Love
A.I. improvements. Can't wait to see how this plays out. Can't stand the vanilla crap. This area of change is essential.
Especially love the fact that some races play sentimental goals. If that's not realistic I don't know what is.
the ability to change max people in outpost.
The Auto Cash Transfer feature.
Quick-Trade has enormous potential. Love the templates.
The news flashes and settings are very creative and actually fun to read.
Zone of control rules seem far more realistic.
The idea of Infamy and the ability to play as good or evil and have that MEAN something is phenomenal! Love this most of all and hope to see this developed to the maximum possible level.
Love the Nomad faction. Can't wait to see what they do.
The ability to kill neutral freighters without causing a war with a faction is paramount to any pirate style of play. Love it.
"free saving with lots of salvage insurance" - Love it. Thanks for removing stupid administrative burdens that don't add value to the game play.
"Explorer and Tug workers never react to any attacks and just continue flying. This is assuming that you use fast ships!" God, it's about time. Awesome.
"pirates use TM's for tactical redeployment, mobile repairs and hot-drops. These are pretty fast and also smart." LOVE it! Do I hear an eve-online dude in there somewhere?
"favor actions are generally more accessible to the player and you can build a real long term relationship." I sure hope so. Old system of favors was so hard it was useless to me.
The Architect Worker feature is possible a game changer for me. Not tried it yet, but if it works well.. oh what a great feature.
So much more to see.

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16

Ok, now for my first list of irritating questions that will drive you nuts.. but be very helpful for me. Enjoy.

"Architect" section of Administration screen shows a description:
""free support" = after that order." What does this mean??
At the bottom it shows "Free Support: 4/xxx - NO ORDER -xxx"
Again, what is "Free support" and what does it have to do with station building? Is using the Architect slower than doing it yourself? or more costly somehow?

-Quick-Trade-
Why does "Shipyard Supply" setup trade orders for Colored Crystals? Something in particular you upgrade on all your ships?
Why does it setup export trade rules for Hackerchips and Advanced Satellites? I don't see how that plays in with building ships. Perhaps make separate Quick-Trade items to cover these things.
Descriptions in here talk about "full factory loads". No idea what that is.
Why the special features about Fruit? Is this maybe always available from NPC stations? Why fruit and not vegetables or something else? I never use food, as it's a pain.
As soon as I choose one Quick-Trade, my station now shows tons of ware entries and not just the ones I have there. So much clutter showing all those wares when 98% of them are at a stock level of 0. Is this really needed?

I want to play generally as a pirate, and would love to get some gameplay tips for how to play effectively as one of the types you list (Drug Empire, Pirate Kingdom, Merc Warlord). Not sure what is even possible? I never tried before because pirates always attacked and so I naturally killed them all. Can't even dock at a pirate station once you start shooting them, and they don't give you much choice at all early game.. Now it seems there's a real option to play a pirate life and be friends with them. Would love some tips here.

How does the pirate contract perk work in this mod? I can't find a description for that perk anywhere. Seems kind of pointless to have a contract that only works in that one system.. Pirate just goes next door and kills your haulers there right?

"in Zero Hour your freighters usually still travel quite safe during war with other major empires" WHY ? shouldn't they be toast.

What to do with space weed? No one will buy it when I try to "Trade" it. Sorry to ask. Couldn't get an answer from Joubarbe.

Suggestion to combine laser & missile mfg perks. Just seems like these are so similar that it is just more administrative headache for the player and not a feature to have these separate.

Suggestion to re-introduce marines and some of that game play. Hated it when that was nerfed.

You state "in Zero Hour you will see lower trade margins because there are fewer trades from 1 factory to another without a trading station or Outpost as a middle man".
Could you elaborate? This doesn't sound good to me. I don't understand exactly how this has been nerfed and would like to know more. Why can't a trader be a trader?

You state "Docking Computer is no longer a default equipment for TPs. But if you choose to start with a TP it will have one."
How can one "choose" to start with a TP? Don't we always start with a TP ?

I don't understand Automatic Jump Beacon Protection. Here's my question - If I now have to park 2-3 fighters within 20km of the beacon and ensure they have no orders,
why wouldn't I have just assigned those same fighters to guard the beacon in the first place? What's the advantage here?

When you queue up your station Architect "If he finds a stockpile of station kits he will know that the player has put them there. So he takes one but also orders a replacement."
I wish he wouldn't order a replacement.

You state "player fleets don't attack hostile freighters or satellites anymore and will never get distracted by them".
Why wouldn't I want my player fleet to attack hostile freighters? Seems like a primary target to me.

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Sat, 23. Jul 22, 10:50

sips coffee

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
"Architect" section of Administration screen shows a description:
""free support" = after that order." What does this mean??
At the bottom it shows "Free Support: 4/xxx - NO ORDER -xxx"
Again, what is "Free support" and what does it have to do with station building? Is using the Architect slower than doing it yourself? or more costly somehow?

its the station support of that sector. If you place multiple requests for stations you'll see that number shrinking. Its the remaining station support of the sector after your Architect would be finished placing that station.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
-Quick-Trade-
Why does "Shipyard Supply" setup trade orders for Colored Crystals? Something in particular you upgrade on all your ships?

the idea was to get everything going for ship building with a single click. Including some of the more basic color crystals for video goggles, Transporter Device, etc. I'm thinking about separating the color crystals but then he only buys a hand full to not waste money. I think it doesn't hurt to have those crystals at hand. If you don't use them they just stay there and Traders will not buy more of them.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
Why does it setup export trade rules for Hackerchips and Advanced Satellites? I don't see how that plays in with building ships. Perhaps make separate Quick-Trade items to cover these things.

I believe that's actually the SELL ALL template which is doing that. Don't remember exactly why, but i believe it was because hackerchips and satellites were often sold to pirate bases and faction Outposts and this was rarely intended. So it seemed to be a good default setting to keep them.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
Descriptions in here talk about "full factory loads". No idea what that is.

2 loads basically means "enough to completely fill up 2 empty factories with resources"

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
Why the special features about Fruit? Is this maybe always available from NPC stations? Why fruit and not vegetables or something else? I never use food, as it's a pain.

QuickTrade automatically detects what kind of food your Outpost needs and this is the option to buy it. If you do this across all your Outposts they will actually exchange the correct food with each other using Traders and food stops being the pain that you had to manage with complicated Agent jobs.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
As soon as I choose one Quick-Trade, my station now shows tons of ware entries and not just the ones I have there. So much clutter showing all those wares when 98% of them are at a stock level of 0. Is this really needed?

Yes. If a ware does not show up in this list it does not get sold by your Traders. This means the things your Looters bring in don't make you any money and your Traders will dump more and more random crap and slowly fill up your Outpost, which just slowly burns your money. Thats the primary reason why QuickTrade exists. To keep your Outposts clean and to get rid of all the random stuff that would always pile up everywhere in your empire.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
I want to play generally as a pirate, and would love to get some gameplay tips for how to play effectively as one of the types you list (Drug Empire, Pirate Kingdom, Merc Warlord). Not sure what is even possible? I never tried before because pirates always attacked and so I naturally killed them all. Can't even dock at a pirate station once you start shooting them, and they don't give you much choice at all early game.. Now it seems there's a real option to play a pirate life and be friends with them. Would love some tips here.

The feature list needs to be a bit dramatic to catch the eye. You cannot really befriend the pirates. They will just attack you much less and tend to leave the sectors where your freighters are. So its viable to 'live with them' much better. 'Pirate Kingdom' alludes to the fact that now there is a fleet target setting to hunt neutral traders without reputation penalties. 'Drug Empire' would be the spaceweed perk for Outposts, which gets boosted if you have infamy. And 'Merc Warlord' just means that infamy allows you to wield certain mercenaries more effectively. You can combine all these benefits to find your own individual 'criminal playstyle'. Don't read too much into my marketing speech

My tip would be to actually use the opportunity to get free resources from automated piracy fleets in combination with your Looter workers. Your biggest problem would be the missing safety during faction wars. There are no truces for criminals, so if you bite more than you can chew and attack a big empire there won't be any easy way to end the war if you start loosing it.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
How does the pirate contract perk work in this mod? I can't find a description for that perk anywhere. Seems kind of pointless to have a contract that only works in that one system.. Pirate just goes next door and kills your haulers there right?

The benefit of this perk is that pirates cannot attack you at all. Not even their turrets can shoot you. Yes its very situational, but offers 100% protection. Nothing else can do that. So it might enable some exotic strategies. I don't like this perk too much, but i've read that its the favourite of other players.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
"in Zero Hour your freighters usually still travel quite safe during war with other major empires" WHY ? shouldn't they be toast.

Most players never really went to war with factions because it messes up their economy. You had to blacklist factions and make sure that your Workers don't wander off. This was just too much of a hassle and kind of contradicts the main premise of Mayhem, which is fighting for territory. So i decided to make factions stick to 'rules of war' so that they not harm civilians. There is still escalation potential, though. During permanent, total, or coalition wars these rules won't apply and the enemy actually targets your freighters actively with raiding Task Forces.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
What to do with space weed? No one will buy it when I try to "Trade" it. Sorry to ask. Couldn't get an answer from Joubarbe.

Pirate bases buy it. You should always be able to dock but pirate ships will attack you on the way. Second you can build underground connections and unlock spaceweed as secondary resource on any NPC factory just from doing manual cargo hauling jobs. But you need the cargobay shielding item on your freighters or the police would find the illegal spaceweed. In Zero Hour there is a third way. Nomad traders can also come to your outposts and buy spaceweed. But this requires infamy, the more the better (higher chance that they come to you)

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
Suggestion to combine laser & missile mfg perks. Just seems like these are so similar that it is just more administrative headache for the player and not a feature to have these separate.

Don't like that idea. More perks means more headache for the player to choose between them. If you want both that means both are useful to you. Keeping them separate is good then, imho. I would rather combine perks which seem useless on their own.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
Suggestion to re-introduce marines and some of that game play. Hated it when that was nerfed.

Maybe. But its low priority for me and it would be the boarding system from Mayhem 2, as 3 was known to cause unfixable bugs.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
You state "in Zero Hour you will see lower trade margins because there are fewer trades from 1 factory to another without a trading station or Outpost as a middle man".
Could you elaborate? This doesn't sound good to me. I don't understand exactly how this has been nerfed and would like to know more. Why can't a trader be a trader?

Trading stations are considered DOCKS by the game. Docks always have to offer average price for buying and selling. In ZH you have almost every resource which gets consumed in factories available on every trading station. So most traders will go to a trading station to buy a resource and then sell it to a factory that needs it. Or they go to a factory to buy some product and then sell it to a trading station. What they do a lot less is going to a factory to buy a product and then sell it at another factory. That would give the highest margin because factories have dynamic prices. Trading stations always have average price, so the margin is often lower if one of these stations is involved in the trade.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
You state "Docking Computer is no longer a default equipment for TPs. But if you choose to start with a TP it will have one."
How can one "choose" to start with a TP? Don't we always start with a TP ?

No you can choose between an M3, TS, or TP, or nothing

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
I don't understand Automatic Jump Beacon Protection. Here's my question - If I now have to park 2-3 fighters within 20km of the beacon and ensure they have no orders,
why wouldn't I have just assigned those same fighters to guard the beacon in the first place? What's the advantage here?

Ships protecting a jump beacon would not register that a Xenon is trying to infect it. They would just let the Xenon happily complete his malicious task. Now they respond and take him out. But i want to refine automatic jump beacon protection further. Its very unintuitive that you need a ship nearby which is just doing nothing. It should also work when the ship is actually protecting the beacon itself. Because the pirates sometimes (rarely) decide to vandalize your beacon and you need the 'protect' command to respond to actual attacks.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
When you queue up your station Architect "If he finds a stockpile of station kits he will know that the player has put them there. So he takes one but also orders a replacement."
I wish he wouldn't order a replacement.

Removed in 1.2

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Fri, 22. Jul 22, 17:16
You state "player fleets don't attack hostile freighters or satellites anymore and will never get distracted by them".
Why wouldn't I want my player fleet to attack hostile freighters? Seems like a primary target to me.

When my fleet was invading a sector it was always very annoying to me that they would often chase random freighters around the sector. Or stop and go for that satellite that an Explorer had just replaced. I think its better to outsource this to smaller, faster raiding fleets. That's why i added specific targeting priorities for 'Satellites' and 'Freighters'. You can still sort of kill freighters 'on the fly' by teleporting to that sector and setting turrets of all fleet ships to attack.

Ysengrin · Post by **Ysengrin** » Sat, 23. Jul 22, 23:43

Wooh, it's huge !
Can't wait to play zero hour ! You did'nt post any sign on the Mayhem 3 thread, I almost missed that...

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Mon, 25. Jul 22, 14:47

Now that was a great set of answers. I learned a lot. Thanks !
I especially loved the comments about how to be an effective pirate. This is going to be awesome.

My only remaining questions would be this:

Hector0x wrote: ↑
Sat, 23. Jul 22, 10:50
Ships protecting a jump beacon would not register that a Xenon is trying to infect it. They would just let the Xenon happily complete his malicious task....

I often assigned a ship or two to protect a beacon, and it would absolutely kill any Xenon trying to infect it, so I don't understand why you say they won't.

The last being Marine Boarding. I guess I was curious why the bugs are not fixable, but that would probably just bring on a technical answer that won't serve anyone. In the end though, I thought this entire idea was quite fun to do. I'd also love to see some ability to bring back the fixed defensive stations like Mayhem 2 had, but I'm sure that would bork up the balance big time. Maybe just make them expensive as hell ?

Keep up the great work.

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Tue, 26. Jul 22, 18:00

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Mon, 25. Jul 22, 14:47
I often assigned a ship or two to protect a beacon, and it would absolutely kill any Xenon trying to infect it, so I don't understand why you say they won't.

Protect command on a jump beacon is not really feasible right now because the ship will attack any nearby enemy. Including random pirates who don't even have an interest in your beacon. Your guardian ship is toast unless you put an actual fleet there. In the next update i'm going to change the protect command so that it does not attack nearby enemies when used on a jump beacon. That creates the issue that your ship does not react to the Xenon because technically the infection attempt does not count like a real attack on your jump beacon.
It worked for you and your ship still attacked the Xenon, but only because he was a nearby enemy, not because he went for your beacon. I'm gonna change it so that its the latter and your ship won't aggro on random pirates.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Mon, 25. Jul 22, 14:47
The last being Marine Boarding. I guess I was curious why the bugs are not fixable, but that would probably just bring on a technical answer that won't serve anyone. In the end though, I thought this entire idea was quite fun to do.

Cannot even provide you with a technical answer as i didn't dig into why boarding was broken in M3. I didn't even experience any of the bugs that other people reported. Just know that Joubarbe stated that he cannot fix the savegame corruption that would sometimes appear. Overall i never did much boarding in X3 because it feels a bit like an exploit and is always the same minigame.

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Mon, 25. Jul 22, 14:47
I'd also love to see some ability to bring back the fixed defensive stations like Mayhem 2 had, but I'm sure that would bork up the balance big time. Maybe just make them expensive as hell ?

To me the station defenses in X4 are the main reason why the game sucks. It might be logical to put guns on your installations, but they make the gameworld static and uninteresting. The AI is just not able to overcome a wall of lasers put behind a jumpgate. Countless player complains refer to issues with how ships are unable to engage stations without suiciding. You even got YT guides where they tell you to approach a blind spot in a formation and stop once some of your turrets are outranging the station. You have to trick your own ships into not attacking to overcome the balancing issue that stations are just op.
Other people exploit that by putting a circle of defense modules behind a gate to farm stupid fleets of a handful of ships with half the firepower compared to the defense station and 10% of the hitpoints. Ships die, die and die. Nothing happens in X4 because only the player can crack fortress stations. If i would make a mod for X4 the first thing i would do is nerfing station defenses into the ground. Only mobile assets should be able to fight. And they should travel quite slow and cost upkeep. Its the only way to get an interesting dynamic of attack vs. defense. Permanent cheap defenses should not exist.

But maybe someone adds OWPs back in with a submod

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Thu, 28. Jul 22, 04:28

Those are fair points and it makes sense.

I do have a question about the pirating though.
I set my M6 fleet settings to attack "neutral TS with Cargo" for M6 sized ships.. I set the fleet to monitor all "Player" sectors. I even went around and scanned neutral traders and they had cargo. However, My M6 fleet justsits there and doesn't go for them. What am I missing?

Also, after completing ascension, I'm given the standard TL.. all good.. but when I go to build another one now, I find I have no blueprint for it. Never happened before. Is this what you intend? Just seems like you should be able to build the ship types you start with but was wondering if this was intended for some reason. Thanks.

fyi, Map editor is coming along well

Thanks.

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Thu, 28. Jul 22, 09:27

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Thu, 28. Jul 22, 04:28
Those are fair points and it makes sense.

I do have a question about the pirating though.
I set my M6 fleet settings to attack "neutral TS with Cargo" for M6 sized ships.. I set the fleet to monitor all "Player" sectors. I even went around and scanned neutral traders and they had cargo. However, My M6 fleet justsits there and doesn't go for them. What am I missing?

Also, after completing ascension, I'm given the standard TL.. all good.. but when I go to build another one now, I find I have no blueprint for it. Never happened before. Is this what you intend? Just seems like you should be able to build the ship types you start with but was wondering if this was intended for some reason. Thanks.

fyi, Map editor is coming along well

Thanks.

Nice!

Answered the pirate question on Discord. I basically forgot to implement that.

Beginning with the TL bluepring must've been removed by Joubarbe at some point then. I don't remember if there ever was a time when you were just given the TL blueprint. I'd say you always had to research one and its also ok in my opinion. Owning and using one does not necessarily mean that you can replicate the technology. Its like LosTech in Battletech.

sovica · Post by **sovica** » Fri, 29. Jul 22, 20:39

Let me just say what a fantastic mod this is!
Absolutely awesome and can't imagine the work and dedication needed to get all of this running as it is.

Also, kudos to your YT channel, I learned a lot from your videos there.

dantebelmondo · Post by **dantebelmondo** » Sun, 31. Jul 22, 02:47

Hi Hector. When I playing the ZH I found the trade product search command is a little buggy. If the best buy search or best sell search can't find any result, it will report the last found station. It looks like re-initialization of the variable is not functional. This is the original code of PL.TradeProductSearch.SM.xml from line 86-89 opened with X-Studio

Code: Select all

if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestBuy'
	if $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_FACTORY] OR $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_DOCK]

and apparently, it didn't re-initialize the $FoundStation var.

I fixed it by adding the missing pieces: PL.TradeProductSearch.SM.xml from line 86

Code: Select all

if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$FoundStation = null
	if $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_FACTORY] OR $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_DOCK]

from line 167

Code: Select all

if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestSell'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestSell'
	$FoundStation = null
	$SelectedMode = 'Availability'

Feel free to include in your wonderful ZH mod.

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Sun, 31. Jul 22, 10:52

dantebelmondo wrote: ↑
Sun, 31. Jul 22, 02:47

Thanks. Included in 1.4

Very glad to read that the mod seems to be working quite well.

alexalsp · Post by **alexalsp** » Sun, 31. Jul 22, 12:42

dantebelmondo wrote: ↑
Sun, 31. Jul 22, 02:47
Hi Hector. When I playing the ZH I found the trade product search command is a little buggy. If the best buy search or best sell search can't find any result, it will report the last found station. It looks like re-initialization of the variable is not functional. This is the original code of PL.TradeProductSearch.SM.xml from line 86-89 opened with X-Studio
Code: Select all
if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestBuy'
	if $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_FACTORY] OR $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_DOCK]
and apparently, it didn't re-initialize the $FoundStation var.

I fixed it by adding the missing pieces: PL.TradeProductSearch.SM.xml from line 86
Code: Select all
if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestBuy'
	$FoundStation = null
	if $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_FACTORY] OR $SelectedMainType == [SSTYPE_DOCK]
from line 167
Code: Select all
if $CallbackReturn == 'SearchForBestSell'
	$LastOperation = 'SearchForBestSell'
	$FoundStation = null
	$SelectedMode = 'Availability'
Feel free to include in your wonderful ZH mod.

Is this fix up to date for Mayhem 3.21b? Or only for ZH?

dantebelmondo · Post by **dantebelmondo** » Sun, 31. Jul 22, 13:37

alexalsp wrote: ↑
Sun, 31. Jul 22, 12:42

Is this fix up to date for Mayhem 3.21b? Or only for ZH?

This is the fix for original M3.21b. ZH didn't modify this file.

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Sun, 7. Aug 22, 19:40

I can't seem to ever dock at Pirate bases. I want to sell my space weed.
Is there some trick to befriending the pirates, or do you know why they would deny my request to dock?
Is there a way to build reputation with Pirates and does it have any effect in the game?
I would think the more neutral traders you kill, the higher your Pirate reputation would be but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Thoughts?

Betelgeuse97 · Post by **Betelgeuse97** » Sun, 7. Aug 22, 20:29

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Sun, 7. Aug 22, 19:40
I can't seem to ever dock at Pirate bases. I want to sell my space weed.
Is there some trick to befriending the pirates, or do you know why they would deny my request to dock?
Is there a way to build reputation with Pirates and does it have any effect in the game?
I would think the more neutral traders you kill, the higher your Pirate reputation would be but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Thoughts?

1. Did you kill a pirate in the same sector as its homebase? If you did, you lost docking privileges at that pirate base.
2. No, pirates aren't intended to be befriended. Pirates are hardcoded to be enemies; this is an intended feature.
3. Not feasible due to pirate behavior being hardcoded, and I think Yaki reputation would probably make more sense since Yakis are organized pirates.

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Mon, 8. Aug 22, 04:10

Betelgeuse97 wrote: ↑
Sun, 7. Aug 22, 20:29

Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑
Sun, 7. Aug 22, 19:40
I can't seem to ever dock at Pirate bases. I want to sell my space weed.
Is there some trick to befriending the pirates, or do you know why they would deny my request to dock?
Is there a way to build reputation with Pirates and does it have any effect in the game?
I would think the more neutral traders you kill, the higher your Pirate reputation would be but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Thoughts?
1. Did you kill a pirate in the same sector as its homebase? If you did, you lost docking privileges at that pirate base.
2. No, pirates aren't intended to be befriended. Pirates are hardcoded to be enemies; this is an intended feature.
3. Not feasible due to pirate behavior being hardcoded, and I think Yaki reputation would probably make more sense since Yakis are organized pirates.

I must have killed one. That makes sense. Thanks.

I think what I want to change in the game however, is this pirate hard-coded behavior you talk about. It seems to me if one can code a Sector PERK so that pirates will no longer attack any of your ships in that sector, one could also code up something that looks at your infamy level and has the effect anywhere in the universe. Or at least, a tendency.

Hairless-Ape · Post by **Hairless-Ape** » Wed, 10. Aug 22, 16:51

Enjoy the new Map Generator / Editor

viewtopic.php?f=94&t=449012

sk1_ · Post by **sk1_** » Thu, 11. Aug 22, 23:06

Hi,

was trying out your mod and liked it a lot so far, thank you very much! :>

Found some sort of endless loop (I guess), you can download the galaxy and save here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gffkoyy90g7r2 ... g.zip?dl=0
Sadly only a few seconds until the game hangs, not sure if it is enough time to find the problem.

I'll update this if I can reproduce it with an earlier save or find a cause.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

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