[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

[Joubarbe]

@Joubarbe, I think this is a bug: "collect astronaut" command does not work if the target is hostile. let me know if you need a savegame.

It is indeed. However, I'm not sure this can be fixed, as it's probably some hardcoded behavior. I'll look into it.

[Edna]

About blocking. I saw your screenshot. Sealing up large clusters in shattered early expansion galaxies seems to be your specialty
For this boldness their battlegroups should've ignored your blockade and claim sectors behind it. This would also counteract grinding in a safe corner until the NPC's are no match anymore

I claimed all these sectors before the Split reached the sector between the Xenons and my channel. The galaxy map simply spat out this one and I thought that's one lovely map.

That being said, I'd agree with the 'sector skip' if it'd take more to conquer an unclaimed sector than entering it with a Battlegroup. The NPC empires have a very strong early game expansion in comparison to the player, since the player has to slowly snowball their own expansion by deploying the first outpost, then instantly get it populated to have it construct more outposts. And some people don't even skip the Ascension phase.

I mean, there isn't really anything that can prevent grinding in safe areas since you can also just decide to not declare war to anyone. The only threats in the early game are pirates, which can now, thankfully, negated with a perk, while Xenon really only become a threat when either close to them or once they ping your capital ships for raids.

[Joubarbe]

I'm gonna change that, and consequences are uncertain: in the next version, Battle Groups will attempt to claim a sector three times. Then, after an hour of failed attempts, if they still cannot find a sector to claim, they will reach for sectors that are beyond their borders. This should give some fun results with very unpredictable behaviors.

@Hector: as I said, the killing and reputation consequences is hardcoded.

[Edna]

God, I wonder how the turret targeting works internally. The Boron Shark, Ray and Megalodon are super infuriating to fight because turrets often just target the very tip of those ships instead of targeting the bulk, meaning shots are likely to miss. As if fighting the Boron Heavy Hydra wasn't already a nightmare.

[Joubarbe]

"How this system works internally?"

The general answer on any Egosoft game is: badly.

[Hector0x]

The NPC empires have a very strong early game expansion in comparison to the player, since the player has to slowly snowball their own expansion by deploying the first outpost, then instantly get it populated to have it construct more outposts. And some people don't even skip the Ascension phase.

You may think you are loosing in a landgrabbing race. But for the most part there is no race. It's your move, then their move. The NPC's are just reacting to your own expansion.


The first hours in a none expansion galaxy may be a bit of an anomaly here, but it eventually reaches the same state like all other settings. And then the AI can't claim neutral sectors during Ascension. Well, if you try to grab even more than what you're supposed to get, then yeah. It will be an extreme rush fest.

There is no need to rush more outposts (cheap factories would be even faster). The AI has to leave enough sectors so that the player can make it. Their expansion always stops at some point. On advanced expansion the AI won't even claim more than 1-2 neutral sectors until you have 4 or so. You can peacefully build your first sector up, then the next, and so on. Normally your overall sector count ends up being the same when there is no free land anymore (regardless of your expansion setting).

In lower expansion settings you simply have more possible starting locations. But once you have started, it's almost impossible to expand faster than the AI's do (except by blocking them). In my opinion it's almost pointless to brute force extreme expansion early on. It just triggers heavy NPC expansion as a reaction while you got no infrastructure yet. Soon after you have your nice unified space cluster, any other neutral sector miraculously disappeared by then. Why is that? Because you made a move so they made a move. If your moves follow up too quickly, then it creates the illusion that rushing was required.

With this blocking strategy you can get maybe 1-2 more sectors overall than you would get anyway. They are closer together which can yield some extra perks. And you don't suffer reputation hits. But you are also stuck to your corner of space and end up with the usual Litcube grind all over again. Build factories, get your capships. Nothing to research anymore. Steamroll enemies.
No offense, but this seems boring af. Having no real restrictions, no resistance, much less improvisation required, always the same buildup.

[Joubarbe]

Code: Select all

<t id="251">1</t> <!-- If set to 1, the maximum number of Unknown sectors the AI can conquer depends on the player expansion. 0 drastically increases difficulty. (default: 1) -->

That will be a new thing too. Would add a good challenge for the mad players around here

[Joubarbe]

And that too!

[Edna]

You may think you are loosing in a landgrabbing race.

I do see your point, but that's a very subjective topic. That being said, the game will always have the same stages of gameplay, and even when placing yourself intentionally in a less favourable spot than it would be possible, it will sooner or later end up going the same way: Get bigger, make others smaller.

Mayhem 3's map generator adds one unwritten strategic factor to the consideration of where to settle down: You have pop, sun level, planets, asteroids, terran memory and research, the proximity to other empires, to pirates and xenon, and thanks to the shattered map generation, chokepoints. By all means, I don't min-max my gameplay. Not in terms of time-management, and not in terms of DPS, but I do think the thing that makes none-expansion maps so attractive to me is that you can pick the best spots for yourself. Knowing the way I play, I'll end up with enough struggles without making things harder for me on purpose.

I play the game to relax, not to deal with stressful situations. Which is why the latest versions of Mayhem 3 are more interesting to me than Mayhem 2, because of the constant OCV invasions. I like to sit back and slowly build up economy and research and military and watch how the other empires are dealing with each other. It usually leads to the same processes in every playthrough, which is usually the build-up of factories to build more factories until there is enough stuff to build a research station to research the Acinonyx, the Ozias and the Ocelot, and then trying to build a bunch of frigates and later Ocelots, and then throw stuff at the enemy. I wouldn't say it's steamrolling, though. OOS fights are highly unpredictable (although mostly favoring capital ships) while in IS-fights, swarming is always more effective than having only Dreadnoughts. The latest rebalancing buffed M6s considerably since they are comparably tiny while being able to mount long range weapons (a group of Heavy Hydras with M/AM Launchers is super evil). In fact, I find battles in channel-ish sectors more interesting than in spread-out sectors, since the fleets bunch up more. Earlier today I fought two battlegroups and one task force only using an Ocelot, and it took 1.5 hours, resulting in me surviving with only 25% hull. I wouldn't call that boring at all, to be honest.

Putting yourself intentionally in a dangerous situation doesn't necessarily need to mean that you need to do it right at the beginning of the game. I enjoy fighting battles with few assets against a bigger threat way more when I know that I can afford the losses. Being constantly threatened to lose a sector if I don't micromanage feels rather stressful to me, personally. Generating a cool map but not making use of the cool areas it offers feels like a waste, too.

But then again, luckily, the game can be played in any way people want. I thought about doing a one-sector-challenge, which becomes more and more doable with the latest perks added. Others want to play Mayhem 3 as nomads, not even getting into the empire building. The great thing about Sandbox games: It's always up to the player.

But for the most part there is no race. It's your move, then their move.

That is not entirely true, at least not in none-expansion settings.

I can imagine that there is a certain cap or a certain level of aggressiveness when it comes to expansion, but so far, in all of my games, the NPC empires expanded quite quickly. There is usually one big factor to stop that expansion: When Battlegroups collide. If you don't use the quickstart option on a none-expansion map, and spend like eight hours on completing the first grinds to get the Ascension done, you can easily end up with one NPC empire having up to 18 sectors while others are still at four. It IS a race under these circumstances. Even if you skipped the Ascension, you will need a few hours while the NPC empires expand quickly to compensate for the lack of economy they would have in other map settings.

[isony12]

Compendium-laser, Ascending/Decending sort seems not working. (Fixed to Ascending)

And when my trader go to the trading stations for buying material, they dock but don't buy. just search another opportunity and leave the stations.

Money is enough and logistics setting is correct. manual buy at trading station, trade run, and product search is okay. only 'Trader' was problem.

[mrBreed]

this game wanna kill me!

[Joubarbe]

Fleet sector monitoring and reinforcements:

Spoiler

Show

[Hector0x]

Fleet sector monitoring and reinforcements

It feels like christmas, my birthday, and Hitman 3 release all had been brought forward.
(and valentine's day been cancelled)

[dunderhead327]

Joubarbe,

As discussed, I have been working on the encyclopedia. I have worked out what I am doing (always a good start!), and have mostly done the race and racial ship characteristics entries. I have noticed some inconsistencies in the Mayhem 3 sections of the encyclopedia where the descriptions predate some enhancements. Would you like me to update these entries too? If so, what should I do about the Goners, who should no longer exist, but there are still ships of Goner design in the game, and their description is still in the encyclopedia as "Private Corp."?

Terran ships are not supposed to exist until researched, but Baldrics and fighters are present. I think I saw a Vali too, but that may well have been back in a beta release. I could explain them as ex-Terracorp ships, but it may be cleaner if they simply never spawn. What do you think?

[Edna]

Terran ships up to M6 can spawn as derelicts, that's correct.

[dunderhead327]

But is it as intended?

[Joubarbe]

Terran ships can spawn, yeah. Terracorp and the Terrans once come in the galaxy, so they left some ships while terraforming the planets (or trying to).
What inconsistencies?
For technical reasons, Goners are indeed Private Corp. Goners will never be in Mayhem.

[dunderhead327]

I think that the only other ones (apart from Goners and Terran ships spawning) is that the Factions section still states that Pirates no longer exist, and that Sector Stats states that there are no Terran ships.

[Joubarbe]

I'm wondering if that'd be a good idea to let player's Agents and Traders override the trade locks when needed. Example: your Agents can import Chemicals from your own factory, but an external trader is already coming there, locking the station for himself. In the current version, you just can't grab the Chemicals for your own use, and are forced to wait for the NPC trader to come (if he comes...). The only solution is to manually trade. An other solution would be: if the station is PLAYER and the trader is NOT PLAYER, then override the lock.

[Hector0x]

I know we all have different opinions about this, but i think it would be quite redundant. (maybe i'm missing something)

NPC's usually need Chemicals. All Traders (even your own) will sell your Chemicals to them.
These basically ain't your Chemicals anymore as soon as you click the button to open the factory for any trader. The Chemicals mostly end up in NPC factories and leave your supply chain for money.

The Chemicals you do need for your own use should mostly come from factories which are locked to all Traders and just get served by Agents, no?