Shipyards working now [1.32 beta 1]

[Vaeo]

Player shipyards. Do we have them?! When can I be a true tech species and ditch currency?

[Osbot]

Can confirm, more Xenon and Kha'ak. For some reason the Kha'ak ships can't attack, though.

Problem is that the Kha'ak ships are so slow. They get into knife-fighting range and just constantly bounce between 'turn towards' and 'turn away' with barely any time between to actually fire their guns since they cannot open up distance with their targets.

This can probably be fixed in the behaviors.xml.

To give you an idea, this is the default combat behavior.

<set name="default">
<normal>
<behaviour name="dogfight1" chance="60" />
<behaviour name="dogfight2" chance="50" />
<behaviour name="chase" chance="40" minskill="20" />
</normal>
<evade>
<behaviour name="hardbrake" chance="5" />
<behaviour name="evasive_loop" chance="65" minskill="20" />
<behaviour name="evasive_simple" chance="50" />
<behaviour name="evasive_roll" chance="5" />
<behaviour name="evasive_spiral" chance="55" />
<behaviour name="evasive_random" chance="40" />
<behaviour name="runaway" chance="10" minskill="50" />
<behaviour name="crazyivan" chance="10" minskill="30" />
<behaviour name="spiral" chance="55" minskill="40" />
<behaviour name="gaindistance" chance="35" minskill="30" />
</evade>

We can guess what a lot of this stuff means. Dogfight1 and 2 obviously are hard to guess, but I'm guessing just the standard turn fighting, which is, actually terrible.

Most of the factions have a list like this. However, here is the Khaak.

<set name="khaak" default="khaak">
<normal>
<behaviour name="khaak" chance="100" />
</normal>
<evade>
<behaviour name="evasive_loop" chance="65" minskill="20" />
<behaviour name="evasive_simple" chance="50" />
<behaviour name="evasive_spiral" chance="55" />
<behaviour name="evasive_random" chance="40" minskill="50" />
</evade>
</set>

I would suggest, making gaindistance the default evade. This is I believe, boosting. Now, boosting is problematic because it eats up shields. However, boosting is also the best way to gain distance. I'd even try putting gaindistance on one of the factions, as their default behavior. Just to see how the AI uses it to dogfight. Then, ideally, egosoft, or a mod, will decouple boost from shield, and we can get a reactor energy bar, that will feed shields/weapons/boosting. There are mods which remove the in combat being hit delay to shield regen, which will also really help out with dogfighting behavior, IF things like crazyivan (charging straight at the enemy and maybe breaking off at the last second) or gaindistance, work well.

I know space combat isn't really the same as atmospheric dog fighting, but the model this game is using for guns, is definitely WW2 style dog fighting, and what did we learn about WW2 dog fighting. Conservation of energy is everything. Turn fighting bleeds energy. You want to zoom and boom. Come in hot, fire your guns, minimize the time the enemy has to shoot back, do a bunch of damage, and get the F out of dodge, by zooming away, and then turn at a safe distance and do it again.

[Shakane]

Finally my username is relevant

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

Time to die

Cells interlinked, within cells interlinked,... within one stem and dreadfully destinct.

Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked.

[Kadatherion]

I know space combat isn't really the same as atmospheric dog fighting, but the model this game is using for guns, is definitely WW2 style dog fighting, and what did we learn about WW2 dog fighting. Conservation of energy is everything. Turn fighting bleeds energy. You want to zoom and boom. Come in hot, fire your guns, minimize the time the enemy has to shoot back, do a bunch of damage, and get the F out of dodge, by zooming away, and then turn at a safe distance and do it again.

That's what we did in Freelancer multiplayer, we used to call it jousting back then. Fairly fun when in multiplayer, but against the AI it's a behaviour I'd recommend to avoid right now, or at least to keep at fairly conservative levels. You have to fight hundreds and hundreds of enemies while you play against the AI (at least now that the game is working again with ship spawning), it becomes tedious because each dogfight becomes VERY long, as we have comparatively very low alpha strike damage. If weapons were rebalanced accordingly, so that one or two passes could be enough to destroy a small fighter, then it would work much better, but with the current balance it would be a no-go imo.

X3 combat was a bit more balanced towards such behaviour (but without the crazy boost we have now), weapons had greater alpha strike potential but energy consumption was a concern. You could shoot down an M - sometimes even an L - on your first pass, then turn around and try to gain the enemy's six, and so on. That's a good middle ground which I think X4 should go back to, problem is, back then we also had up to 8 front guns for fighters. Now a fighter has 2 guns on average, but they aren't proportionally 4 times stronger - quite the opposite - so you spend your time tailing the AI slowly chipping away at their hulls. Another issue is the AI seems to miss much more often in X4 than in X3, even when shooting at a stationary target in a straight line (while, on the other hand, the player aim assist is deadly precise). We'd need a rebalance that - once the AI is able to actually hit something - buffs the weapons a bit and nerfs the boost a bit if not actually really a lot (like boost = default max speed x2, instead of ~x10 as it is now).

[Wonsz]

How long it took you guys after upgrade to see new ships being produced? I got 1.32 beta yesterday in the evening, watched few shipyards (one in person, two others via satellite) for c.a. half an hour and... nothing. One (unconfirmed) courier ship - I believe I saw sth changing from "construcion site" to a new ship, but I cannot be sure, I didn't have time to see clearly.

Do I need a new save? Do I need to wait more?

Before someone asks - shipyards are full of materials (from 50-60% to 100% storage), and I have BETA patch installed

[Kadatherion]

How long it took you guys after upgrade to see new ships being produced? I got 1.32 beta yesterday in the evening, watched few shipyards (one in person, two others via satellite) for c.a. half an hour and... nothing. One (unconfirmed) courier ship - I believe I saw sth changing from "construcion site" to a new ship, but I cannot be sure, I didn't have time to see clearly.

Do I need a new save? Do I need to wait more?

Before someone asks - shipyards are full of materials (from 50-60% to 100% storage), and I have BETA patch installed

It was almost immediate for me. A few minutes in, and I immediately saw a rise in small kha'ak and xenon encounters. Then a K entered HOP systems and an entire fleet went to meet it. Pretty awesome, it was an immediate game changer. HOWEVER, all those ships being built at once emptied most shipyards and wharfs, and now my universe has a severe shortage of engine parts, more and more orders are queing and it looks like it might hang again until the economy stabilizes again, which might take quite a few hours. Interesting bug: npc pilots floating in mid air over the docking pads, as their ships are in the order queue, but stalled

[Karlfeldt]

How long it took you guys after upgrade to see new ships being produced? I got 1.32 beta yesterday in the evening, watched few shipyards (one in person, two others via satellite) for c.a. half an hour and... nothing. One (unconfirmed) courier ship - I believe I saw sth changing from "construcion site" to a new ship, but I cannot be sure, I didn't have time to see clearly.

Do I need a new save? Do I need to wait more?

Before someone asks - shipyards are full of materials (from 50-60% to 100% storage), and I have BETA patch installed

It was almost immediate for me. A few minutes in, and I immediately saw a rise in small kha'ak and xenon encounters. Then a K entered HOP systems and an entire fleet went to meet it. Pretty awesome, it was an immediate game changer. HOWEVER, all those ships being built at once emptied most shipyards and wharfs, and now my universe has a severe shortage of engine parts, more and more orders are queing and it looks like it might hang again until the economy stabilizes again, which might take quite a few hours. Interesting bug: npc pilots floating in mid air over the docking pads, as their ships are in the order queue, but stalled

That is awesome if every shipyard is short of something because that leave to the player whether to fill these buy orders or not.
If the player want a constant war then he can provide these materials. If he thinks the war is going wrong then he can piled up these materials in his storage and cool down the conflict a little bit maybe...

[malkuth1974]

The economy is booming. My dead Xenon are rebuilding. Already had a P raid into argon prime. Sitting in the warf watching all the ships get built and the transports landing. Dam it’s awsome.

[Arze]

Can the shipyards and other station be consistently destroyed, or if we destroy them during their build process they become invincible still?

[mamastoast]

I let my game run over night and sadly I woke up to my miners not having moved an inch and the argon warf being back to not doing anything.

[Bozz11]

It should go crazy for all of you who have +100 hours and all faction stations maxed and full storage xD

[Lymark]

Have factions started invading each other again?

[Mysterius]

The patch changed nothing to me. I have a save with 30 hours in and I saw no ship building in shipyards and Xenons are still a dead threat.

[SpaceCadet11864]

The patch fixed it for me but took a few hours to see changes, noticed shipyards (not wharfs) were building capital ships in friendly space. Majority of wharfs building nothing - but I assume that's because they have all the things they need and met their quotas.

It took 2-3 hours before seeing xenon invasions begin.

see the screenshot below (note the time, this is about a 30ish hour game)

[LameFox]

Anyone else find that enemies show up now, but never fire??

They think they are attacking me, and go on attack runs, but they don't shoot. Kha'ak, Xenon, even SCA.

[nemhook]

when it goes live, maybe my 2 destroyers that have been stuck in build mode in the shipyards might actuals get built now.


they're been there since yesterday.

You can always deliver the needed parts yourself...

that's the thing, I've scanned the station, all the the storage is full. there is no indication of anything missing.

[Tadas]

Anyone else find that enemies show up now, but never fire??

They think they are attacking me, and go on attack runs, but they don't shoot. Kha'ak, Xenon, even SCA.

Can confirm, enemy fighters very rarely actually shoot at me too.

[ScandyNav]

Have factions started invading each other again?

Only small raids. Nothing that can change ownership or even slightly damage stations is happening.

[DnBrn47]

when it goes live, maybe my 2 destroyers that have been stuck in build mode in the shipyards might actuals get built now.


they're been there since yesterday.

You can always deliver the needed parts yourself...

that's the thing, I've scanned the station, all the the storage is full. there is no indication of anything missing.

When you go into the build menu, if it doesn't say it's missing resources in the bottom right and there's still no timer to completion, it's likely a bug of some kind.

[nemhook]

You can always deliver the needed parts yourself...

that's the thing, I've scanned the station, all the the storage is full. there is no indication of anything missing.

When you go into the build menu, if it doesn't say it's missing resources in the bottom right and there's still no timer to completion, it's likely a bug of some kind.

nah it did, and it did with mu builder in another station, but that started after a few hours, this has been 3 days now, and the storage is full on the station, I've even had traders collect and trade