ZYA are helpless against Xenon?

[Insects]

I think it is a bit of a problem that people can buy the Split DLC, only to discover they are extinct by the time they get up that way and are ready to improve trade standing.

A new player doesn't know how to get up there quickly and establish some trade to stimulate their economy. It's pretty annoying for someone to pay for DLC and then find it's wiped from the game before they even found how to access it.

I think ES could do more to lock some of the Split Xenon intrusion gates until the player has established some trade/conflict with them.

[af_2017]

Ok, whole two options, does not sound rich either.

Way better than a single option, and it does not mean that it cannot go other ways that I did not experienced

Seems there are no more options. And I suspect that is defined by combination of:
1. OOS balance (that will get updates forever and will never end).
2. Either terran's Asgard got into the Xenon sectors near ZYA or did not.
And consequences in all cases are quite predictable: ZYA shredded by Xenon or did not.
What do you think?

For my part, I do prefer that the universe could fall into hell mess in some instances.
And that I have to adapt to it. It's interesting gameplay, at least more interesting in my opinion than "the universe is waiting on me to take a decision before something happen".
Nobody forces you to solve any problems. Be a simple miner, you may have to adapt to the universe changing around at some point but if you decide to intervene into the universe problems, it will be possible, even extinct factions can be rebuilt.

That's must be a matter of play style.
I prefer to do things I like to do and not I am forced to do. "Adapting" in this case is a "forced" action.
From this point, let factions make raid each other, loose some amount of ships, retreat, rebuild ships and repeat, that will run the production, transport will be flying busy delivering stuff, everything will look alive.
That's way better than helpless faction sitting in only one own sector left without ships. That's a desert. With the rest of the sectors occupied by Xenon. Which is not friendly place for happy miners/traders.
So let's make critical things(that is related to sector ownership) optional story lines.

[NightmareNight91]

Maybe the new DLC will change up the gate connections uo north and give ZYA a break from fighting 3 different xenon clusters and argons at once...as it stands now, in 100% of MY games I am forced to build stations and guard gates for ZYA.

[jlehtone]

Maybe the new DLC will change up the gate connections uo north and give ZYA a break ...

That would mean that you can't really have one DLC (ToA) without an another (SV).

You can't count on every player to purchase and enable all available DLC's. Currently there are four different "X4" to play (which already sounds taxing on tech support): X4, X4+SV, X4+CoH, and X4+SV+CoH. Add ToA and there will be eight? With the almighty RNG in every seed, that is a lot of juggling.

That's must be a matter of play style.
I prefer to do things I like to do and not I am forced to do. "Adapting" in this case is a "forced" action.
From this point, let factions make raid each other, loose some amount of ships, retreat, rebuild ships and repeat, that will run the production, transport will be flying busy delivering stuff, everything will look alive.
That's way better than helpless faction sitting in only one own sector left without ships. That's a desert. With the rest of the sectors occupied by Xenon. Which is not friendly place for happy miners/traders.
So let's make critical things(that is related to sector ownership) optional story lines.

There is a philosophical question: "Is the player important?" that has no truly wrong answer.

In X3 player was not important. Nothing did change and everything did "look" alive. Nothing did ever change. (X2 was bit different; NPC Factories could die permanently.) Sure, you could gather a fleet and wipe every sector clean, but achieve nothing apart that short moment of warm feeling that a big explosion does give.

The X4 is alive. Not only look like it, but really is. Continuously changing. Being alive means ability to die, although most factions can't completely die even here; they can rebuild as long as they have trade partners. Before 4.20 Xenon could reach that desert of no ships, no means to rebuild, dead for all practical purposes. (The Kha'ak are still impervious.)

State can change in X4 and player's actions do have effect. Player is not entirely insignificant. Although, we can still gather a fleet and wipe everything and feel that that was way too easy.

Since player can make a difference, the actions -- and lack of actions -- of player have consequences (albeit some are limited). Doing completely freely anything that pleases us has limited viability. Like real life: must do some chores before we can play.

Some players are very pleased when a game "enforces a goal", gives a purpose, and despair if there is none given. Such goal-oriented play is obviously unlike sandbox, where sand remains sand no matter how much we play with it. We, who prefer the sandbox, pride in our ability to see a purpose even in the plain sand; it is our creation.

Alas, I do like those "Xenon" grains of sand in my box and the fact that I don't always find my hammer where I left it. Hence the idea of two boxes -- one peaceful and another with Space Invaders -- separated by "plot choice" ... is not my cup of tea.

[af_2017]

There is a philosophical question: "Is the player important?" that has no truly wrong answer.
...
Alas, I do like those "Xenon" grains of sand in my box and the fact that I don't always find my hammer where I left it. Hence the idea of two boxes -- one peaceful and another with Space Invaders -- separated by "plot choice" ... is not my cup of tea.

Thank you for your thoughts and for sharing your experience!

The thing is that player does nothing special (mining and trading) but things will fall apart anyway. Regardless to his actions.
So the thing which happens in the game with ZYA might be considered as not obvious but still forced scenario (due to many factors) and player is not important.
What I suggest is making it optional and start it when the player is ready for it.
There are some similar decisions in the game which shape the universe: Paranid story and Terran story. Let's make the same with ZYA and Xenon.

[GCU Grey Area]

The thing is that player does nothing special (mining and trading) but things will fall apart anyway.

Not in my games. Trade is often my primary focus for the first few weeks of a new game. In my experience it can have a significant impact. Have been able to swing the balance of power in the Paranid civil war, for example, by simply adjusting my trade blacklists to embargo one faction while continuing to trade with the other. In the case of ZYA one of their problems is ships which require large amounts of resources. Making a point of shipping in those resources can really help. It can also be very profitable & if you buy those resources from one of their enemies it's all the more effective (i.e. starve ARG to supply ZYA).

[budforceuk]

The thing is that player does nothing special (mining and trading) but things will fall apart anyway.

Not in my games. Trade is often my primary focus for the first few weeks of a new game. In my experience it can have a significant impact. Have been able to swing the balance of power in the Paranid civil war, for example, by simply adjusting my trade blacklists to embargo one faction while continuing to trade with the other. In the case of ZYA one of their problems is ships which require large amounts of resources. Making a point of shipping in those resources can really help. It can also be very profitable & if you buy those resources from one of their enemies it's all the more effective (i.e. starve ARG to supply ZYA).

I don't disagree it can be a big factor.

But in my experience, on all 3 of my major playthroughs the ZYA get rolled.

On my 3rd and current playthrough, I've intentionally tried to do everything I can to help them, and I consider myself an experienced player (although I don't resort to some of the meta money making techniques (exploits?)) and they are still getting rolled.

Basically they are not defending themselves now at all, I am.

I'm still working on it, and I've wiped Xenon in Rhys/matrix and now almost all of Tharkas going back to the Yaki, I haven't cleared the ones to the North West, which are actively attacking but I'm fighting those off manually. I have a massive factory now feeding them resources.

Basically MASSIVE player involvement to help them. I imagine if it wasn't for this they would be wiped from most of their sectors, right now in my game they just about hold the original sectors but down many, many stations and basically no military force.

[GCU Grey Area]

But in my experience, on all 3 of my major playthroughs the ZYA get rolled.

Guess it depends on what you mean by 'get rolled'. Have see them pushed back to just their core sectors, but they just tend to rebuild their economy in Zyarth's Dominion & keep churning out ships. They do tend to be fairly reliant on Teladi imports at that stage. However even in my FRF game, where I was an outright enemy to ZYA from the start & throughout, they did OK. Noticeably worse than in my other games (where I wasn't constantly stealing their stuff), but at no point did they even come close to being wiped out. They just contracted a bit further than in those other games. However, by the time I brought that game to a close (after 24 in-game days) they'd stabilised the front with the Xenon & had gone on the offensive against the Argons, capturing 11th hour. This was what the map looked like in the final save of that game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0sv3x1ry65xfg ... 1.jpg?dl=0

[budforceuk]

But in my experience, on all 3 of my major playthroughs the ZYA get rolled.

This was what the map looked like in the final save of that game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0sv3x1ry65xfg ... 1.jpg?dl=0

Mine they had Zyarths Dominion IV and Wretcheed Skies V and thats it. Rest taken by Xenon.

That was my first save the was progressed quite far, second save I didnt get as far but could see similar starting to happen.

[Panos]

I found where the problem is with ZYA. Is not the ships or anything else but GRAPHENE!!!!!!
There is barely any Methane in Family Zhin and Family Nhuut also while the graphene factories are too few and barely working.

That leads for ZYA suffering from Graphene production which halts production to everything related to it

Hull Parts
Advanced Composites
Plasma Conductors
Quantum Tubes
Weapon Components
Turret Components
Shield Components
Missile Components
Field Coils
Advanced Electronics.


Claytronics
Antimater Converters

[tsathogguah]

I've experienced the same. They are in a bad position - 3 xenon matrices have access to them and they are next to the Argon. They don't have safe trading with any nearby race so their economy tends to bottleneck. However, if you can save them they make a great economic opportunity because their economy is in such shambles there's tons of demand for virtually everything.

[budforceuk]

I've managed to save them in my game now, it's taken a lot of work.

I did the split quest, sided with the ZYA, I wiped the xenon from the north, I wiped the xenon to the south (doing the Yaki quest at the same rime) and put a rediculously over powered defence station on the gate to the west, which out of sector instas even K9's.

Not to mention a massive station in Family Zhin producing everything, and some things (hull parts for example) up to 4x productions.

Other than the Argon sending up Behemoth's (of which I am doing nothing about) they are actually starting to get on ok now.

[Pesanur]

Yep, also In my game they recovered at last with a lot of help. The only ZYA sector that is still in Xenon possession is Family Kritt.

The bad, in the meanwhile, the HOP take over Faulty Logic I.

Is irritating that while some factions are helpless against the Xenon, others can take over the xenon sectors in their own.

I know that isn't to be a popular claim, but, is Egososft isn't to balance the faction wars, then, how about giving the choice to disable factions sector take over? at least this way you can avoid the need of be babysitting factions if you don't like (keeping the ability to reclaim lost sectors if the faction lost all of the defence stations on it, of course).