Lets talk about - Xenons

[mr.WHO]

First I want to admit Xenon give some love in 3.0 with their new powerful weapons as well as soon to adressed issue with loosing turrets in OOS.
I was also at high expectations when I heard that Xenons woudl receive basic economy in X4.

However the actual implementation is kinda lacking.
Therefore I'd liek to brainstorm review the current system and see where it could be improved for post 3.0.


Current Xenon Assets:
Xenon N - former "M" from X3
Xenon M - former "L" from X3
Xenon S - from XR, act as miner and freighter
Xenon P - from XR, corvette
Xenon K - from XR, XL-size destroyer
Xenon I - from XR, XL-size battleship
Combat drones - same model as other races (!!!)
Xenon mass trafic - several models from XR

Xenon Defense station - station build in every taken sector
Solar Power Plant - provide energy cells?
Wharf/Shipayrd - ship production
Various decorative stations - that do nothing

Weapons (will change in 3.0):
- Xenon frontal pulse
- Xenon small Pulse turret
- Xenon beams? (I saw it once on K around 2.0, but never saw it later, maybe it was bug and Xenon shouldn't have beams?)
- Xenon Large Pulse turret



Current Xenon Economy:
Wharf/Shipyard - center of resource operation and ship production.
Solar Power plant - produce EC for shipyards? Ferry by Xenon S freighters.
Xenon S miners roam all over universe to mine and get back with resources to Xenon shipyards/wharf
The only noticable Xenon expansion is building of defense stations.

Identified issues:
- Xenon miners could have very far way to their shipayrds
- only M-size miners/freighters, while other factions have L-size
- only one Solar Power Plan per region
- multiple stations that do nothing but look preatty
- multiple times Xenon economy goes to stall because lack of production resources


Now how would we adress these issues?
Take one decorative station and turn them to resource refineries - there would Xenon miners drop off their resource which would be turned to construction materials. Then from these station dedicated Xenon freighters would ferry these materials to their wharf/shipyard. This would greatly reduce the amount of time Xenon miners roam all over universe. This would also provide a valid target for player and other factions.

The make Xenon expand their economy - every time Xenon expand to new sector they do following:
- build defense station first.
- then build resource refinery.
- then solar Power Plant.


This would make Xenon economy much more resilent, but also much more fun for player to affect (chasing milion helpless Xenon S all over universe is NOT VALID DEFINITION OF FUN).

To further bolster this system, it would be every easy to kitbash Xenon Large freighter/miner:
Step 1) Take Xenon K model
Step 2) Strap out all turrets and scale it down to L-size
Step 3) Kitbash some generic cargo containers from other ships to back-bottom section.
Step 4) Add several small and maybe even one or two large turrets to make it able to defend itself.
Step 5) Make Freighter and miner version (basically different container) and if you're feeling particulary generous even an Construction ship version (so that Xenon stations do not pop-out of thin air).



Additionally there are still some flaws in their military might, comparing to X3, especially their lack of proper fighter-capship coordination.
It would be best to reintroduce assets from X3 (yes I know you can't directly port them as they are in X3):

Xenon Combat drone - first strange question: why do thy use them? Every Xenon fighter combat drone and it's much better. Second strange question: why they use exactly the same model as all non-Xenon factions?
I'd say either remove them altogether (and replace by large stock of current "N") or replace the model with something Xenon (e.g. X3 "N" model that is no longer used, or maybe one of current Xenon mass traffic models)?

Ther are also other models from X3 that are worth to reintroduce:
old LX - this could be rare hunter-killer, several of them would roam alone in each Xenon region, they would be strong hitting (mix of several guns and 1 or 2 missile launchers), strong hull/shield as well as high top speed. It's only weakness would the less than average agility. Their task would be high speed interception especially for player roaming freely in Xenon zones. The idea is that you couldn't outrun them and you would have to either avoid them or try to force them into close dogfight where their lack agility.
old P - this one could be turned into Xenon bomber as Xenon rarely use missiles. This one would have several torpedo mount and 2 turrets. It would have strong hull and shields, but overall very vulnerable to fighters.
old PX - like above but on steroids, kinda bomber version of LX, rare...but evil (God or Terra help us all).
Old Q - this one I think is not good to be reused. it's too different from current Xenon design and too low quality to be worth upgrading. However, in general, Xenon lack proper "gunship", it might be worth to consider making some crazy gunship (like 8 turrets in all directions - since Xenon don't need to land on platforms it would be fine) out of current "P" model.
Old J - same as old Q, too diferent to reused, however current Xenons lack both L-size combat ship as well as dedicated carrier. We could kill two birds with one stone and make something fresh (outside of current generic L-size destroyer, XL-size Carrier --> Xenons already turned this upsidedown with their "K" and "I"). Therfore I think this would be valid idea to make Xenon "J" , L-size carrier. I imagine is as Scarab shape as Xenon already went for bug shapes. You could even kinda kitbash this out of Xenon K - Scale it down and also make it more flat and wide and slab some kinds of hangar/launching ports structure in back-bottom section (similar to above Freighter idea, but instead of container this would be specifically designed hangar section).

[mr.WHO]

Adding another idea from other discussion.

In some of pre-release videos, Egosoft presented dynamic setting for background planet surface.

Well we have a faction of rogue terraformers, right?
What about if we leave Xenons for long time, they would "terraform to hell" the local planet?
This would be amazing application of Egosoft dynamic planet change.

Terraformes gonna Terraform and would have pernament impact on the planet (even if it's just a background).

This could even go two ways - if faction take sector from Xenons, they would set-up reconstruction project to try to restore planet back to shape.

[Wehrwolf_10]

...Old J - same as old Q, too diferent to reused...

Old design ships could be a separate branch of xenon evolution. It is even possible to be a different faction.

[spankahontis]

Adding another idea from other discussion.

In some of pre-release videos, Egosoft presented dynamic setting for background planet surface.

Well we have a faction of rogue terraformers, right?
What about if we leave Xenons for long time, they would "terraform to hell" the local planet?
This would be amazing application of Egosoft dynamic planet change.

Terraformes gonna Terraform and would have pernament impact on the planet (even if it's just a background).

This could even go two ways - if faction take sector from Xenons, they would set-up reconstruction project to try to restore planet back to shape.

Or maybe a CPU Ship could have the role as Construction Ship?

Or maybe take the Limit Theory idea of building Mobile Factories.
Imagine a CPU Ship that requires Mining drones to collect resources Mineral and Gas and then converts those resources into Stations and Small Ships.

They would have to be capped so they don't grow out of control. But I agree, stations shouldn't appear out of thin air.
Make the CPU Ship a CV.

...Old J - same as old Q, too diferent to reused...

Old design ships could be a separate branch of xenon evolution. It is even possible to be a different faction.

That would be interesting, 2 Xenon Factions that have broken away and don't recognise each others AI as part of their network; deeming each other a virus.