NPC Station WAY WAY Far from Center of Map

[Eyeklops]

Before I make a tech support post I wanted to jot down some thoughts here:

In one of my recently started games (5.10, vanilla, all expansions, 48 hours) the Teladi saw fit to build a station so far from the map center it takes a 3000 m/s trader 10+ minutes to reach it. To make matters worse it's in Grand Exchange with the PHQ and the sector map is permanently expanded way way out. I have to zoom in quite a bit to see what's going on around PHQ.

It got me thinking if there a way to fix this without a patch or modified tag. I have some ideas....

1. The Quick (reliable) Method: Asgard the station from existence. But...will it be rebuilt? Will they do it again? Other problem: I have yet to "borrow" an Asgard in this start and OMG the rep hit....I'm only +20 with TEL. That might start a war.
2. The Profitsss (long) Method: Flood the market with the same ware the station produces in hopes the NPC AI tears it down. Many moons ago I actually got game over'd while on a TER solar station when they tore it down due to my stations flooding their markets. That took a looooooong time to happen tho.
3. The Interesting (complicated) Method: Hack the turrets and lure "encounter" enemies to the station in the hopes they destroy it. This could also take a really long time and be a ton of work. Might be fun to watch however.
4. The Free (Family) Method: Sell a bunch of well armed destroyers that just happen to be in extreme close proximity to the station at the same moment the turrets got hacked. Idea via Tempest
5. Deploy A Tactical Nuke:
   Spoiler

   Show

   Drop the PQH on it using mass teleportation. CAUTION: May start a war. Mad Scientist responsible for this idea: Alan Phipps

Addtional thoughts for method #3 as there are so many things to think about and plan with this idea.

• I wonder if there is a limit to how many encounter enemies can be "in play" at once.
• I'm not even sure they will switch targets to the station. I think Xenon will, pirates probably not.
• If I leave the area will the encounter enemies stay?
• Can encounters spawn larger ships? Does it matter what size ship I'm in?
• Will I have to worry about AI combat/supply reinforcements? I have a Cobra full of veteran marines named "What's yours is mine". It may come in handy.

I really don't want to abandon this save as I put a ton of work into it (saving ZYA from a TER Cadet start isn't easy lol).
When I get home from work I'll post proper in tech support with an image and savegame.

As always, any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

[thomasbkdk]

I’m not sure what you mean about ‘modified tag’.

I would suggest the possibility of editing the position of the station in the savegame. But i don’t know have difficult that would be.

[Tempest]

ahhh. to "Asgard" something, i'm stealing that line.

1. seems the most reliable, might be done without significant faction losses IF it doesn't have a metric-****ton of defence drones, is it large in terms of modules? i'm sure you know you can "tap" the XL battery in short bursts and take out 3-4 modules in a single cooldown cycle.
2. not many factions actually hate TEL, Yaki, FAF etc.. this doesnt seem likely to happen.
3. not familiar with this approach

If it were me, i'd try to sell an asgard to a YAK or FAF shipyward on their doorstep, and HOPE the TEL stations turrets will engage (and the YAK/FAF Asgard will retalliate) perhaps purposefully build an Asgard for the role e.g. **** engines, plasma turrets, +module damage modifications...

[Nanook]

Here's another option. Get your game to the point where you've researched mass teleportation and then simply move your PHQ to another sector and ignore Grand Exchange.

[Alan Phipps]

.. or when you get to the in-sector PHQ teleportation phase, which you have to do anyway, see if you can drop the PHQ on top of said station (I don't think you get rep hits for that). It may be that the mission doesn't let you do that though as the destination is occupied, but it may be worth checking.

[Buzz2005]

those stations or station are there on purpose bc it has nice space dust and a asset from rebirth

and some resources to mine too

[Alan Phipps]

@ Buzz: That's not ~1,800 km out from the sector centre though (if you believe the 10+ minutes at 3 km/sec).

[Buzz2005]

dont know the distance,it is far, is it that much, maybe but that seems excessive.
the stations he is talking about has to be those since all the details match, that zone is there on purpose with stations, they where there since 1.0, very much doubt its a bug but im not ego dev or some kind of never wrong guy so report away

[Eyeklops]

I’m not sure what you mean about ‘modified tag’.

I would suggest the possibility of editing the position of the station in the savegame. But i don’t know have difficult that would be.

A modified tag gets applied to any savegame that was either manually edited or created during a game running mods. I'm not sure what direction the devs are going with online features but modified savegames are not normally allowed to partake in such ventures.

2. not many factions actually hate TEL, Yaki, FAF etc.. this doesnt seem likely to happen.

I think you misunderstand. I don't mean another AI faction will come and obliterate the station. I mean the AI that owns the station will intentionally dismantle it because it has no value. It's rare, but it does happen.

If it were me, i'd try to sell an asgard to a YAK or FAF shipyward on their doorstep...

Now THAT is a great idea (added to my list). Don't have an Asgard yet so I'll have to liberate a few destroyers from SCA and sell see about selling them to FAF. No Yaki rep yet.

move your PHQ to another sector and ignore Grand Exchange.

If I'm going to move the PHQ....

drop the PHQ on top of said station (I don't think you get rep hits for that).

I'm a little embarrassed to say that after 1500+ hours playing X4 I've not done the mass teleportation plot (or completed any plot). It's a good idea tho, thanks. From what I've read you do get rep loss however. They say it does warn you first, but let's you do it anyway. I think I read of a player going from +20 to -30 over landing on a shipyard lol.

dont know the distance,it is far, is it that much, maybe but that seems excessive.
the stations he is talking about has to be those since all the details match, that zone is there on purpose with stations, they where there since 1.0, very much doubt its a bug but im not ego dev or some kind of never wrong guy so report away

Pending getting home and posting a screenshot the location is very north, slightly off center to the left in Grand Exchange I. I sure hope its a bug.

[Alan Phipps]

OK, that's not what Buzz was referring to if it's far North.

[Rei Ayanami]

1. The Quick (reliable) Method: Asgard the station from existence. But...will it be rebuilt? Will they do it again? Other problem: I have yet to "borrow" an Asgard in this start and OMG the rep hit....I'm only +20 with TEL. That might start a war.

TEL will most likely try to rebuild the station at some point, but probably in another location/sector and probably much closer to the sector center.

[euclid]

Ime the hexagon stays even if the trigger (station etc.) is removed, i.e. it will not shrink back to "normal" size. Moreover, there is always a chance this happens again in this or any other system. If your only concern is the long travel time of your traders, then just blacklist the system and, as Alan pointed out, move your PHQ somewhere else.

Cheers Euclid

[Eyeklops]

Ime the hexagon stays even if the trigger (station etc.) is removed, i.e. it will not shrink back to "normal" size. Moreover, there is always a chance this happens again in this or any other system. If your only concern is the long travel time of your traders, then just blacklist the system and, as Alan pointed out, move your PHQ somewhere else.

Cheers Euclid

Oddly enough I don't remember seeing this type of thing in my 12 day old game. Maybe they are there but since I made all my own wares by that point my traders never went and "discovered" them.

If the hex will not go back to normal size I'll abandon the savegame and wait for an official bugfix before starting a new one. I can usually work around small bugs or AI/UI deficiencies but this bug feels like a small rock in my shoe. Sure I could ignore the rock and continue my walk but it's a constant pain that I'd rather fix.

I only have 2 destroyers right now (Behemoths, on consignment from the SCA) so I'll send those over tonight to outright destroy the station (rep be damned!) just as a test. I'll wait a few hours to see if the hex shrinks back. If it does I'll re-load and execute one of the more elaborate (and easier on the rep) methods from above.

If it doesn't fix I'll post the bug report and just do something different (GOW: Ragnarök) until the next patch.

[Alan Phipps]

Just a few idle thoughts but I know that this sector can be prone to getting a Kha'ak Hive or Outpost as a lot of ice mining goes on in there and those stations can be placed a long way out from the centre. I wonder if perhaps having one there encourages the AI to also place new NPC builds further out than usual. Then there is the other thing that Buzz was talking about above that is far away in the opposite direction from the centre and perhaps that might have effects on the placement of new NPC building. Just thoughts, as I said.

[jlehtone]

Plausible.

.. or when you get to the in-sector PHQ teleportation phase, which you have to do anyway, see if you can drop the PHQ on top of said station

Even if that succeeds, then the PHQ would be "10 minutes away". If you then need to deliver materials, for say to teleport elsewhere, the location would be ... "bad for profitsss", as Teladi might say.


Killing a station is not a huge dent in reputation, if you have plenty. ARG Defence Platform cost me only two points, usually.
(And you should have seen the amount of Terran stations that I had to wipe before I became Number One.)

[Eyeklops]

@ Buzz: That's not ~1,800 km out from the sector centre though (if you believe the 10+ minutes at 3 km/sec).

Sorry, I was off by a factor of 2. It's about 4000km away from the northern superhighway.

Update: I destroyed the station and went from +21 to -18 with TEL. Will report back later to see if the hex fixes it's self.

Update2: About 10 minutes later the hex has started to contract. It's still a long way off tho.

Update3: So apparently a spawned lock box at the halfway point is holding up the hex from contracting further. I left the sector but the box didn't despawn...sending a ship to collect it now.

[jlehtone]

Update: I destroyed the station and went from +21 to -18 with TEL. Will report back later to see if the hex fixes it's self.

Was it a big (many modules) station? More than ARG Defence Platform has?

The rep scale is not linear. Same kill shows more at +21 than at +30.

Each killed module and surface element counts. If you "Asgard" a defence module without hitting the shields or turrets, then all of it "still counts as one", but if you shoot the surface elements first, then you kill much more and that shows in reputation too.

Besides, it takes less "beamtime" to hit the plain module without wasting energy on elements.

[Eyeklops]

Update: I destroyed the station and went from +21 to -18 with TEL. Will report back later to see if the hex fixes it's self.

Was it a big (many modules) station? More than ARG Defence Platform has?

The rep scale is not linear. Same kill shows more at +21 than at +30.

Each killed module and surface element counts. If you "Asgard" a defence module without hitting the shields or turrets, then all of it "still counts as one", but if you shoot the surface elements first, then you kill much more and that shows in reputation too.

Besides, it takes less "beamtime" to hit the plain module without wasting energy on elements.

What your saying makes sense. I didn't have an Asgard for this. Used two Behemoths. I can't remember if the plasma turrets took out any surface elements. The station didn't seem huge to be honest. I fully hacked the station first so we never saw return fire from it.

Final Update: After the lockbox was dealt with the hex did shrink down quite a bit but not all the way. I would estimate it shrunk to about 120% of the original size. It still looked odd so after reviewing some other metrics of the savegame I've decided to roll back to a previous save. Lost about 24 hours of work but I'm not mad. Bug report is posted so I'm moving on.

[Maebius]

The grid retracts eh?
I learn something new every day...
I've reloaded a handful of times when something weird like pods or drones spawned a billion KM away.