Post
by Falcrack » Thu, 21. Sep 17, 04:55
Joubarbe, I want to say thank you for this amazing mod! Mayhem, along with LU, are the best things that have happened to X3 in years. I love the dynamic of factions taking over territory, witnessing the grand battles that take place as factions clash. The research mechanic is awesome, the player sanctuary mechanic is awesome, everything is awesome!
To make it even more awesome, I would like to know how feasible it would be to make it so that NPC shipyards function like player sanctuaries, ie they need energy cells, ore, teladianium, cloth rimes etc, and time, in order to build factories and ships. They would still produce ships for military incursions as they do now, but their ability to produce these fleets would be directly dependent upon the resources available to the faction, or from other friendly factions. I think this would be great by creating a far more dynamic, living universe than what we have currently. It would be like what Jack08 was trying to accomplish with the X-Timelines mod, which unfortunately never materialized. Here are a few ideas I have for how it could work, which, incorporated into LU+Mayhem, would make X3 as awesome as possible:
1. NPC shipyards have a number of jump-enabled freighters (maybe 6 would be enough per shipyard) whose job it is to supply shipyards with raw materials to make ships and stations, and to retrieve products such as lasers, shields, and missiles from friendly stations or equipment docks to equip those ships. They could also accept non-shipyard freighters to sell stuff to them, but the disadvantage is that the shipyard has no control over what or when resources get sold to it. They would also perhaps produce and operate their own fleet of mobile miners, to supplement the ore and silicon wafers from mines, and to produce the colored crystals. Shipyards would also own 1 or 2 TL for station building. As per current Mayhem rules, you would not be able to build stations in sectors you do not own, but you could purchase stations from shipyards, for setup in your own sectors. Stations would take time to be produced at a shipyard (you would receive a notification when it is ready for pickup), and time to setup in the destination sector.
2. The player should be able once again to dock and purchase ships at friendly shipyards, being able to place orders for fully equipped ships (ordering shields, weapons, software, even energy cells from the start). But, the ships still need to be produced using resources, and also time per ships. Your order would go into the shipyard queue, and your order placement in the queue would depend upon their race reputation. With the highest rank, your order goes right to the top of the queue ahead of other orders, but if you are barely tolerated, it goes to the bottom of the queue, and you may need to wait quite some time to get your ship. Shipyards would produce and have on hand some basic freighters and fighters which could be purchased right away, as is, by either the player or the faction, in case they need to address an immediate shortfall.
3. Shipyards have 4 separate production facilities for producing stations, large (M1, M2, M7, TL class) ships, medium (TS, TM, TP, M6, M8) ships, and small (M3, M4, and M5) ships, with separate queues for each facility, so that production of large capital ships that may take a long time do not clog up production of other ship types or stations.
4. Production of freighters and factories that boost economic production would be prioritized over military ships, until they reach the limits of economic expansion (ie number of factories per owned sector is maxed out). Once economic expansion is maxed out, then the faction would begin more heavily focusing on military production, and when it reaches a critical mass with enough forces to both defend territory and send out to war, it will declare war on another faction in order to gain more territory. After gaining a sector, the stations in the conquered territory (including shipyards) are now made friendly towards the conquering faction. If the sector has not yet reached its full economic potential, the race will try to fill it up with factories before moving on to the next sector.
5. Shipyards would stockpile resources in advance in anticipation of future orders, and to complete all the orders in the current queue, but if there is a shortfall, any supplies it needs to complete the order at the top of the queue would be prioritized by the shipyard freighters.
6. Equipment docks for each race should be capable of supplying all wares which would be necessary to equip ships used by each race (ie all shield sizes, missiles which can be used on their ships, lasers, etc). Each faction should be capable of producing all the factories that produce the needed wares for their own race’s ships.
7. To make the overall NPC economy more efficient, each faction will attempt to produce a number of jump-enabled free traders running a UT script, which are sold to friendly corporations. The number of freighters they attempt to produce will be dependent on the number of sectors or owned stations within their territory (some idealized ratio of freighters per factory). But you say, the player won’t be able to compete with these jump drive enabled traders? Well, in my experience with Mayhem, salvage seems to be the real money maker early on anyways, until you can begin to establish your own system of factories. Increased bounty payouts could also help the player have an easier time getting established.
8. Corporations and races should operate on the same basis as the player in needing property present in order to see trades deals. That means corporations and factions would buy and deploy satellite networks in friendly territories (allied territory and their own) to keep an eye on trade deals. You could thus cripple the ability of a race or corporation to do business in sectors of their allies by destroying their satellites, until they can manage to reestablish new satellites there. Satellites would thus no longer become a player-exclusive ware, as they are now. It might simplify things if there was only one type of satellite available (the current advanced satellite).
9. When the NPC race determines it has a shortage of a particular ware or resource, it orders an additional factory from the shipyard, based on the deficiency, which is then loaded onto a jump-enabled TL that will deliver the station to the needed sector. The AI should be able to analyze and determine which point is producing the shortage (eg not attempt to make more quantum tube fabs to address a quantum tube shortage, when there are already existing quantum tube fabs which are simply not producing due to a shortage of meatsteak cahoonas, which is ultimately caused by a shortage of Cattle Ranches).
10. Solar power plants should be able to produce e-cells for free without the need for crystals, for both the player and NPC, to prevent catastrophic crashes in the economy. Maybe take crystal fabs out of the economy, which are only really needed for solar power plants anyways. Energy, the base of the economy, should be cheap and highly available. Try to fill up a sector with SPPs to sell for pure profit, and you will soon saturate the market and have nobody to sell energy to, or only be able to sell it for very little. With cheap abundant energy, what is in place to prevent a runaway economy? Limited numbers of stations per sector, of course!
11. NPC ships will consume energy cells for jumps, and will attempt to refuel as much as possible, but if they are short of energy cells for a needed jump, they will still be able to make the jump anyways using up whatever e-cells they have (different from the player, who has a brain in order to address these problems).
12. If certain wares are produced in great excess, and their products clog up equipment docks, military outposts, or trade stations, there could be added “Recycling Stations” set in safe sectors which would be capable of turning these wares back into their original components. These raw goods could then be sold back to factories in order to make other useful items. This could work by having each equipment dock, trade station, or military outpost have a dedicated freighter which sells wares once they pass a certain threshold level. So instead of wares “disappearing” from these places as they currently do to mimic consumption, they could be put back into the economy to make other useful items. E-cells, of course, could not be recycled, and E-cells used in the manufacturing of an item could not be reclaimed.
13. Xenon stations would be all-in-one factories, so all they need is ore, silicon wafers, and maybe the colored crystals to produce ships, shields, and lasers. They would be supplied by a sizeable fleet of mobile miners. These stations would also be recycling stations when excess wares accumulate. The Xenon would be hostile to all, and cannot make alliances, but due to their efficient nature of ship production, they can afford to be hostile to all. The combined effort of all factions may be necessary to keep them at bay.
14. The Pirate and Yaki economy would operate on a salvage basis, collecting scraps from ships they blow up or capture, or the aftermath of battles. Their jump-enabled salvage collectors would have a hidden identity, NOT revealed by advanced satellites, to avoid crippling their economy by your satellite network. Bailed ships they reclaim would also have a hidden identity, and would be returned to their base and repaired. Pirates would operate TMs which could be used to pick up bailed M3, M4, or M5 fighters. The collected goods would go into a pirate equipment dock, and be used either to equip their ships, or be recycled into resources to be used to make new ships and wares. They would have to scout out the cargo containers using hidden M5 scouts that continuously explore the galaxy and report locations of abandoned ships and cargo containers. They would also try to conquer territory and establish their own stations, but could not trade with other factions, though Pirates and Yaki may be able to trade with each other provided they are not currently hostile to each other.
15. The more sectors a faction owns leads to a higher threat level, and thus they are more likely to lose allies and gain enemies. Conversely, factions which have lost a lot of territories and are weak have their threat level lowered, so they are less likely to be attacked. Safe sectors stay as they are now. This helps ensure that no one faction dominates the galaxy, and though borders change, the balance of power stays more or less constant.
16. If there are critical shortfalls in supplies, then the faction suffers until these shortfalls can be addressed. If the NPC faction loses enough territory, then other NPC factions will start to declare peace, and the suffering faction would be allowed to send its freighters into friendly territory of other factions to purchase the necessary resources that it may lack, so that it can begin to rebuild its economy and military.
17. Safe sectors are safe from incursions by NPC factions, but not the player or Xenon, but taking over a safe sector from a faction will cause all other factions to immediately cease hostilities with each other, unite, and declare war and focus all their efforts onto eliminating whoever dared to take over a safe sector. Xenon will have no “Safe sectors”, as nobody cares if they are wiped out, but their innate efficiency at ship building will make that task incredibly difficult for all but the united and determined efforts of all combined factions.
18. More highways, and less gates. Gates effectively mean there are no chokepoints, and so it does not make sense to protect key sectors to stop an advance. If gates were more rare, and most sectors were only accessible by highways (like transorbital accelerators, which you cannot lock on to with a jump drive), then there would be a real need for sectors to be contiguous. Jump beacons could still be present in every friendly sector, but in order to use a jump beacon, you have to have friendly status with the faction. A fast M5 ship could, however, carry a jump beacon into a hostile sector, slipping past the defenses, and use it to create a rally point for ships to jump into the sector. Additionally, you could try to cripple the enemy transportation network by flying deep inside enemy territory and destroying their jump beacons, which they would then attempt to replace (like a satellite network mention previously), forcing freighters to making longer trips and preventing immediate responses from defensive forces. Highway entrances would thus need to be heavily guarded. Security forces would be stationed to protect and scan incoming ships at highway points.
