When the Xenon put their cpus to something ...

[Alan Phipps]

Vanilla 5.10 and a real 'Wow!' gameplay moment.

I was passing through Open Market on my way to visit the ZYA. I had previously noted when OOS that the TEL Trading Station there was suffering low but steady damage but I assumed it would be a few Xenon fighter patrols annoying the TEL.

Nope, on arrival nearby IS I saw 17 (seventeen!) individual Xenon Ks (fortunately no Xenon Is) and some Xenon fighters mobbing the station. Once I was IS, their fire became more effective and the station started to lose modules (of which that station has many). The station only had beam defences. The Ks seemed very focused on that station and so I formed a cunning plan and then called my plot Syn to come over. The plan involved positioning to attack the Ks one by one without involving their neighbours if I could help it. To that end, I turned off the capital-attack turrets on the Syn and relied on front battery supported by just 2 rear anti-fighter turret groups.

The plan worked well as the Ks would only attack the Syn if they were hit by it; then they would individually approach and attack. The rest stayed fixated by the station as long as I didn't hit them and stayed out of their turret range. One by one, I took down the Ks and was rewarded 600,000 Cr each time by the station - plus there was some nice capital loot to hoover up. During the operation, K number 18 arrived by travel drive and nearly ambushed me. Also various Xenon fighters arrived to add to the mix.

It was not just sit and shoot as the Xenon capitals and fighters were weaving about the station and so you had to move and maintain spatial awareness throughout. By the time I cleared the Xenon, the TEL station was down to 30% hull and had lost many modules, but repair continued unimpeded afterwards. The real tricks were not to hit any capital but the intended target, stay out of their turret range for all of them, and definitely not hit the station. (Oh, and hope that the station outlasted the Ks.)

OK, the Ks ignoring me and staying focused on the station if I didn't hit them, even when I'm attacking another K, is a rather cheesy exploit. Still, it was a long period of intense fire and manoeuvre and it was great fun.

[Imperial Good]

OK, the Ks ignoring me and staying focused on the station if I didn't hit them, even when I'm attacking another K, is a rather cheesy exploit. Still, it was a long period of intense fire and manoeuvre and it was great fun.

Once NPC ships have an attack target they do not generally retarget based on what is happening around them or even to their group leader. They will only retarget if you attack them, in which case they receive an implicit attack order back at you (the last thing to damage them). This applies to your AI controlled ships as well.

This can be exploited for easy kills. For example, if a Xenon fighter swarm is attacking a construction ship you can solo the entire swarm in a Nemesis, Dragon Raider or Katana because you will usually only deal with 1v1 dog fights with the ships you pick to shoot. You can easily kill 60+ ships this way with minimal risk.

[jlehtone]

I had the impression that license to shutoff will yield the 600k anywhere in the sector, while nearby stations donate only 200k. Then again, Teladi have always had a "special" relationship with their credits.


It is a bit dissappointing that the Gravitons of so many K's were not enough to chew the Station. Perhaps you should have used a Phoenix, rather than Syn. "Captain of the Teladi Company Phoenix" is a command post with prestige.

[Alan Phipps]

If I had used a Phoenix, I would have run out of station before I ran out of Ks. (Why are all the surviving Ks looking right at me now? What did I do? )

Perhaps another pertinent question is why the Teladi decided that their station that is a huge and obvious target in a known Xenon hotspot should be equipped entirely with anti-fighter beams. (Yes, I know that they are relatively expensive turrets and so the AI and the Teladi might regard them as the best turrets their creditssss can buy. )

[Alan Phipps]

An interesting and amusing follow-on to this thread where the Xenon AI later got its own back on me (in cheesy exploit terms).

I was planning a one-on-one ambush on a K in my personally flown Rattlesnake. I had enticed the K to follow me away from the I and other K in their task force marauding through an FRF sector. I had made a near perfect travel-drive approach to the K and ended up about 6 km directly above it and was preparing to rain Rattler venom on its exposed topside. Suddenly the K did a very rapid vertical strafe of 10 km and in 2 seconds went from 6 Km below to 4 km above me. There was no way a player ship could have done that. The graviton turrets under the K melted my Rattler and the next thing I knew, I was in an escape pod.

See, the AI does have a sense of humour and of rough justice.

[Starlight_Corporation]

Dang that's one impressive fleet of K's. Never seen that much attacking at one spot myself. Have dealt with heavy Xenon attacks before, but usually spread across multiple sectors, never concentrated in one spot. Albeit that might change soon; there's a big Xenon fleet being quiet in Scale Plate Green in my save, with multiple I's & K's as escort. I fear the day they move out... Company Regard & Hewa's Twin are very well developed by the Teladi but doubt they can stave off such Xenon incursion.

In my playthroughs so far, Ianama Zura doesn't get much Xenon attention, it is usually the Teladi striking at the Xenon & often taking the Matrix sector next door after a while. Makes for a great trade corridor with the Split.

[Submarine]

My K/I solution is currently a modded Balaur fitted with burst rays. I go in and paralyse them like an ichneumon wasp with its prey and take out their engines, turrets and shields. Once they are safely neutralised I bring in a destroyer to take down the shield and hull from range as those gravitons do too much damage if the K can move about. As you say they can jump, like oversized fleas if engines are operational.

I think 17 might be a little too much like hard work with that method.

Hmmm I wonder how many torpedos you can buy with 600k?!

[GCU Grey Area]

Hmmm I wonder how many torpedos you can buy with 600k?!

Around 23-35 of them. Varies depending on how well stocked a particular wharf or equipment dock is with parts. Price per unit tends to be around 17-26k, usually cheaper at equipment docks. Get through quite a lot of them myself because my favourite approach to a K is to dive bomb them with boost-launched heavy torpedoes fired from a frigate.

Will usually start an attack run from around 15-20km away, aimed directly at whatever subsystem I want to eliminate (starting with it's engines), then boost until I'm around 3km away from the target & launch. Torpedoes launched this way hit the target at several km/s & are virtually impossible to evade or distract with flares - they're essentially dumbfires at that sort of speed. Immediately after that I twitch the nose up & tap on the boosters again to give my ship an escape vector which does NOT include slamming straight into the side of the target. Rinse & repeat until target is immobilised & defanged. Then I fly in close & fire everything I've got (guns, turrets & torps) into the shield generators, then the hull. It's not a subtle approach & it is quite expensive (generally reckon on expending around 15-20 torps per K, which is why I use a frigate for this). It is however an absolute thrill.

Two recommendations if anyone wants to try this:
1. Install a basic Cowboy mod on the torp launcher & re-roll until you get somewhere around +80% reload. Standard reload time for heavy torp is 30 seconds, generally takes me around 20 seconds or so to do an attack run & get back into starting position for the next. Decent roll on a Cowboy mod ensures the next torp is ready to go when I start each attack run.
2. If you've got an S ship docked to the frigate try to remember to move it into internal storage first. Frigate can withstand the occasional shot from a Graviton turret, docked S ships not so much... (learned that the expensive way)

For I's I bring in the fleet to finish the job. This approach cannot counter the regen rate of 5 XL shields.

[blackphoenixx]

Hmmm I wonder how many torpedos you can buy with 600k?!

Around 23-35 of them. Varies depending on how well stocked a particular wharf or equipment dock is with parts. Price per unit tends to be around 17-26k, usually cheaper at equipment docks. Get through quite a lot of them myself because my favourite approach to a K is to dive bomb them with boost-launched heavy torpedoes fired from a frigate.

Try setting your supply ships and equipment docks to closed loop build method. That lowers the cost to ~3000 credits per heavy torpedo.

If you only want to kill subsystems two tracking launchers with heavy starburst missiles will also do the job in one salvo for ~450 credits per missile and with a much faster speed and rate of fire (that also make them suitable in AI hands).
And with closed loop they only take ecells to resupply.

[GCU Grey Area]

Try setting your supply ships and equipment docks to closed loop build method. That lowers the cost to ~3000 credits per heavy torpedo.

If you only want to kill subsystems two tracking launchers with heavy starburst missiles will also do the job in one salvo for ~450 credits per missile and with a much faster speed and rate of fire (that also make them suitable in AI hands).
And with closed loop they only take ecells to resupply.

Not a bad suggestion, although prefer not to use the Closed Loop method myself - missiles made from nothing but energy cells just doesn't seem quite right. Although less efficient prefer my missiles to be made from missile components & smart chips too. In any case, simply for the sake of convenience, tend to resupply ships I fly myself at the nearest NPC wharf or equipment dock when I'm running low, rather than trudging all the way back to HQ or depleting the supplies aboard one of my carriers or auxiliaries. The money isn't really all that important either. In most games I end up as the main supplier of missile components & smart chips to NPC wharves & equipment docks...

Very fond of Heavy Starburst too, definitely one of my favourite missiles - decent amount of damage & fairly big blast radius too. Often use it for my carrier-based heavy fighters, which have the job of smashing subsystems on enemy capital ships while destroyers in the same fleet finish them off. They're also much less of a logistical headache for fleet resupply by carriers & auxiliaries than giving those fighters torpedoes instead.

[af_2017]

Not sure this is "xenon" specific. Any npc captain will act the same way.

There are override order mechanics for attack cases.
Not many options there.
Use judgement is just not clear. For example what is being considered before making the judgement?
Retaliate might not produce expected result, that is your ship might never get its final target being distracted all the way.

Anyway the game mechanic "override in case of attack" is just not very successful.
No player will wait till the attack. Most likely players will use radar to detect approaching enemies, probably using global alerts and make the judgement before the attack.
Waiting for the attack in some cases means "it is too late to do anything".

[taztaz502]

Max i've seen over 2000+ hours is 3 Ks and maybe 1 I.

[Graaf]

Did it look something like this?
https://i.imgur.com/1eYR94q.png
Yes, the station is gone now.

[Alan Phipps]

Yes indeed, only more of them!