Racial Tensions ?

[Falynn]

Loving the game so far. But where are the racial conflicts? So far in my game 26hrs in there is nobody fighting each other. No NPC bailing from fights with pirates or other races. The stockmarket does not move. Why does the New Dynamic System only seem to affect my relations. The spit fly through Boron and Argon space with no problems. Corporations supposedly hate each other, but they just fly past each other waving. What gives? Pirates don't really bother anyone unless you are doing missions. Is this because I have not finished opening any gates? I have explored the whole map. I have been trying to build starting factories in a couple of sectors. I have not started building any TOAs. I think I have started the Terran plot, so this might also be a reason. But it just feels like the same neutral AI as in the previous x3 games, with the exception of the minor fights between Argon and Terran in AP. Do you have to be the one to start conflicts using Diplomates? Or will they start fighting on their own?

[Hwitvlf]

Some posts are claiming there's mass carnage in FL because of the Faction system, but I have not seen any of that. There are more ships flying through enemy space, but they are almost never targeted, and even less often are they destroyed. When you're in-system, fights start more often because quite a few ships have turrets set to 'attack enemies', but they're still very small skirmishes.

The Xenon seem more active, but they are still pretty harmless. I saw one I with several K and Q escorts, but mostly there's just a stray Q here and there, and a rare K or two. They get stronger as your ranks go up, but I'm at Battlemaster and Magnate and things are still pretty sleepy.

[Midnightknight]

Some posts are claiming there's mass carnage in FL because of the Faction system, but I have not seen any of that. There are more ships flying through enemy space, but they are almost never targeted, and even less often are they destroyed. When you're in-system, fights start more often because quite a few ships have turrets set to 'attack enemies', but they're still very small skirmishes.

The Xenon seem more active, but they are still pretty harmless. I saw one I with several K and Q escorts, but mostly there's just a stray Q here and there, and a rare K or two. They get stronger as your ranks go up, but I'm at Battlemaster and Magnate and things are still pretty sleepy.

Partly true, usually the fights in my game happens when a Colossus is lost in Paranid systems using the Hub ... Yeah that makes some fight, but when you are OOS even this sometime ... Do nothing. I had a Boron Shark standing in Ronkhar's trial surrounded by 3 agamemnon and an Ariadne and nothing happened. Then finally one of the patrolling dragon attacked it when i was IS and it came to life, shooting at one of the Agy by error, making it come to life too ...

In fact most of the time the fights i see are traders being blown up by local police cause they are in the wrong sector, except that ... Even the Xenons you mention are doing killing yes, but nobody cares. I watched one in Cho's defeat, a sector with heavy military for everywhere and they could kill traders without having any ships looking for them, only when they start to stupidly targets some M2 you had a real fight. It's the same for pirates in my game, they spawns a lot everywhere now and are annoying cause nobody cares about them and you need to go kill them or they remains there forever.

I don't know what is the issue, but i suspect it's the "patrol" order going wrong. I had 2 M7 in my main sector set as patrol and they were just patrolling ... I mean not attacking anybody, even with target right in front of them. I changed this to "defend sector" and it's a different story now, they actively seeks any red target and vaporize it.

Also note from version to version it changes a lot. In 1.0 at least in my game the universe was in wastes cause not many traders were making it to it's destination, it looks like it changed for an unknown reason and a bit in the other direction now.

[Falynn]

Well I brought this topic up because I was flying into an Argon sector with a tuned up pirate kea, and saw a few Xenon just passing through on their merry little way. So I thought that should not be the case and I shot @ them and got their attention. As they flew after me I lead them into some Argon military ships to try and get them to fight, well they sorta just passed by and still came @ me. So then I just tried and fought close to them thinking a lazy Xenon shot might get them to engage. Nope but my turrets sure did and then the Argon and Xenon both started chasing me. I went red to the whole Argon sector. Lol as funny as this was to me I couldn't help but think why no one Initiates any conflict or actively defend their sectors. I know we can through diplomats but have not tried it myself. I love all the new stuff in this game. You can tell alot was put into it. I also thought that the boarders sectors (some not all) would be contested from time to time and see more bailed ships and loot laying around with some scavengers picking it up.

[Midnightknight]

Well I brought this topic up because I was flying into an Argon sector with a tuned up pirate kea, and saw a few Xenon just passing through on their merry little way. So I thought that should not be the case and I shot @ them and got their attention. As they flew after me I lead them into some Argon military ships to try and get them to fight, well they sorta just passed by and still came @ me. So then I just tried and fought close to them thinking a lazy Xenon shot might get them to engage. Nope but my turrets sure did and then the Argon and Xenon both started chasing me. I went red to the whole Argon sector. Lol as funny as this was to me I couldn't help but think why no one Initiates any conflict or actively defend their sectors. I know we can through diplomats but have not tried it myself. I love all the new stuff in this game. You can tell alot was put into it. I also thought that the boarders sectors (some not all) would be contested from time to time and see more bailed ships and loot laying around with some scavengers picking it up.

Yeah they fight ... At time. Sometime they destroys everything including freighters that aren't even really hostiles as i saw sometime full engagement with Splits/Argons and Teladi involved even if they are supposed to be neutrals ... And sometime they just don't care you don't know why. They leave those xenons I destroy a sector without moving, the 2 odysseus drinking their coffee and watching the apocalypse ...

But sure as the player, if you do something, they react instantly. It's what makes me feel this whole DR thing is counter intuitive and more immersion breaking than anything to my opinion as nothing in the game works correctly with it.

[Falynn]

I disagree. I think the DR system is a great idea. But it should already be set for the npcs. They should treat enemies of their faction just as brutal as they would the player if the player was an enemy. They come after me the second I am spotted. So they should do the same to pirates, Xenon, and anyone else (corps) that is hated. And they should also call a truce from time to time to let the economy recover a bit from said altercations. But why don't they? That is my question. It is obvious that they could and sometimes do in other peoples games but why not everyone's who wishes for conflict. For me when my new mother board comes in, I want to try and see if the diplomats can make such things happen. Has anyone else tried this? Diplomat farming sucks for me cause I am trying to do defend missions in Teladi space so rep only hits Yaki and Pirates, but this takes a bit. And what does it take influence wise and such to start a massive war with all races? How long will it last? Can they take over other sectors. Those are the question I would like more details on. Seems Noone has really tried this or talked about it.

[Hwitvlf]

I have seen the same thing that both of you mention. My best guess is that FL changes turret behavior to be more focused on the ship's target- perhaps to conserve energy. It used to be that Xenon turrets would shoot anything in range. Seems like M7Ms have become wimpy too. Every one I encounter only has a few missiles onboard. Even Rapid Response M8s aren't shooting missiles at me.

I had an M2 defending the Hub and would frequently find it idling while enemies were in the sector. I saw this same behavior in AP though, so not sure it's a change in FL. Defend Sector is the only thing that seems to work consistently, but it also attacks enemy stations.

Personally, I feel that adding more universe-wide faction aggresion would just use resources without much benefit to the player. I would rather see occasional large scale invasions targeting a sector which generate a mission allowing the player to pick a side and participate in the event.

[Falynn]

That is why I want to know more about the Diplomat function. (As I said my laptop motherboard burnt-out on me so it will be two weeks before a new one comes in, and I can start playing again.) Is it even worth trying to grind for diplomats.

[Killjaeden]

Well I brought this topic up because I was flying into an Argon sector with a tuned up pirate kea, and saw a few Xenon just passing through on their merry little way. So I thought that should not be the case and I shot @ them and got their attention. As they flew after me I lead them into some Argon military ships to try and get them to fight, well they sorta just passed by and still came @ me. So then I just tried and fought close to them thinking a lazy Xenon shot might get them to engage. Nope but my turrets sure did and then the Argon and Xenon both started chasing me. I went red to the whole Argon sector. Lol as funny as this was to me I couldn't help but think why no one Initiates any conflict or actively defend their sectors. I know we can through diplomats but have not tried it myself. I love all the new stuff in this game. You can tell alot was put into it. I also thought that the boarders sectors (some not all) would be contested from time to time and see more bailed ships and loot laying around with some scavengers picking it up.

If a ship already has an attack order, they wont retarget. Staying in a Core/Border sector too long - iirc - makes military ships bee line for you (and therefore ignoring everyone else)

NPC factions flying into enemy spaces on purpose is fairly rare. There is no sector take over or "real war" like in X4. With the Hub sector and gate realignment you can cause factions to cross each others paths more regularly. But dont think that they actually do something active of any kind. Its more coincidental than anything else.
When i started the game in 1.0, around the pirate sectors near brennans triumph there where at least 1-2 capital ships (argon/paranid/xenon/pirate) in each sector causing havoc. Once they die due to other capitals, it takes a while before they respawn. Some combat scripts dont actually engage enemies OOS, unless they are attacked (and survive the attack). Maybe they also adjusted the behaviour of capital ships to not shoot everything on sight in a patch?

Is it even worth trying to grind for diplomats.

If you expect meaningfull war or race interactions ,you will get dissapointed. Not worth it.

[Deianeira]

There is no war anywhere and definitely no taking over sectors, just the usual rapid response fleets, when they aren't busy elsewhere. The AI only claims yet unclaimed systems behind the HSAPs.

You can use diplomacy to convince a race to send its fleet on targeted attacks, although base cost for this action is so high that I never even tested it. You need to be really close friends to use this feature.