[Mayhem 3] Renegades 3.0

[VoidSoul]

Big and Huge ships will now be produced with an initial random selection of compatible missiles and chaff. These initial missiles are free and do not require the missile manufacturing perk. Additionally, this loadout is ALSO set for the resupply values for the ship so you don't have to manually set those for every ship. Note, that the game missile allocations are somewhat random and not always optimal but I still view this as an improvement over starting with zero missiles and no resupply amounts set.

As it was your fork of mod and your change log, I naturally thought it was your modification as well.
"Free missiles", as change log states and predefined random loadout.

You could still include a carrier for fleet repair though as they repair nearby ships when not in battle.

It's just another hustle of micromanaging fleet leaders between engagements. My setup now is horde of forseti's with m6's and separate fleet of m3 following, m3 are fast enough to go to outpost, m2 can repair it's horde of m6, and when is damaged itself I just swap it with freshly repaird one from drydock. Saving grace is that m6's don't fall under carrier thrall of m2 automaticly.

Anyway, I wish of understanding of x3 code and and it's logic, but it is beyond me.

[Hairless-Ape]

Ok, now I know what you are talking about.

Yes, Large ships using a default build were not being produced with any supporting missiles at all, which is lame, but not the issue you actually have a problem with. At a minimum, default ships should have a default load-out assigned by the AI. If you want to customize missile loadouts then you should be able to do so, but that's strictly template stuff, not a default ship build.

What you are REALLY asking for is for the template system to work again so you can build dedicated missile ships with a custom missile load-out. You're also asking the system to honor that same loadout for Resupply purposes (which is totally separate by the way. How you load a ship has nothing at all to do with it's resupply values, so don't mix the two).
ie, your comments: "You can't adjust loadout in any way on a ship creation even with templates", "In the past Template system managed missile supply well enough. You build template ship and suppliers staffed it with what is needed. Now it's a mess."

I agree templates need to be fixed. I just haven't decided on how to go about it because it's a lot of work. Hector made a lot of changes to support his new "fixed optimal loadout" strategy for ships and trying to get it back will be hard. The changes to the Template system were not done in Renegades. That was all Zero Hour. So far, other than you and me, I've not heard any complaints from people about missiles so I've not considered putting in all the hours to fix it. I'm still mulling it over.

Oh, also.. I like your horde of forseti's with M6's and separate fleet of M3. Seems like an optimal way to approach things. I often use a separate fleet of M3's because it gives me much more flexibility.

[Negmek]

If you're making an argument then I don't understand what it is.

I was replying to your previous post, specifically:

I don't agree that all fleet forces should be in a blob. This was how all the previous developers approached it and something I was very intent on changing for Renegades. Naval fleets do not engage in a blob. They send out their fighters to hit the enemy weak spots well out of range of the capital ships. This is now the default of Renegades. This has many benefits in actual play and not something I'm going to change. I love it that way. The single downside to this is that if you are sending one large fleet after another large fleet and you launch 50 fighters at range, they may not be alive by the time your main fleet engages and so they would be wasted. This is where you come in and where you have to manage the engagement.

I mostly replied here

Though it may have been convoluted. To recap: real naval fleets do indeed blob up, when they are using artillery, which is basically a "dps weapon". Except instead of a blob they do a line, because two dimensions. And its not just sail ships, you can see it as late as 1942 in the battle of the savo island in the pacific. This is essentially what all battles in x3 look like, except again, its 3d, so you get blobs instead of a battle line.

The bit i quoted above talks about sending out fighters well out of range of the capital ships, and that applies only to things that can deal huge damage in a small burst, ie strike. And if such weapons exist, then its necessary to have screening ships that would destroy any strike craft before they get anywhere close to the big capital ships. This doesn't apply to m3s because they cant strike, they only deal DPS, so its best to meet them with your entire blob, which in turn means m3s shouldn't engage the enemy blob by themselves, else overmatch, etc.

There already are dedicated missile ships, which i like, its much better than when every ship has some mediocre missile capacity and everything sort of blends in. But these missile ships are also generally dps dealing, just via a different mechanic, and they are not m3s. So, perhaps actual strike craft is a niche in mayhem that is yet to be filled. Perhaps a fast m4 that can carry a high damage low range missile? Just one, having to reload at a carrier afterwards.

The worst thing with this idea would be having to implement Ai that would try to intercept these bombers before its too late. But, that would actually provide a reason for fleets to split up, either strike forces detaching for an attack, or screening ships intercepting the strike forces. But without that, its all blob blob blob, or at most m3s can flank. Which i haven't seen the AI do.

[Hairless-Ape]

To recap: real naval fleets do indeed blob up

They don't exclusively blob up. Carrier groups didn't exclusively attack other groups of large ships.

The bit i quoted above talks about sending out fighters well out of range of the capital ships, and that applies only to things that can deal huge damage in a small burst, ie strike. And if such weapons exist, then its necessary to have screening ships that would destroy any strike craft before they get anywhere close to the big capital ships. This doesn't apply to m3s because they cant strike, they only deal DPS, so its best to meet them with your entire blob, which in turn means m3s shouldn't engage the enemy blob by themselves, else overmatch, etc.

A "strike mission" typically refers to a military operation aimed at attacking a specific target or targets. These missions are usually conducted by air forces but can also involve other branches of the military, such as naval or special forces. The primary goal of a strike mission is to neutralize or destroy strategic or tactical targets, such as enemy infrastructure, military installations, or key personnel.

In X3, you can absolutely perform a strike mission using M3's. There's nothing in this definition that would restrict such a mission to using only aircraft that "deal huge damage in small bursts".
Yes, it is unwise to send a blob of M3's against a blob of capitals. Please stop implying anyone ever said otherwise.
Ultimately, in the end, how you play is up to you.
I've done what I set out to do: to remove an arbitrary restriction put on player's carrier fighters that limited their use.

[Flyingbugmin234]

I was wondering if the ship descriptions in the encyclopedia are supposed to be missing? Instead of the little write-ups in the [description] part of the entry I only see the names of the engine and shield systems, I dug around in the files a bit and noticed there is a xml in the t folder called 8483-L044.xml with all the descriptions in it but they don't seem to show ingame. It's a minor thing but I haven't played Vanilla X3 enough to know each ship type. Either way thank you for the excellent mod package, bundling everything into one install is nice and convenient and AP is so much more entertaining this way. I can't see going back to vanilla.

[Hector0x]

Unfortunately the encyclopedia is very outdated. It never got updated for any Zero Hour/Renegades features and content.

Iirc those engine descriptions are from base Mayhem 3. I never fully understood whether it was just text flavor or in preparation of a procedural equipment system (fast recharging shields vs. high capacity, etc.). It doesn't seem to do anything.

[medwed]

One other thing i now found is, that one sector has no gate access (thought that maybe it is something "special?" and made my ship fly to that sector. Game crash after that). Looks like there is everytime i generate a map one sector, that has no gate connection.

One other thing is, that ships have unlimited energy for weapons and doesn´t use missiles (for no enemy so far used them)?

[Betelgeuse97]

One other thing i now found is, that one sector has no gate access (thought that maybe it is something "special?" and made my ship fly to that sector. Game crash after that). Looks like there is everytime i generate a map one sector, that has no gate connection.

One other thing is, that ships have unlimited energy for weapons and doesn´t use missiles (for no enemy so far used them)?

1. That is intended. This is one of the core features of this mod.
2. Unlimited energy was changed in base Mayhem 3. Enemies use missiles, but missiles are restricted to M6 and larger ships.

[Ashakar]

This is a great continuation of mayhem/zero. The following is just some ideas (note they aren't requests, plus I don't know what all can/can't be done via the scripts)

The standard outpost can only dock 4 large ships (M1, 2, or 7), which can cause some nice traffic jams when you have more than that amount in a fleet. There is a station model that has 9 docking ports, instead of 4, so it would be awesome if we could upgrade our outpost. Maybe a perk and large amount of resources/time? Maybe we can just build one like an outpost, but it costs way more resources and time to build. Just some ideas on that route.

With the loss of needing to take the shield/laser perks, I feel that maybe we could use some extra perks to choose from. Here is just some brainstormed ideas for perks

-Increase the outposts shields/Regen/hull
-increases ship repair speed
-Slowly repairs all ships in the sector (automated repair drones)
-automatic missile resupply of all ships in sector (automated supply drones)
-slow reduction of maintenance factor of ships in sector (automated maintenance drones)
-Increases number of support stations (which would work well in conjunction with adjacency perk)
-Commercial hub that increases tax rate/growth speed
-Artificial wombs (or immigration center) that increases population growth
-habitat expansion that increases maximum population
-support station who's stock is automatically shared with a selected station or stations within a certain range

I unfortunately lost my old modding toolset with a SSD failure, does anyone have those excel spreedsheets with the macros for mass editing the lasers/ships? I believe they were originally made by made litcube.

Also, the phantom M6 is totally OP at the moment.

Is there a command/shortcut key hidden somewhere to tell a carriers supports to all dock/launch?

[Negmek]

A "strike mission" typically refers to

In this context i am using the word "alpha strike" as opposed to "DPS-dealing" as gamer terms, not "strike mission". I'm talking about kinds of damage-dealing, not kinds of missions.

Different kind of damage dealing and limited range for aircraft is the reason why carrier groups act differently from surface forces IRL: bombers drop bombs and retreat, instead of just continuing shooting like ships, until they win/lose. Such difference is not modeled in the game, x3 ships just continue shooting regardless of their class, even missile ships. Hence you cant apply that logic to the game.

> Ultimately, in the end, how you play is up to you.

Of course it is, but were talking about which tactics are more effective.

> In X3, you can absolutely perform a strike mission using M3's.

Only when they get the overmatch, just like in any other dps-based engagement.

This is my issue with the way it is: sure it works, but what's the point of flexible scripts that allow you to use ships any way you like if blobbing up is the only tactically sound option? There seems to be little reason for other behaviors.

[Negmek]

Is there a command/shortcut key hidden somewhere to tell a carriers supports to all dock/launch?

Pretty sure they will do that if you tell the carriers to attack, either manually or by increasing engagement range. They will just go attack directly though, so you better control them manually. The way i do it is by assigning all m3s i want to a wing using an autoclicker (idk how is x3s UI playable without it, i'll share the script eventually i promise). You can also try setting up a quick access thing that controls fighters, it should control the docked ones.

[xvuchko]

Hello, Anyone knows of a good documented guide to Mayhem with Renegades (written guide)?
I adore what I see but I'm having difficulties learning the ropes, I got up to a point where I got my first HQ station its UI is just overwhelming for me without any tutorial.

Edit:
I'm not really looking for a "guide" more like a feature list with explanations.

[sataricon]

I can't find the cheat menu
How can i activate it?

[Hector0x]

Unfortunately there is no guide like this. You’re probably looking at the Outpost Manager right now. Here’s a summary of the sections:

“Production” is where you build new ships and station kits. Ships come fully equipped and stations need to be picked up by your TL and then placed in the world.

“Hangar” section has a few special interactions for docked ships.

“Recycling” allows you to convert docked ships and other stuff back into raw resources (at a loss)

“Logistics” is all about the wares on your Outpost, both what you currently have and what you want to get transported.

The “Stock” subsection shows you what’s currently stored on your Outpost.

“Agents” section shows you what your Agent ships are supposed to haul. Agents are basically automated freighters who handle the internal logistics between player owned stations. They always just take resources out of your factories and dump it somewhere else without exchanging cash like Traders.

The “Traders” section shows you what your Outpost wants to buy or sell (requires money on the station).

“Administration” has 3 subsections as well.
Perks are special abilities for your Outpost. You can unlock them for free but the slots are limited.

In the “Workers” section you can set up automatic replacements for all the various types of automated civilian ships which can be homebased to your Outpost (for looting, exploring, transport, etc). The automation of military ships happens not from the Outpost but on the level of fleet commanders.

The “Architect” section is all about automated station building. Basically you have to assign 1 TL ship to be your global Architect and from the Architect section in each Outpost you tell him which factories he shall place in that sector.

[xvuchko]

Thanks allot for the pointers I really appreciate it!