[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[Edna]

By the way, how does the 'Faster Research' perk work? As far as I can tell, it doesn't decrease the Research Cycle time (20 minutes) nor does it increase the Research Points per cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7v5N2oBoiQ

[Edna]

Hm, I see how maintenance is less of a late game issue, now. The Jump Beacons make a whole lot of agents obsolete.

[Edna]

96 ingame hours in, I still have nine sectors but now have a fleet of five Acinonyx and removed all pirate bases in my neighbourhood. All my systems have at least one jump beacon, although I realized the jump beacon commands are not optimized for multiple beacons in a system as sometimes ships use the more distant beacon for jumping in, and they don't use the beacons for inter-system jumps (like from a mine to the outpost). As mentioned in the post before, the beacons still save a HUGE amount of time for ships that travel from outpost to outpost, which takes a lot of maintenance costs away (since slow ships travelling through sectors will make them raise maintenance costs fast, just like miners). I've also stuffed every single sector of mine with each four miners, so I guess crystals of each color won't be an issue at all, so I can at least cover the most expensive miners and freighters with MMKs, too.

I'm having six research stations now and they are working on the Ocelote, which will probably take another whole ingame day for researching and then hours for construction. As I see it, capital ships are, thanks to the MMK, good long-term investments, while fighters are better for either keeping them on stations and carriers or just launch them as fire-and-forget waves at Xenon stations, knowing they won't return in same numbers.

By the way, I noticed that the Beta 4 version of the Galaxy Generator doesn't offer the option for "more trading stations" anymore. Is that entirely removed or part of the increased stats trait? I think they added a lot of density to the map without actually doing something.

[Betelgeuse97]

By the way, how does the 'Faster Research' perk work? As far as I can tell, it doesn't decrease the Research Cycle time (20 minutes) nor does it increase the Research Points per cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7v5N2oBoiQ

Did you wait until the next cycle when research points are awarded?

I was also having that question too last night if it adds research percentage or multiplies by existing.

I'm on a scratch galaxy too where everyone starts from square one, and all the races have plenty of mats to build ships but not crystals. Currently 36 in-game hours in and I have yet to see factions make ships, and if I had a pirate base nearby, maybe it could be possible to make a pirate farm for free ships?

Fighters seem to be a good answer to incoming xenon invasions, paired with a wall such as a TL to tank the hits (got to love the Ryu's high total HP for baiting). I hope this works for invading my first sector.

[Tomsoneeta]

In the Outposts menu, the name doesn't update when I rename the Outpost like it did in Mayhem 2 in Sanctuaries menu (if I remember correctly ). But it does push the Outpost on top of the menu if the new name starts for example with an A, even when it still shows the original outpost/sector name like President's End.

[4square425]

I'm not exactly sure what the best tactics are for invading a sector. My ships enter the gate one at a time, so the enemy fleet is usually one top of them by the time my second or third ship emerges. I tried sending a decoy through a side gate, but that causes my fleet to form a long string instead of a better combat formation. Maybe send through a heavily shielded ship first or invest in carriers?

[Edna]

By the way, how does the 'Faster Research' perk work? As far as I can tell, it doesn't decrease the Research Cycle time (20 minutes) nor does it increase the Research Points per cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7v5N2oBoiQ

Did you wait until the next cycle when research points are awarded?

I just checked. From what I can tell, there is are weird discrepancies between the research points awarded per sector:

Lambda - Research Rate 97% - Research Points per cycle: 9 - Faster Research active
Thuruk's Pride - Research Rate 58% - Research Points per cycle: 5 - Faster Research active
Duke's Vision - Research Rate 68% - Research Points per cycle: 6 - Faster Research NOT active
Omicron Lyrae - Research Rate 48% - Research Points per cycle: 4 - Faster Research active
Preacher's Refuge - Research Rate 86% - Research Points per cycle: 8 - Faster Research active
Thyn's Excavation - Research Rate 77% - Research Points per cycle: 7 - Faster Research NOT active

I did another recording of the activation of the perk in Thyn's Excavation and let the SETA run for a while. There is no difference. And then I lost a miner to debris. This is a sad way to start the new day.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwHq-UL-dw8

I'm not exactly sure what the best tactics are for invading a sector. My ships enter the gate one at a time, so the enemy fleet is usually one top of them by the time my second or third ship emerges. I tried sending a decoy through a side gate, but that causes my fleet to form a long string instead of a better combat formation. Maybe send through a heavily shielded ship first or invest in carriers?

You can send in cheap M5s or a Buster Raider (best speed) to divert hostile forces. The Buster Raider is so ridiculously fast, it can bait the enemy through the entire sector without getting endangered if you micromanage it by "Move to Position". Carriers are generally a good idea to deploy stuff effectively, and a Boron Thresher is a relatively cheap tank. That being said, I'd go for diversion instead of tanking, as replacing a M4 or a bunch of M4s is way cheaper than a Thresher, although the Thresher adds nice DPS.

Alternatively, use a missile frigate like the Aquilo to move in first and launch Flails to get rid of the small ships first. That should buy you some time to get the fleet in.

[Betelgeuse97]

By the way, how does the 'Faster Research' perk work? As far as I can tell, it doesn't decrease the Research Cycle time (20 minutes) nor does it increase the Research Points per cycle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7v5N2oBoiQ

Did you wait until the next cycle when research points are awarded?

I just checked. From what I can tell, there is are weird discrepancies between the research points awarded per sector:

Lambda - Research Rate 97% - Research Points per cycle: 9 - Faster Research active
Thuruk's Pride - Research Rate 58% - Research Points per cycle: 5 - Faster Research active
Duke's Vision - Research Rate 68% - Research Points per cycle: 6 - Faster Research NOT active
Omicron Lyrae - Research Rate 48% - Research Points per cycle: 4 - Faster Research active
Preacher's Refuge - Research Rate 86% - Research Points per cycle: 8 - Faster Research active
Thyn's Excavation - Research Rate 77% - Research Points per cycle: 7 - Faster Research NOT active

I did another recording of the activation of the perk in Thyn's Excavation and let the SETA run for a while. There is no difference. And then I lost a miner to debris. This is a sad way to start the new day.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwHq-UL-dw8

I'm not exactly sure what the best tactics are for invading a sector. My ships enter the gate one at a time, so the enemy fleet is usually one top of them by the time my second or third ship emerges. I tried sending a decoy through a side gate, but that causes my fleet to form a long string instead of a better combat formation. Maybe send through a heavily shielded ship first or invest in carriers?

You can send in cheap M5s or a Buster Raider (best speed) to divert hostile forces. The Buster Raider is so ridiculously fast, it can bait the enemy through the entire sector without getting endangered if you micromanage it by "Move to Position". Carriers are generally a good idea to deploy stuff effectively, and a Boron Thresher is a relatively cheap tank. That being said, I'd go for diversion instead of tanking, as replacing a M4 or a bunch of M4s is way cheaper than a Thresher, although the Thresher adds nice DPS.

Alternatively, use a missile frigate like the Aquilo to move in first and launch Flails to get rid of the small ships first. That should buy you some time to get the fleet in.

Looks like you've found a bug with the research perk. Hope Joubarbe reads this.

Good tactic too. In OOS, can't you also send in multiple ships at once? Historically, big ships come in 1-by-1 as the gate is large enough to fit only one capital ship at a time. If you have the jump beacon, you can try use that to bypass the bottleneck caused by using gates, but I have yet to learn about Mayhem 3's jump beacons. If you're early-mid game, you can use the TL to tank (make sure to get its shields to the max as its starting shields are only a quarter of the maximum) and a lot of fighters to kill their fighters first before engaging their capitals.

[Hector0x]

The glorious combat and fleet scripts:
Youtube

[djmidex]

1. When i jump to Bad Debt sector, keyboard controls stop working, could it be mayhem bug? mouse control works, i can Alt+Tab to desktop, but in-game controls does not work. i Had this twice, both times there were enemies in the sector.
savegame+galaxy: https://yadi.sk/d/MzWYJykazVWmkA
2. Factions can conquer sectors with pirate base, ie not destroying it. is it ok? And they do not destroy pirate stations on their territory. it is odd, why should i do this for them?
3. Should "research bonus" perk increase sector stats? it does not.

[Joubarbe]

1. When i jump to Bad Debt sector, keyboard controls stop working, could it be mayhem bug? mouse control works, i can Alt+Tab to desktop, but in-game controls does not work. i Had this twice, both times there were enemies in the sector.
savegame+galaxy: https://yadi.sk/d/MzWYJykazVWmkA
2. Factions can conquer sectors with pirate base, ie not destroying it. is it ok? And they do not destroy pirate stations on their territory. it is odd, why should i do this for them?
3. Should "research bonus" perk increase sector stats? it does not.

1. Will look into it.
2. Because you're their slave.
3. Known, it's getting fixed.

[4square425]

I'm not exactly sure what the best tactics are for invading a sector. My ships enter the gate one at a time, so the enemy fleet is usually one top of them by the time my second or third ship emerges. I tried sending a decoy through a side gate, but that causes my fleet to form a long string instead of a better combat formation. Maybe send through a heavily shielded ship first or invest in carriers?

You can send in cheap M5s or a Buster Raider (best speed) to divert hostile forces. The Buster Raider is so ridiculously fast, it can bait the enemy through the entire sector without getting endangered if you micromanage it by "Move to Position". Carriers are generally a good idea to deploy stuff effectively, and a Boron Thresher is a relatively cheap tank. That being said, I'd go for diversion instead of tanking, as replacing a M4 or a bunch of M4s is way cheaper than a Thresher, although the Thresher adds nice DPS.

Alternatively, use a missile frigate like the Aquilo to move in first and launch Flails to get rid of the small ships first. That should buy you some time to get the fleet in.

Having a decoy helped, but my ships are still stringing out. I thought to use the "Rally To" fleet command to get them to move into the sector, then switch to "Invade Sector" for the combat, but my ships began moving towards the enemy almost immediately. Maybe I need to lower the "Target max range of commander" and "Followers scanning range".

It'd also be nice to have the old "Emergency Jump" shield percentage setting, but for ordinary retreats. The free repairs in Outposts makes it easier to tolerate hull damage, but I keep having larger ships fight it out until they are destroyed rather than retreat.

[Joubarbe]

@djmidex: I've loaded your game, jumped to Bad Sector, and everything works fine. A bad install could lead to this behavior, but you would have seen it well before. So... I don't know, sorry.

[Joubarbe]

In the Outposts menu, the name doesn't update when I rename the Outpost like it did in Mayhem 2 in Sanctuaries menu (if I remember correctly ). But it does push the Outpost on top of the menu if the new name starts for example with an A, even when it still shows the original outpost/sector name like President's End.

I don't understand what this means. When I rename my Outpost, the Outpost is renamed as it should. Can't reproduce your bug.

[Betelgeuse97]

I just found another bug with the Cheaper Stations perk. Instead of reducing the cost of building stations by 1/2 as per the description, it reduces the cost by 1/4. Shouldn't the text or the behavior be updated?

EDIT: Specialization should also be decreasing the completion time, as so far I notice it decreases only the resource cost. Would specialization decreasing only resource cost be a bug as well?
EDIT 2: ignore edit 1. I didn't pay attention closely, as my research station take 3 hours to make while Edna's takes 2 hours.

[Edna]

I just found another bug with the Cheaper Stations perk. Instead of reducing the cost of building stations by 1/2 as per the description, it reduces the cost by 1/4. Shouldn't the text or the behavior be updated?

EDIT: Specialization should also be decreasing the completion time, as so far I notice it decreases only the resource cost. Would specialization decreasing only resource cost be a bug as well?

I can confirm there is something off with the resource calculation

No spec, no perk

Show

14% spec, no perk

Show

41% spec, perked

Show

Note: Still on B4-H1

[Betelgeuse97]

I just found another bug with the Cheaper Stations perk. Instead of reducing the cost of building stations by 1/2 as per the description, it reduces the cost by 1/4. Shouldn't the text or the behavior be updated?

EDIT: Specialization should also be decreasing the completion time, as so far I notice it decreases only the resource cost. Would specialization decreasing only resource cost be a bug as well?

I can confirm there is something off with the resource calculation

No spec, no perk

Show

14% spec, no perk

Show

41% spec, perked

Show

Note: Still on B4-H1

No change so far on B5 H2. Your first two screenshots correctly show specialization decreasing the costs. The cost is calculated as follows:

New cost = base cost * (100 - specialization %)/100 * (100 - perk %)/100, where "perk %" should be 50% as per perk description.

But third screenshot doesn't have the cheaper station perk apply correctly. It's 25% instead due to either a bug in the perk's behavior or a typo the description. If it's the latter, it's likely that the text was not updated due to the perk being reused from Mayhem 2.

EDIT: rewording. I will try to make a research station tomorrow and update you on what I see.

[Zaitsev]

Some quick questions about Mayhem 2.

1 - If I pick one of the "normal" starts where I start with two ships and no claimed sectors, will my threat level still go up after 24 hours even if I haven't claimed any sectors by then?

2 - Will I still get OCV invasions even if I don't have a home sector after 24 hours, or do I need to claim at least one sector before the OCV start showing up?

[Edna]

1 - If I pick one of the "normal" starts where I start with two ships and no claimed sectors, will my threat level still go up after 24 hours even if I haven't claimed any sectors by then?

If my memory is correct, it will increase no matter what. Mayhem 2 is all about clever time management.

[Leshak]

Beta 5 HF 2 new galaxy new game.
After taking 2 sectors Argon Battle Group jump in sector Lambda that was taken by Paranids just before jump. Then Argon BG stuck there near the gate and do nothing. I decided to wait till sector drop out from protectorate. At that point Paranids claim the argon sector and declare war, but Argon BG just sit there and do nothing. Paranid BG fly just through them to next sector without a fight and start wrecking things. Argon BG ignore them. That was in OOS.

When i reproduced that IS, Argon BG sit at gate till Paranid BG attack them. After wrecking Paranids, Argon BG retreat to their territory and act like they should.

1st save before the war.
2nd with war started, just before the battle.
Saves and Galaxy