[X3LU] Mayhem 3.7d

[Black--Snow]

So what's the go with carrier configuration in Mayhem 3? I see the lack of ADS / MLCC, and I can't find any resources on the main page nor the encyclopedia about it unless I've missed something.

I just docked 24 M3s to an Ariadne and realised I have no clue how I'm supposed to set them up here.

The encyclopedia suggests that the M3s should be added into the fleet, and that a transporter device on the carrier is mucho beneficial, but how do you command the carrier to launch fighters / dock all fighters etc.?

[Hector0x]

The fleet does all of that on its own. Support fighters choose their own home-carrier. They launch and attack once their carrier's follower scanning range gets triggered by an enemy. They fallback when their own shields drop very low. They go to an outpost or any repair carrier in the fleet when needed.

This fleet system can be a very powerful automation tool. But i think many players interrupt it all the time because they think its broken (not adressing anyone specific, just my general observation over many months)
I recently recorded 2 episodes where i attack a pirate base. I'm only giving exactly 1 command. "invade sector"

My fleet:
- kills all remaining pirate fighters in the sector
- then focusses fire on the pirate base
- when 2 pirate M6 respawn at the base my fleet automatically retargets and takes them out
- after both M6 are dead my fleet resumes killing the base

I didn't need to use any command broadcasting to all ships. No fleet command to "attack all enemies" when the pirates spawned, no priority attacks, nothing. Only 1 invade command did the trick. The problem is that it takes your ships a while to switch targets. It might seem unresponsive and broken and you might even suffer a few more losses which could be avoided by giving manual commands like crazy. But once you start doing that, you're removing your ships from the fleet and that turns off all this automation.
Try to achieve what you want to do within the fleet system, it's probably possible to do. And it makes handling multiple fleets later in the game so much easier.

[Black--Snow]

I see, thanks! By "Support fighters" are you referring to a specific mechanic, or just any fighters in a larger fleet?

[Joubarbe]

Encyclopedia:

In Mayhem 3, all combat scripts have been rewritten from scratch. That means that some basic things have been redesigned. In that regard, combat tactics and ship formations have been overhauled. All formations, squadrons and fleets now have the same rules:

1. The leader is at the center of the formation and only the leader runs the main script that tells him what to do in what situations.

2. Followers are all the other ships that follow the leader and assist him. They will always try to protect the leader in priority, then attack his target, or assist other followers.

3. Support ships are fighters that can be carried by a follower. As soon as they are in the carrier, and while the carrier is alive, they become independent from the formation. Their priority then becomes the protection and the assistance of the carrier. If the carrier dies, they will join the formation back, as standard followers. If the carrier is equipped with a Carrier Repair Module, the support ships will wait there while their hull is damaged.

Note that wings are one of the few things - with turret scripts - that have been left untouched. Please report any problem you might encounter with them.

[Hector0x]

Support ship is just a term in the fleet command structure. The encyclopedia has some more info about that.
You got Commander>Follower>Support ship. Afaik any ship which is able to dock at another fleet ship will do that and become a support ship. The idea is that you need to give orders only to your fleet commander. Support ships can't be controlled at all and will only listen to their carrier which should be a Follower. What Followers do is dependent on your fleet settings.

On default the commander auto-attacks enemies at very long ranges, but followers only scan and attack at very low range. So the entire fleet will move towards enemies but stays together just until the actual clash. You can change all of that with the 2 scanning ranges. Think of these as your fleet's "personal space". If it gets violated your fleet gets angry and attacks. High ranges are good for patrols or if you want to clean up weak enemies. Small ranges are good if you need to be careful, fear losses, want to focus on one target at the time (for example for efficient station destruction without far away enemies distracting your fleet), or generally want your fleet to stay together as much as possible and be rather passive.

It's usually a good idea to make the slowest ship fleet commander. I remember that i had some issues if the commander was a carrier. Don't remember what it was exactly. I think your fighters will either not launch at all or launch too early and spread themselves too thin. A leader carrier may launch it's support fighters against enemies up to 200km away (default) while on a follower carrier it should be only 20km which keeps a better herd and fewer losses. As a habit i avoid using carriers as commander if possible. But you could try that. Make your Ariadne commander, see if and at what distance to enemies it launches its fighters

Edit: got ninja'ed

[Joubarbe]

3.6 released

[Betelgeuse97]

I notice that the OCV invasion in phase 3 is "too slow" as in it still spawns 1 wave at a time (albeit faster at 30min interval instead of 3 hour interval in the original 3.0 release), but with ~100 sectors it'll take a good 2-3 in-game days to finish this phase. Considering that phase 3 should be "the end of the world" kind of invasion, this is too easy for a late-game or end-game player to handle. (Phase 2 OCV invasion when terraforming is consistently tougher when comparing to phase 3 invasions that vary between 1 M6 + 1 M4 up to a small fleet of 1 M2 + couple M7 per wave.)

With X4 4.0 coming out, will you plan on modding X4 such as enhancing some of the features present there such as shipbuilding and sector takeover (ships in X4 still spawn from thin air such as SCA ships)?

[Joubarbe]

There is a t-file option to remove the 1 wave at a time.

I won’t mod X4.

[tormox]

I won’t mod X4.

but all the shineys.

[Betelgeuse97]

I noticed that the IBL and PAA were changed to be "flak weapons" in 3.5, but I still notice in the encyclopedia (and in practice) when they're used. They still have slow fire rate for a flak weapon and are more like their original counterparts. Is this intended?

For reference, iirc:
- IBL: 3 shots/min (20 second cooldown)
- PAA: 7 shots/min (~8 second cooldown)

[Joubarbe]

I should have just said that the projectiles of both weapons now end with an explosion, instead of just disappearing. And only flak weapons do that. But that’s only what I’ve changed really.

[Betelgeuse97]

Haven't seen the end result when their timer expires yet

Another observation I noticed (currently playing on 1 sector only; don't have anywhere else to go!) is that loyalty points aren't consumed when buying a ship but are when a favor point is bought. Is the former intended?

[Joubarbe]

Yes.

[Betelgeuse97]

8x8 map with everyone starting at 1 sector is really hard, harder than I thought. I was 6 in-game hours in and there were only 3 unknown sectors left. Immediately after I got my TL and took over my first sector, I noticed that the AI left 2 unknown sectors afterwards (they were behind a Xenon sector but 1 was open; however, Xenon sectors don't stop battle groups from flying over) after 90%+ of the galaxy was already taken.

But I have a few questions:
- Since the galaxy expansion was set to none, that means AI should've taken over those sectors but I have yet to see the AI try to conquer them ever since I took my first one. Given that the AIs started with 1 sector (that means they're free to expand as soon as the game starts), shouldn't they have taken it or is it intended that they "left a couple sectors" for me to take?
- I noticed that Xenon spawning doesn't seem as frequent. I know its fleet strength is tied based on the number of sectors I have, but what about the time between spawns? (In my previous game where I had ~20 sectors they were spawning every hour, but in this game where I have only 1 sector, they were spawning once every 2 hours or so unless I didn't see a spawn.)

I also made some observations/tips based on my first 24 in-game hours being stuck on 1 sector:

• Despite Terran ships supposedly being superior, most Terran ships are not worth making, let alone use. They may be better but some (notably their TS) have higher maintenance costs and may not be as practically good as their commonwealth counterparts.

• Scanning a ship will not be interrupted when the targeted ship docks; the scan will be completed as usual as long as you've started scanning prior to their docking into a ship or station.

• I believe that your ship order can be preempted and it has the lowest priority in the queue when you place an order at an outpost. That means that when that outpost needs to make ships for its AI fleet, your ship won't be produced until that outpost has no more ships to build. (Need to verify this.)

• You can beat the game without ever building or using a research station in Mayhem 3. (Going to try this challenge since I haven't built a research station yet.)

• Pirates spawn every 15 minutes; they're that good for marine training and getting ships, so killing a pirate base isn't always a good idea.

• When you need to go to war for more space, Yaki and other warring factions can help by depriving your soon-to-be enemy of capital ships when the defending fleet is too strong for your "weak" fleet of M3s only.

• M4s may be nice to build, but if you're tight on resources, you don't want to lose too many ships. A cheap and "weak" M3 like the Barracuda is a better and more durable option over making M4s. Also, in terms of the amount of shield per crystal, 25 MJ has a higher ratio over 5 MJ.

• Of the three weakest guns (they all deal comparable damage with each other and cost the same to make; we'll just say their shield damage is the same for simplicity), the IRE is the best for fire rate and energy efficiency but has the worst range. MD has the best hull-to-shield damage ratio (50% instead of 33% when compared with IRE and PAC) and range but uses up the most energy. PAC is somewhere in the middle.

• In older versions of Mayhem 3, you could simply train marines by putting them into ships and have those ships attack anything. It seems that now the ships have to be in a fleet and follow a fleet command to attack something to get XP.
  • Example: Before, you could have a wing of 4 ships and have them attack an enemy to get XP. Doing the same thing now will yield no XP; however, they will still get XP if they're with their fleet commander and their commander has issued a fleet command such as "fleet: attack all enemies."

• Your starting TL is a very good tank for invading your first sector(s) when you equip it with 6 extra 1 GJ shields.

• Looters and tugs will never pick up loot and ships in an enemy sector. For example, in the early game, if there's loot in a Xenon sector, only you can take it until you clear the Xenon completely from that sector.

[Joubarbe]

But I have a few questions:
- Since the galaxy expansion was set to none, that means AI should've taken over those sectors but I have yet to see the AI try to conquer them ever since I took my first one. Given that the AIs started with 1 sector (that means they're free to expand as soon as the game starts), shouldn't they have taken it or is it intended that they "left a couple sectors" for me to take?

It is intended that they "left a couple sectors".