Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

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af_2017
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by af_2017 » Thu, 29. Jul 21, 17:10

EGO_Aut wrote:
Thu, 29. Jul 21, 08:37
Phoenix hold distance IS 8)
I suspect that any ship with main weapons keeps the weapons range.
Quinnell wrote:
Tue, 27. Jul 21, 23:11
I am looking for some advice on planning my sieges on xenon bases so their turrets don't rip my L and XL ships apart. I've tried dinking around with Coordinate Attack but it never seems to quite work. They're either too far or they don't use their forward batteries. Mostly-Terran fleet.
Attempt to build a ship which will stand rain of plasma from graviton turrets is worthless.
Considering explosion damage (or is it in beta only?) the safest way is to use plasma turrets which range is longer than graviton turrets and position ships manually. As an example PAR L plasma turrets have 8.9 km.
You can even use one raptor, that will take some time of not very interesting waiting.

Before explosion damage it was possible to use fleet of small fighters with plasmas. Like 50 chimeras oer one raptor. 7 raptors and 350 chimeras melts everything in couple of minutes with about 5 fps.
I used coordinate attack without autorelease that keeps ships on positions and in range of plasma turrets.
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 29. Jul 21, 17:17

Elvis Aphtee wrote:
Thu, 29. Jul 21, 16:21
I'll assume you mean 'destroy' and not siege....

the graviton guns (which on DefPlats appear to mostly be on the underside of the station anyway).
The Xenon defense module has two pairs of gravitons. One up, one down. Each pair is protected by L shield.

Whether all four turrets are in place depends on how much time/resources the station has had to set them up. "Old" stations have all hardpoints occupied. "Fresh" modules do not. Some turrets are actually built before the module is ready. It might very well be that the order of assembly starts from "underside".


Good point. A 'siege' would be to stop any ship reaching or leaving the besieged station?
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by ZaphodBeeblebrox » Thu, 29. Jul 21, 17:48

I have a fleet of 13 ships. Leader is an Osaka. All ships are over 3 * minimum.

The Defense station looks like a figure 8 from above. I split my fleet into two with 6 either side of the 8 to left and right. So they are out of weapon range of the station. Using Fly and Wait.

I then pilot the Osaka to within firing range and then order both wings to attack. They will fly to within main weapon range and begin attacking the station.

Keep an eye on your ships, occasionally 1 or maybe even 2 will go kamikaze. Stop them and order them to fly to a safe distance using fly and wait. You may have to repeatedly cancel an attack override
which is a pile of ..... If I give a direct order to a ship then it should NOT be overriden.

Using this method I have emptied every Xenon sector bar 1. All other stations when viewed from above will have a shape that can be fitted into a rectangle. Always attack from the two sides where the rectangle is the narrowest.

Oh, by the way, you will probably need to bring several fleets, to block gates and protect your back while attacking the stations.

[edit]
All ships obviously have main batteries. Plus all L turrets are plasma (or for Terran bolt) with all M turrets being bolt to hold off M and S ships. Including defense drones.
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by EGO_Aut » Thu, 29. Jul 21, 19:44

af_2017 wrote:
Thu, 29. Jul 21, 17:10
EGO_Aut wrote:
Thu, 29. Jul 21, 08:37
Phoenix hold distance IS 8)
I suspect that any ship with main weapons keeps the weapons range.
Quinnell wrote:
Tue, 27. Jul 21, 23:11
I am looking for .....
Phoenix main guns have a good range and are not so stupid like Odyddeus and Behemoth captains, proof me wrong :wink:

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 29. Jul 21, 21:19

EGO_Aut wrote:
Thu, 29. Jul 21, 19:44
Phoenix main guns have a good range and are not so stupid like Odyddeus and Behemoth captains, proof me wrong :wink:
Numbers from Roguey. Clearly rounded.
PAR: 11 km, ARG, TEL: 10 km, TER: 9 km, SPL 7 km
In practice Rattler's HUD shows 6.3 km when target is barely in range and 5.3 km when Gravitons start to hurt.

By numbers, captain of Oddy should have more "room" that Phoenix and Behemoth should tie with the Teladi.
In fact, being slower, the Behemoth should have more time to stop crawling towards the target.

I can't remember whom I had assigned to the Phoenix that did sail to Shipyard; the Xenon one that had Gravitons. RIP. :|
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oddible
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by oddible » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 03:43

Create a fleet of Odysseys with L Plasma turrets (you only need 1 but a fleet is faster). I choose Ody's because they have the most turrets. Hop in one yourself, poke out all the Gravitons manually at range. When they're dead, hop out, go on about your business, let the fleet kill the station.

Or

Create a fleet of Ody's with L Plasma turrets. Out of sector position / park them all at 9km from the base. Ignore it, come back in 10 min to clear out any remaining station parts. Just let the L Plasmas do the job (since you're not giving an attack order they won't use main guns but if turrets are set to Attack All you're golden).

Done.

Or, if you wanna have fun with it, build a carrier and play with different fighers to attack turrets first - you'll lose a LOT but it is more realistic and fun.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by ajime » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 04:12

or just bomb the L turrets with torpedo manually before sending in capital ships

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Lord Dakier
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Lord Dakier » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 13:39

oddible wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 03:43
Or, if you wanna have fun with it, build a carrier and play with different fighers to attack turrets first - you'll lose a LOT but it is more realistic and fun.
My personal favourite. Fighter swarm to focus turrets while the fleet pushes in. Gotta get over the feeling of losing assets, we're at war gentlemen!

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Erqco » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:05

Lord Dakier wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 13:39
oddible wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 03:43
Or, if you wanna have fun with it, build a carrier and play with different fighers to attack turrets first - you'll lose a LOT but it is more realistic and fun.
My personal favourite. Fighter swarm to focus turrets while the fleet pushes in. Gotta get over the feeling of losing assets, we're at war gentlemen!
In the last betas explosions are active, module explosions will wipe your swarms that are closer than 4 Km. Also your destroyers will lost their shields and surface elements if they are too close, the closer they are greater the damage the they receive.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Imperial Good » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:24

Erqco wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:05
In the last betas explosions are active, module explosions will wipe your swarms that are closer than 4 Km. Also your destroyers will lost their shields and surface elements if they are too close, the closer they are greater the damage the they receive.
This should have been nerfed a lot in more recent betas.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Zloth2 » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 16:10

It got nerfed but I think it also got changed so it does a lot more damage when you're close to whatever is exploding.

P.S. Trade ship captains of large ships also have a terrible time, too. If you fly one yourself, you'll leave AI-controlled ships in the dust.
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Erqco
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Erqco » Sat, 31. Jul 21, 22:52

Imperial Good wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:24
Erqco wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:05
In the last betas explosions are active, module explosions will wipe your swarms that are closer than 4 Km. Also your destroyers will lost their shields and surface elements if they are too close, the closer they are greater the damage the they receive.
This should have been nerfed a lot in more recent betas.
You are right, the closer the worse anyway, it lost energy with the distance faster than previous versions, but still there and there is not time to get your fighters out. I changed my way to do this because the explosions, it is possible that now I can get back to the fighters/Bombers.

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oddible
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by oddible » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 01:33

Erqco wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 22:52
Imperial Good wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:24
Erqco wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:05
In the last betas explosions are active, module explosions will wipe your swarms that are closer than 4 Km. Also your destroyers will lost their shields and surface elements if they are too close, the closer they are greater the damage the they receive.
This should have been nerfed a lot in more recent betas.
You are right, the closer the worse anyway, it lost energy with the distance faster than previous versions, but still there and there is not time to get your fighters out. I changed my way to do this because the explosions, it is possible that now I can get back to the fighters/Bombers.
Is it not viable to swarm a station with fighters anymore? in 4.1 beta?

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Erqco
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Erqco » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 07:47

oddible wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 01:33
Erqco wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 22:52
Imperial Good wrote:
Sat, 31. Jul 21, 15:24

This should have been nerfed a lot in more recent betas.
You are right, the closer the worse anyway, it lost energy with the distance faster than previous versions, but still there and there is not time to get your fighters out. I changed my way to do this because the explosions, it is possible that now I can get back to the fighters/Bombers.
Is it not viable to swarm a station with fighters anymore? in 4.1 beta?
I have stop doing it. But I thing that the explosions now are less damaging that one or two previous beta versions. When you got the message "Explosion imminent" it was too late to do something, now in the last beta version the worst that I have saw is the shields wipe out.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 08:45

oddible wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 01:33
Is it not viable to swarm a station with fighters anymore? in 4.1 beta?
It never was in case of Xenon stations - there is huge amount of medium turrets that wipe many fighters both IS and OOS.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by gorman2040 » Thu, 30. Sep 21, 07:16

Nice to see different tactics !

I personally had issues with most of them, except the Asgard witch is really powerful when flown by the player.
It takes a while to destroy an entire station but is pretty safe, even without destroying L turrets (just stay out of range).

My biggest issue is, indeed, ordering a fleet if L/XL ship to attack a station without suffering heavy losses.
A lot of my 4/5 stars captains still eventually decide to get closer to the station and get shot down.
I usually monitor the battle using external view of the Xenon station (select station and press F3) and look for any of my ship getting too close, I would then usually order a "Fly To" order a bit away from the station and then move the order before the "attack" one so that the ship automatically goes back to attacking the station after reaching waypoint and recharging shields.

This does not always work for the following reasons:
- Ship is already too close to the station. Turning around and getting out of range is usually fatal. Sometimes the ship even get his thrusters shot when getting away from station and becomes a sitting duck.
- Ship will engage the flee mechanic and ignore your orders, potentially flying even closer to danger. I believe this can be mitigated by setting the ship to ignore attack but this might have some adverse effects that I have to test.
- Ships will collide or slowdown/block each others, usually rare but quite annoying when you have supposedly the best captains possible.

I also tested torpedo bombers using Nemesis (M size) and outfitting them with 5 torpedo launchers.
Be it 1 or 5 stars captains, they will eventually get in range of station turrets and shot down. The defense drones are also a big threat to them.
I had some occurrence where they shot friendly ships because they fired they torpedoes too close to them.

I also tried using subordinates fighters but they tend to get isolated (and easily shot by drone swarms) or either go too far from the enemy fighters or too close to station defenses.
I am still experimenting with orders to keep them together and out of station defenses but haven't found a good technique yet.

I wonder if anyone experimented with fleets of exactly same ship ?
My fleet are "diverse" especially with equipment mods and my captains are quite erratic so i was wondering if that could be my issue (fleet leader can't manage well the different specs ?)

Overall I like that there is still a challenge to destroy stations but I wish captains weren't so suicidal. This is sometimes very frustrating when you can't keep up with them trying to get close to stations.
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Karmaticdamage » Thu, 30. Sep 21, 15:17

Xenon L turrets have low range so sniping with par L plasma and destroyer main guns is the safest way. I use a syn with 8 L plasma and slasher mods, with a second destroyer on follow for drone defense. A single syn setup this way can kill a xenon defense station in about 10-15 minutes. It is possible to destroy the station's dock from outside drone launch range if you don't want to use a flak support ship, but I prefer to kill the swarm for fight rank. I finished a heart for pirates with only three ships, a syn with one snake and one oddy on follow.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 30. Sep 21, 16:16

Karmaticdamage wrote:
Thu, 30. Sep 21, 15:17
I use a syn with 8 L plasma ... A single syn setup this way can kill a xenon defense station in about 10-15 minutes.
A trending thread speculates that "L-turrets are broken in 4.10". Your Xenon surely do not agree?
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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Karmaticdamage » Thu, 30. Sep 21, 21:20

jlehtone wrote:
Thu, 30. Sep 21, 16:16
Karmaticdamage wrote:
Thu, 30. Sep 21, 15:17
I use a syn with 8 L plasma ... A single syn setup this way can kill a xenon defense station in about 10-15 minutes.
A trending thread speculates that "L-turrets are broken in 4.10". Your Xenon surely do not agree?
L turrets are broken in OOS, not IS.

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Re: Tips on Sieging a Xenon starbase

Post by Imperial Good » Fri, 1. Oct 21, 05:01

Karmaticdamage wrote:
Thu, 30. Sep 21, 21:20
L turrets are broken in OOS, not IS.
Actually it is kind of the opposite. In OoS they work as intended from what I can tell, often being destroyed when under heavy fire. In sector they will sometimes lock onto fighters but be unable to fire until you get out and back into the flight seat.

You might not notice this in sector issue if you use L Plasma as those are usually set to capital only as they are practically incapable of hitting S/M ships. However it is a big issue with TER L Bolt Turrets since those work against all targets and having them switch from capitals to fighters is useful during combat.

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