Faction survivability and Xenons

[bof111]

Hi again,

So in my primary analysis of the game it seems, at least in theory, to be quite difficult to keep all factions alive and running for the duration of a long game especially for the xenons.
Now lets get some facts :
1 As i understood with the plots you can stop conflicts between some factions or let them go forever.
2 You can supply with ships other factions infinitely with looping shipyards.
3 The player can heavily do missions against some faction (lets assume you specialize against one faction like the xenon)
4 The xenon are a bit weaker at the moment because of OOS and mining issues.

But now lets says the 4 point is temporary. Only with the first 3 points it's already enough to destabilize the balance between factions and get a faction destroyed without noticing it.
My theoretical configuration would be :
- reducing war between factions to minimum by the plots. (less conflict means less probability for one faction to be wiped out)
- No supplying faction with ships (only occasionally)
- Here is the bad point, I like fighting missions so i plan to heavily going on missions against xenons.
As i'm planning to keep all factions alive on the long run, is it only possible to keep the xenon alive like this ?
What other solution could exist without cheesing ?

Thanks.

[Ezarkal]

Do NOT reduce NPC wars. Shipyards are the only driving force for the economy. If the ship they produce don't get blown up, they stop producing new ones, and we've seen in earlier versions of the game what happens when the economy stall.
Plus, in my last playthrough, I went with the "make peace" option for both the Paranid plot and the Split plot, and the game became very boring very quickly.


The way the game is balanced, it takes a very long time for an NPC faction to wipe another one out, and you'll have plenty of time to notice the losing faction losing it's sectors to the wining faction. Just look at the map. You'll have enough reaction time to supply the losing faction's shipyard and help them stabilize, at any rate.


The only way I see for truly helping Xenons to survive is to wage war on the factions that are destroying them. I really hope they will bounce back once the OOS combat and mining issue are fixed, because right now watching them struggle is just sad.
I had fun in seeing the teladi's losing half of hewa's twin and struggling to keep the rest (that was back around v2.0-3.0). I finally had a reason to use a part of my fleet.

[al_dude]

Indeed, do not let any faction wars stop. Peace will literally break the game.

Xenons are really weak in the beginning. If they can get a break, they usually start to thrive. (After 10ish hour mark). So, I usually use cheats to help them survive initial pushes from NPC factions.

[GCU Grey Area]

Plus, in my last playthrough, I went with the "make peace" option for both the Paranid plot and the Split plot, and the game became very boring very quickly.

Tend to agree. For the first time went unification for the Paranid plot in my current game, mostly just to see how it differed. Probably won't be doing that again. After about 12 hours of peace I ended up reverting to an earlier save made just before completing the final couple of steps. Paranid civil war is over (didn't want to go quite that far back) but the HOP v ARG/ANT war is still on & looks to have heated up quite a bit. Guess there's more HOP can do on that front if they're not in the middle of a civil war too. Presumably PAR are also willing to trade with them now, which might be helping. Most importantly, from my perspective, can still do all the war missions for both Paranid factions (that was the thing I missed the most after unification).

[bof111]

Ha ? That's quite different from what i thought, but it sounds logical.

Ok then, next step.
We get war between everybody. This means the factions will spread resources on various enemies so the pressure on Xenons will decrease. In this case the xenon might get to powerful maybe ? (lets say in the current v4.00)
Or will they collapse anyway ? Or will they get just a good balance ?
Because there is quite a difference between the two scenario and i'm not sure how to handle the things here.

[Raptor34]

I'm doing something like that so I do have some suggestions.
1. Block the L fabs, without destroyers most factions do not work well OOS, they do not achieve critical mass for fighters. Also while Xenon shipyards/wharves can generally sustain Destroyer assault, its best to not let too many happen. Fighter assaults they can wipe quickly. This particularly for ZYA Rattlesnake packs, though its also affected by whether they can repair their damages.
2. Do not be afraid to engage and destroy a factions' destroyer fleet actively attacking another faction, as long as you keep trade up the rep loss would be minimal and easily rebuilt. I can blow up 7 HOP oddys, 1 Atlas and fighter escort and only drop from 30 to 29.
3. Take advantage of how contested sectors do not change ownership, build admin modules at border sectors so you can halt a factions' advance.
4. Theoretical, take note of which Xenon sector has a Khaak infestation and clear it out for them. Try to mine out other sectors after clearing out a Khaak infestation so you can control where they spawn and then leave them there since there is a limit to number of Khaak stations.
5. Hack shipyard/wharves though I find blocking L fabs easier and its enough.
6. Selling ships to Yaki, while they are friendly to most, they are not friendly to all and can help with little annoyances and no threat of actually changing the balance of power.
7. Don't sell to FAF or they'll break everything.
8. Its okay if a faction has carriers, but destroyers are dangerous.

Edit: Also don't worry about Xenon getting too powerful, you can personally handle that threat by camping gates. You can't do that for the factions unless you declare war or constantly check the map. Actually it might be a good idea to not camp the gates at the beginning or at all until the threat actually materializes, you want the Xenon disrupting the factions since in 4.0 it seems the factions are healthier economically speaking. And if they are able to sneak their miners and traders around its good too.
And also don't worry if stations are blown up, the only stations you must keep alive would be major stations like SY/Wharf/Trading/EQ Dock, these are high priority. Keep Defense Stations alive but these are lower priority. And if you get a build mission for them, remember to load it up with L Plasma. Or not, that doesn't really matter but it helps if you go afk or something.

[Baconnaise]

I've been playing with the FOCW mod. I set up everyone through his mod to be at war with each other. The big change was adjusting faction fleets. I have the Xenon boosted to a big degree and it's been making things dicey. The way this is all shaking out to me anyways is the game really needs a slider or settings like in an RTS or other sims. Vanilla could use a universe setting where you can set relations, strength, extra factions, and more perhaps even size or number of extra zones.

[dholmstr]

I have so many times done some sneaky business to help factions one way or the other. Mostly now I've been hard at trying to get Xenon a fighting chance at a few fronts, getting them to follow me into stations where they then start shooting everything while I fly reeeeaally fast away so that they don't follow me. Or shooting engines/turrets on destroyers so that they slow down or can't fight back when those K's come flying in. Little to now rep hit on that. Terran shipyard hacking so that ANT/ARG can muster more ships (wich I sell, more profitzzzz). from time to time actually shooting a big ass stations that just have waaaay to much guns that no faction can handle (or while an attack is on hacking turrets and stay in sector to watch the show).

[Midnitewolf]

I honestly feel the vanilla game is too peaceful already so I vote no to peace as well.

In my opinion the problems we are seeing all revolve around the player having too much control over the outcome. For example, I tend to play very self-centered and the result of this is that the Xenon tend to do very well mostly because I am not doing anything at all to help the other factions....well that it until I decide the Xenon have become a nuisance, mostly due to all the other NPC factions collapsing and allowing the Xenon to start encroaching into trading lines and mining areas where I need resources. Then I just wipe the floor with them using my 100+ destroyers that I have built up over time. This happens because I am not propping up the NPC factions economies and keeping their shipbuilding operations running. They never fix their economy, instead they just slowly let it die out, without player intervention.

On the other hand, when I take the time to prop up their economy, the Xenon just cower in the corner <sigh>. This is most obvious in my current play through where I decided to "join" a single faction. Just by adding Hull parts and advanced electronics to their economy, they have fleets for miles and miles. Travel to other factions and it is like a ghost town and the Xenon are all ripping them apart <sigh>.

I keep throwing the <sigh> in because these example illustrates the biggest things I hate about X4.

One, The inability of a factions economy to operate without player intervention.
Two, the overwhelming amount of influence a player has over the environment.
Three, the lack of any limits to the players power making them omnipotent in the grand scheme of the game.

Way too much reliance on the player. I mean I get you want the player to be engaged and feel like they have the ability to make a significant impact but I hate that it all REVOLVES around the player making a significant impact. In X4 you are the "Chosen One" but I would much rather all the NPC factions being competitors and being left with the task of making a significant impact DESPITE that rather than the impact only happening if I involve myself.

[bof111]

Mmh ok. Thanks.
Midnightwolf, are you talking for the 4.00 about the xenon expanding ? Because it seem we have similar style so i would like to be sure if in this type of play i have to really worry about collapsing faction especially xenon.
As an example in X3 i was always building megaplexes in unknown sectors with the orders not to sell to anyone. I kept the total control on manual sales. So the biggest influence that i might have is some occasional sales and some trade like autotraders and of course missions.

Off topic. Well the 3 points you mention are not a real problem for me. I would be nice tough to get autonomous factions. (harder for the player and more realistic)