Xenon issue again

[Hwitvlf]

OOS damage is calculated extremely quickly so even a Q will insta-kill most ships, but that's why a single laser tower can make a good sentry at the gate. It gets destroyed, but you get notified and have time to evacuate miners etc if needed. You can also put a Boron EQ dock near the asteroid field and issue a sector command to 'return to homebase' to retreat them quickly.

But if you do this, the second you jump IS they release a missile barrage that will kill all your other ships in the sector.

The only behavior I've seen is each Xenon group targeting one ship at a time. If they shoot missile barrages at "all your ships" at once, I haven't seen it. There is missile defense software and missile defense settings for turrets. The Typhoon is probably the only missile which might make it through.

I've been running sector traders since early game- two Dolphins, a Demeter and a Mule. They've been attacked about three times, but never destroyed. The Xenon capitals are too slow so they spend most of their time chasing ships around. The P is the biggest threat, but I limit traders to sectors with lots of traffic: my ships are far less likely to be targeted in a crowd.

I'm far from new to X3, and I lost quite a few ships early on in FL because I was trying to reuse my AP strategies.The progress in FL seems slower because you have to proceed cautiously and use your brain. All I can say is that I'm finding the challenge enjoyable so far.

[Snafu_X3]

If they shoot missile barrages at "all your ships" at once, I haven't seen it.

Possibly auto-retargeting warheads? I haven't checked the missile spec recently, or which ships can use which..

[ubuntufreakdragon]

OOS DMG need some reduction to be more similar to IS, getting though some 600mj with a m6 in one round is too quick, IS that means a perfect salvo emptying you full energy reserves and you still fire more seconds continuously than a round lasts.

[Klord]

1. I am using Athenas to station duty and regional STs, I have not lost a single trader so far. Maximum they have received about 5% hull damage. Of course they have been given jump drives, missile defense and emergency jump is activated at around 40% shield threshold.

2. I only got Qs and smaller Xenons in my sector and I had a Titan and a Ray dealing with them without any issue. But when I hit the fight rank of Warlord, all of a sudden Im receiving, Xenon Is. Its a huge jump from a solitary Q. No Js, No Ks, straight to Is. And needless to say my fully kitted Ray and Titan both guarding the sector gate cannot beat a single Xenon I. They both jump away to safety with about 30-40% hull damage and I have to jump in and destroy whats left of I. Interesting thing is, in most cases, Xenon I has about 30% shield remaining when I jump in.

How about that for the OOS combat balancing. One Xenon destroyer against 2 fully kitted commonwealth destroyers and the Xenon being able to deal with them without a sweat. OOS combat is hugely biased towards Xenon for some reason. Now it may not be something which will be fixed in FL. Im just sharing.

3. IMO, Xenon invasions are a good addition. It gives a meaning to the otherwise dull universe. Anyone who tell that you have to have a modified game to deal with this Xenon intrusion doesn't know how to play X3.

Because people want to have a idle time to prepare. This is though a very minor tie in to balance the amount, everything else is random and not player centric at all.

MFG

Ketraar

Please dont remove Xenon intrusions. Rather provide a logic to their invasions. Dont mind even having more Xenons pouring through the player sector gate. If the player can somehow get a teeny tiny early warning about an imminent threat, would be really nice. End game X3 was about massing fleets and being aggressive, wiping out sectors. The idea of being defensive, trying to save your sector is a fine addition.

[RunGiantBoom]

POTENTIAL danger zone would be more accurate, but yes that was the idea.

MFG

Ketraar

even small potential requires defense)

Xenons jump to only gates or they can use jumpbeacons?

It may be good solution to place HQ near beacon, so traders will use it and staysafe, but M2s will defend gates. In imagination it looks very good and playable

[RunGiantBoom]

OOS damage is calculated extremely quickly so even a Q will insta-kill most ships, but that's why a single laser tower can make a good sentry at the gate. It gets destroyed, but you get notified and have time to evacuate miners etc if needed. You can also put a Boron EQ dock near the asteroid field and issue a sector command to 'return to homebase' to retreat them quickly.

You can place satellites and use their notification system.

"Notify on capitals" for example

[Hwitvlf]

You can place satellites and use their notification system. "Notify on capitals" for example

Cool, I'll try this

OOS combat is hugely biased towards Xenon for some reason.

I feel fairly certain there's a Xenon cheat buried somewhere in X3 code. I've seen a J with ISR defeat a Tyre with PSPs in OOS combat.

Another possible factor is that ships running guard scripts may not don't always activate before they've taken several rounds of damage. In AP, I built stacks of 30+ Valhallas and had them patrolling Xenon sectors - lead ship set to 'attack capitals' and the rest split between 'protect leader' and 'attack target of leader'. It appeared to be common for many of the ships to delay engaging an attacking Xenon. The X3 engine obviously skips some aspects of its loop when things get bogged down - like capital weapons stop firing with SETA active. Perhaps defenders aren't engaging immediately if a lot is going on in the unverse.

[Midnightknight]

Defenders always play after the offender as stated somewhere else on the forum, so having a ship set to defend will always have it take a round of damage before starting to fight. When set in attack, it have 50% chance to attack first.

Then Xenons have tons of hull, most of the time decent shields and a lot of canons. OOS laser regen is not used, so all the canons fitted that could not fire in sector are actually firing OOS and focus all the same target. Another difference IS and OOS a K or an I will most of the time attack 2 or 3 targets at once, like shooting a station, focusing on your ship with it's PSP and barrage missiling another distant ship. It could look impressive when IS to have an I deal at the same time with a few enemis, but it's OOS the most dangerous cause it will focus all guns on a single target.

Also speed is not always the answer OOS cause a lone Q can catch up easily with a Dolphin if you are unlucky, i had one actually do damages to a TS that was a few kilometers away from it and dodging do not seem to be taken in account OOS, meaning in sector your Dolphin would have most likely not take a single shot at this distance, but OOS it will actually take a salvo that could be deadly.

Xenon have always been made to be beasts OOS, but changes after changes on X3 to bring more diversity to their ships also made a few aspects a bit worst. "I" was a ship designed to defend sectors against invasion (a bit like Valhalla), not something that would sneak attack. But needing to make thing always bigger and more whatever you want, those (supposedly) rares ships are now spammed all around the galaxy, making the game less and less balanced as Xenons have already tons of buffs to make them really strong (Like how hard it is to board them, or how fast are all their capitals compared to other races). It's simply cause the game was designed with something in mind and then wanting to change it makes a lot of intricate problems surface.

[Snafu_X3]

I feel fairly certain there's a Xenon cheat buried somewhere in X3 code. I've seen a J with ISR defeat a Tyre with PSPs in OOS combat.

X3 (any version)'s OOS combat resolution has always been a bit odd: it basically boils down to whoever gets the first strike (usually the faster ship) in, wins - or at least seriously damages the opposition - as all weapons are fired instantaneously (I think at max power if chargeable, but I may have that detail wrong). If the defending ship can survive that combined dmg it gets a chance to return fire using the same rule, otherwise it's insta-death. This is why Qs were so feared in earlier versions, & can still be problematical now

[edit]Ninja'd

[jduato]

One of the devs mentioned Xenon only spawn up to 10 jumps away from sectors 101 and 472; this means that the Boron sectors at the upper left (Menelaus' Frontier thru Argon's Three Worlds) are (so far in my experience) entirely free of random Xenons, as well as the Great Reef sectors and Dark Waters in the bottom left. Probably a few Paranid sectors at the bottom and some other places as well, though I didn't count that closely. At any rate, my current plan is to build up infrastructure there until I can lock down sectors with Lasertowers and/or OOS fitted ships, then build wherever.

When Xenon started to appear in th Xenon Hub sector, I realigned the gates, moving one of them to Kingdom End and another one to Reservoir of Tranquility. Then I killed the remaining Xenon in the Hub sector (one K and one Q) and expected no more Xenon there. Less than one minute later, a Xenon P entered through the gate leading to Reservoir of Tranquility (using the jumpdrive, since it was not in Reservoir of Tranquility before entering the Xenon Hub).

So, it seems that my efforts to keep Xenon away failed. They jump more than 10 hops from sectors 101 and 472. Or maybe they can chain jumps (the P had low shields when it entered the Xenon Hub).

[blazenclaw]

When Xenon started to appear in th Xenon Hub sector, I realigned the gates, moving one of them to Kingdom End and another one to Reservoir of Tranquility. Then I killed the remaining Xenon in the Hub sector (one K and one Q) and expected no more Xenon there. Less than one minute later, a Xenon P entered through the gate leading to Reservoir of Tranquility (using the jumpdrive, since it was not in Reservoir of Tranquility before entering the Xenon Hub).

So, it seems that my efforts to keep Xenon away failed. They jump more than 10 hops from sectors 101 and 472. Or maybe they can chain jumps (the P had low shields when it entered the Xenon Hub).

Well, the Xenon can jump though Hub gates too. So if one gate from the Hub connects to a sector that's 5 jumps from 101 and another Hub gate is Kingdom End, then well, the hub and all the Kingdom End sectors are now in range of Xenon jumps. Reservoir of Tranquility is also within the 10 jump range by itself, so maybe it jumped to the south gate and immediately flew thru or something.

[jduato]

When Xenon started to appear in th Xenon Hub sector, I realigned the gates, moving one of them to Kingdom End and another one to Reservoir of Tranquility. Then I killed the remaining Xenon in the Hub sector (one K and one Q) and expected no more Xenon there. Less than one minute later, a Xenon P entered through the gate leading to Reservoir of Tranquility (using the jumpdrive, since it was not in Reservoir of Tranquility before entering the Xenon Hub).

So, it seems that my efforts to keep Xenon away failed. They jump more than 10 hops from sectors 101 and 472. Or maybe they can chain jumps (the P had low shields when it entered the Xenon Hub).

Well, the Xenon can jump though Hub gates too. So if one gate from the Hub connects to a sector that's 5 jumps from 101 and another Hub gate is Kingdom End, then well, the hub and all the Kingdom End sectors are now in range of Xenon jumps. Reservoir of Tranquility is also within the 10 jump range by itself, so maybe it jumped to the south gate and immediately flew thru or something.

Well, it was the south gate of Reservoir of Tranquility. So, more than 10 hops. Anyway, after the Xenon P, no more Xenon in several hours. This gave me enough time to "acquire" an Oddy with my marines, fit it with stolen weapons, and find enough tunings to make it travel faster than a Q. Now I can defend the Hub in case of need.

[RunGiantBoom]

Does 10 jump range exists only to sectors 101 and 472 or its applicable for all sectors with shipyard?