Acquire the Erlking?

[Mr.Killer]

You can build an Erlking from a blueprint after PHQ research which unlocks only if you lose the Erlking you already owned. You were intended to only ever have one at any one time.

Weird rule: Oh, you have blueprints, however cheaply aquired, but you can only make one of them. Is hardly a blue print, more a one-time lose print!

Not "one time", more like one at a time, for every time you lose it, I believe.

HUH?? So when I lose it, I can build one again?

Like a nice cup of coffee, only one fits in my cup, and only when it's empty, then I can fill it??? again???
That is somewhat a satisfying thought, but I liked my interpretation of 'blue-print / lose-print' I found it a witty remark and rather funny, but Nanook, I hope you are right.

[Mr.Killer]

This sounds very awkward but at one point Boso was able to re-invent the powercore again , so I could build another Erlking, however, when I wanted a third, I ran into the same problem, no powercore. Looking at research and there the whole section about the Erlking was gone.

My question actually is: Please explain the background info about this weird behavior, please, because I really don't understand anything about this.

Thanks.

[Alan Phipps]

It's simple. The vanilla game intends that the Erlking be 'special' and so is intended to prevent you from having more than one at a time. If you have two in plain vanilla then that is a bug somewhere such as a situation unforeseen by the devs.

[Mr.Killer]

Keep those bugs coming then, I love the power of the unforseen in our benefit

Serious though, if this is a bug, I can't really give a savegame at this point because I use the steam provided 'help' (or plainly cheat) to just make some things a bit easier. I hate to get killed in a battle if I am not the only one present but being targetted by most enemies, so my reasoning is, if they can cheat, I can too.

(This is with a lot of games, the non-AI is always a high priority target, as I have noticed over the years playing different games with bots.) (Not claiming something that needs to be changed.)

[Nanook]

Well, you, as the player, are the center of the universe, and the most powerful adversary. So it stands to reason you're the priority target. As in most games.

[Endoryl]

Any suggestion how to quickly and efficiently locate these data vaults?

Flying around in a fast ship and pinging long range scan hasn't shown me one goddam vault in the new DLC sectors, even though I'm using a search pattern to try and systematically cover all areas within a reasonable distance of center.

I guess it doesn't help that I absolutely DETEST this activity.

I mean, I beat all the other shit in this DLC, I want the GODDAM BATTLESHIP! This game needs more battleships.

They drop at random locations (in the avarice dlc sectors) and some are ridicolous far out of the x plane (300+ km) so long range scan won't work. Plastered the whole sectors with satellites and still didn't find all 5. You can try above or below and scan until you find them ... or spoiler... scan your save file for their locations.

Use this bat-file: viewtopic.php?p=5116566#p5116566
(also see one post above yours)

It's really awesome and you can use it without manipulating your savegame - it basically extracts the coordinates and gives you information about what you find where. You then can move your scout to those locations, drop a satellite and open the data vault.

Indeed a very nice gimmick to extract the data vault positions!
I'm usually a zealous anti-cheater in games.
But these vault locations are so poorly implemented that I don't feel the slightest bit of remorse here using this tool.
Searching 10's of hours for these vaults, 100's of km outside the "normal" planes. Thx but no thx. Not my defenition of fun.
Many many thanks to the creator of the bat file. Saved me lots of frustration in consequent playthroughs.

[dalton5]

Hello, How can I find the x, y, z position of my ship. Thanks in advance

[RainerPrem]

Hello, How can I find the x, y, z position of my ship. Thanks in advance

E.g. Fly to the center of the sector. It mostly is (0,0,0). Then you can check the distances and angles to gates and factories.