possibly STABLE seed, strong xenon defenses in opening day, 8.0 [590967]

[zakaluka]

there are for sure spoilers below, so I deleted that one and moved it here.

I know there's superstition here, but also some influence from the seed. remember that seed only affects starting fleets & stations, positions, and stock levels. Not some hidden variable to make enemies more aggressive. I am partially putting this here because I'm interested in doing some testing with custom games.

kingdom end disabled (until I feel like opening the gate). seed="1393649897". no mods at all

void of opportunity went to the teladi, which I suspect matters. I wasn't able to watch but this probably involved some conflict between HOP and TEL/ARG. Solid ARG/TEL defense fleet guarding the gate to holy vision.

what is very interesting to me about this run has been that... the only xenon areas showing signs of collapse are the ones with very poor resources (Rhy's Defiance/matrix 598, Emperor's Pride, Tharka's Ravine). HOP have not been able to establish mining operations in mists of artemis. Faulty Logic, Scale Plate Green, Atiya's Misfortune, and Matrix #9(AND matrix 451 surprisingly) are fortified with defensive capital fleets. Every one of those neighboring factions keep trading fleets with xenon but can't get more than a step inside.

xenon haven't been any real threat in hatikvah's choice 1 or family zhin so far. some may consider this a downside. Fires of defeat is under more early threat than normal, xenon attack fleets roam out to two grand from matrix 9 without any real opposition. No direct help from me to any faction's defense. I only supply tier 1 resources around the ring; that's all. (well, ONE small tier 2 factory just came online)

this is interesting because in any given game, by 24 hours I frequently see pretty close to the opposite. Matrix 451 falls to teladi within 12 hours or so, almost without exception. Matrix 9, scale plate green, faulty logic, most often at least two of these have their defenses broken after 1 day. (atiya's often follows faulty logic)

I am imagining a test where I use these same starting conditions and seta to the end of 24 hours several times. come up with some scoring system to measure differences. repeat the test with a few random seeds. Maybe get a sense for how much the first days of a playthrough depend on the seed. It's always a matter of debate, but nobody has data. (3 tests of each wouldn't be strong evidence, either, just a glimpse.. really for this pattern to emerge would take more tests than I think I have energy for)