Are shipyards basically immortal now? (update: ACTUALLY NO, they are not)

[BlackRain]

BlackRain, if you can and are able, check info on self-repairing capabilities of stations, and also the hull/repair values of L Docks. To me, that and the ability to repair turrets too fast is the current issue.
Overall, stations modules have too much hull for my tastes, but I'd give it a pass for vanilla. The L Docks however (at least from the Paranid), are stupid, and repair uber fast.

Yes shipyards are completely Invincible.

I sent 500 million credits worth of ships at the one Im attacking 10 destroyers and god knows how many M and S class ships, I had to manually provide parts at a loss to shipyards across all of space to pull it off too! I killed everything in 4 Xenon sectors except the shipyard. I found out that it was building itself while being under attack so I destroyed its resources from the building stockpile near the base, btw building stockpile's themselves are invulnerable so kill the boxes. It went on for 2 days aprox 17 hours in seta with the station being on 0 health and its still alive. I even left the system so they wont just attacked the center structure and then shoot into space like morons. It is positively impossible to kill shipyards right now.


The fanboys said I should start a new game since 1.30 fixes everything. So I did, yet to get there but I bet my ass it will be invincible again. Since the Xenon and Khaak ships already gone or only the straglers that are either spawned in at the periphery at the start. Everything else is pretty much dead again. SO I bet the same issue about this will surface again since it was not in the patch notes.

Do you know which part of the station you couldn't destroy? Maybe there is a certain part that is indestructible but not all of it. I will look through the macros but I don't want to spend time looking through each one. If I can pinpoint it that would be better. From what I see, the berths are destructible. I don't see anything in there that says they can't be destroyed (like stations from rebirth). It could be something hardcoded though or perhaps something else. If it could at least be modded, that would be good! I had to create a workaround in rebirth to get stations to be able to be destroyed and it was annoying and didn't always work 100% but it is possible.

I would have to look through a few files and see what I can see.

[Wou]

Turns out you don't need THAT much firepower to bring it down to 0% hull, my ragtag band of found ships did just fine:

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Problem is, even at 0% it is not destroyed, and repair drones keep coming out of the ruins:

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and I can bet that if I call my ships back it will be back in order in no time.

so yeah, they aren't "basically immortal", they're just immortal. Or indestructible rather.
This sucks.

...at least I'm glad I managed to find out while the Xenon aren't much of a threat.
If I went through all of the trouble to invade and clean up a proper swarming Xenon sector only to find out I can't have the final kaboom then damn, I would be pissed.



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edit: on a plus site looks like attacking an invincible but not firing back station is an excellent training for my pilots, they all went from 0 to 2 stars in piloting and morale. I guess I'll just leave my ships there, endlessly firing at the station so at least it doesn't come back

[Solflame]

And just to confirm, you've blown up *every* module, right?

[DarkDracos]

Lowest ive gotten a station was 5% before it magic rep'ed to 50% that was 10 Destroyers 20 Frigates and 30 fighters for support, it melted to 5% and this poof back to 50, and stayed there

[Wou]

And just to confirm, you've blown up *every* module, right?

I'm pretty sure that yeah, it all looked like ruins. I took a trip with my ship through them dropping lasertowers around.
Fun thing: as soon as I left the sector they all have been somehow pushed outside:

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And that's not even the end of it, with one invincible station I could deal, surround it with laser turrets, keep at least one ship attacking it and so on. But there's more.
There's an invincible Solar Power Plant of all things in another Scale Plate Green sector, stopped at 0% and didn't die too, preventing from being able to "clean out" that sector:

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And then there is a wharf and another defence station just outside of the default map range in the first one (bottom left) and I'm not even gonna bother wasting my time trying to destroy them.
Egosoft, I feel disappointed.

[Arze]

BlackRain, if you can and are able, check info on self-repairing capabilities of stations, and also the hull/repair values of L Docks. To me, that and the ability to repair turrets too fast is the current issue.
Overall, stations modules have too much hull for my tastes, but I'd give it a pass for vanilla. The L Docks however (at least from the Paranid), are stupid, and repair uber fast.

Do you know which part of the station you couldn't destroy? Maybe there is a certain part that is indestructible but not all of it. I will look through the macros but I don't want to spend time looking through each one. If I can pinpoint it that would be better. From what I see, the berths are destructible. I don't see anything in there that says they can't be destroyed (like stations from rebirth). It could be something hardcoded though or perhaps something else. If it could at least be modded, that would be good! I had to create a workaround in rebirth to get stations to be able to be destroyed and it was annoying and didn't always work 100% but it is possible.

I would have to look through a few files and see what I can see.

No I did not check which module I could not destroy, because it does not matter. On the galaxy map combat works on overall health. This is the sole reason we can even destroy stations since the AI WILL WITHOUT A DOUBT target only the core module AND ONLY the core module every friggin time if you are also there. But if you MUST look at something then try looking at the part about stuff in construction. The only other station that happened to become invincible was a defense station that I destroyed, again from galaxy map, since the first time I was looking and the fleet kept shooting at nothing, had an invisible central module that I assume to be being built but I destroyed the resources. Every other station I destroyed with overwhelming force from the map. The only reason I destroyed the Shipyards storage even after thinking it would make it invincible because it kept rebuilding itself with infinite resources. Which makes me wonder why it can't build ships.

[ezra-r]

Yes shipyards are completely Invincible.

I sent 500 million credits worth of ships at the one Im attacking 10 destroyers and god knows how many M and S class ships, I had to manually provide parts at a loss to shipyards across all of space to pull it off too! I killed everything in 4 Xenon sectors except the shipyard. I found out that it was building itself while being under attack so I destroyed its resources from the building stockpile near the base, btw building stockpile's themselves are invulnerable so kill the boxes. It went on for 2 days aprox 17 hours in seta with the station being on 0 health and its still alive. I even left the system so they wont just attacked the center structure and then shoot into space like morons. It is positively impossible to kill shipyards right now.


The fanboys said I should start a new game since 1.30 fixes everything. So I did, yet to get there but I bet my ass it will be invincible again. Since the Xenon and Khaak ships already gone or only the straglers that are either spawned in at the periphery at the start. Everything else is pretty much dead again. SO I bet the same issue about this will surface again since it was not in the patch notes.

how do you play to each so much cash?

[Gabeux]

Yeah, they gotta fix this. With the fixes to the war, it's stupid seing invencible stations. I even added a mod to make destroyers guns' hugely powerful, and it becomes clear the station-killing feature is broken, intentionally or not. They keep repairing themselves, and eventually they will die but may take forever since they keep repairing already dead modules once it's close to dying.

And in order to correctly kill a station, you have to kill all modules (available in the Object list, first tab of the Map menu, by expanding the station you're fighting).

[Axeface]

In my game I just entered Matrix 451 and there is a Teladi fleet (a big one) next to a 'destroyed' Xenon station (its icon is grey on the map, not red). Yet they are all shooting at an invulnerable Build Storage module... and drones just keep spawning from the stations wreck.
If some stations really arnt destroyable... well, I'de find that very annoying. One of the selling points of X4 was the dynamic universe...

And for the record I dont think it should be possible to permenantly wipe out a faction, if they get wiped out then they should return with a fleet and get another foothold. Its not like destoying a factions entire space presence is wiping them out is it, there are inhabited planets everywhere.

[Wou]

Hm, now this is interesting.

So there has been 3 days, quite a few hours of playtime has passed + extra some from SETA, and the Xenon Shipyard is still at 0% hull, not destroyed but apparently not rebuilding itself either
img taken just now:

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To make things more interesting the other invincible station I brought down to 0%, SPP in the other Scale Plate Green got back to full health in like an hour or so.
So did I encounter a bug that prevents a station that should regenerate from regenerating, or is it all even more mechanically confusing?

[ApoxNM]

Any mod yet, to fix this?

[Gabeux]

When OOS (Out-of-sector, meaning you are in a different sector from the one the station under attack is in), stations don't die, because their individual modules aren't destroyed. In order for a station to be destroyed, it's individual modules (seen on the map window object list) have to be destroyed. Bringing it down to 0% hull has no effect.
They usually regen back to 50% after reaching 20% Hull or so. Eventually they stop regenerating like that, but may take getting close to destroying it two or three times. The weird things really is when they go below 20% hull and previously destroyed modules just pop back into existance.

Hm, now this is interesting.

So there has been 3 days, quite a few hours of playtime has passed + extra some from SETA, and the Xenon Shipyard is still at 0% hull, not destroyed but apparently not rebuilding itself either
img taken just now:

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To make things more interesting the other invincible station I brought down to 0%, SPP in the other Scale Plate Green got back to full health in like an hour or so.
So did I encounter a bug that prevents a station that should regenerate from regenerating, or is it all even more mechanically confusing?

[SpaceCake]

Once the shipyards become vulnerable in the future, how's a faction going to be able to rebuild? It'd be cool if the factions have a contingency plan and build a new station in the ass end of nowhere, then they'd slowly amass their fleet for one big push to reclaim territories.

[Solflame]

If I remember right, they launch construction ships and filled freighters from planets, basically. Which is the justification for "they get a free construction ship and some freighters full of enough supplies to build some stations, as well as a small defense force".

[Arvel]

Sounds like you may be experiencing a bug.

Xenon Shipyards (and Wharves) are absolutely not invulnerable. They're just a pain in the butt to destroy because of their repair rate. I destroyed the ones in Scale Plate Green myself. When destroyed the target vanishes and they disappear from the map.
Here's proof : https://youtu.be/huiN0feqgpU

Unfortunately, you still may not be able to actually claim the sector: What appears to happen is that as soon as you start destroying their last station, the Xenon instantly start building a new Defense Platform in the sector, which appears to keep you from ever being able to capture the sector, like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

Edit: Something I also noticed, but neglected to show during the video clip I made, is that if the last module of a station is located far away from the station plot's center the AI has trouble hitting it. They'll just shoot at the empty space in the center of the build plot, letting the station regenerate.

To get around this particular AI bug, open the map and expand the station in the Item list and then select and target the module itself. If you haven't scanned it it'll probably show as "???" but any non-destroyed modules will be listed. Press T to target the module itself with your ship and then order your ships to attack it, rather than the station. That'll fix their aim and allow you to finish the station off.

[Wou]

Sounds like you may be experiencing a bug.

Xenon Shipyards (and Wharves) are absolutely not invulnerable.

huh
For me both the Shipyard and the solar power plant (with defense station) in the other subsector refused to blowup despite reaching 0%. On the other hand there was a defense station in both of the subsectors, and they both got destroyed with no problem.
I'll try take down the wharf, although it seems to have even more defenses then the shipyard had.

[Arvel]

Yeah, the Shipyards and Wharves are a real pain to kill, while the Defense Stations seem to enjoy the irony of being practically defenseless.

For your 0% stations, I'd try ordering your ships to focus fire on the specific module(s) that are still alive rather than the station itself. It might help them miss fewer shots and overcome the station's regen. If they still won't die then it's probably a bug of some kind.

[The_42nd_Element]

I guess the real question is: "What would we like to happen to Space Stations?"

Personally, I think any space force worth of its name would not destroy, but capture the station.

I think there should be two possible scenarios:
- Destroy the space station
- Capture the space station (I am talking about shipyards and wharves).

bot scenarios allowing to completely taking over a sector properly.

So what would a captured space station mean?

Nothing different from an uncaptured one. You still buy ships for money which goes away (and not back in your pocket). People need to get paid and since we don't have slavery, we can't have our cake and eat it too.

What do you think?

[Wou]

Xenon Shipyards (and Wharves) are absolutely not invulnerable.

You were right. I was wrong.

Lo and behold, the witch is dead:



But how could this happen? What caused this guy to come to wrong conclusions and make an ass out of himself?
Oh, I'm glad you asked.

See, turns out that when you expand the map listing of an station you get the list of the modules, and when you press T when hovering mouse over one you can target it


Which led me to this charming place:

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... yep, definitely can see a defence module there.

And by clicking at random at what looks like an empty space:

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my god, it's full of... invisible stuff.
After clicking blindly for a while, and managing to find and blow up all of the invisible items on both side of the invisible platform the whole thing reappeared for a split second and went kaboom for good.

In conclusion:
Destroying a module does not necessary destroy it submodules/subsystem, and even one "live" turret, shield, whatever is enough to mark the whole station as alive as well.

[Gadz]

Just to add to this discussion when I select my carrier and fleet and put them on patrol in XEN sectors, they end up finding targets that are not shown on the map and appear invisible and start attacking it. I am not present in the sector as these are my NPC ships. I left my PC on, came back a day later and they were still attacking it. Whatever it was.