How would you handle the situation of hidden stations?

[Matthew94]

A thought experiment for you.

Remember in X2 how the Kha'ak hid a station in the ore belt? If you or an enemy AI wanted to hide a station in a sector how would you do it? It seems like the AI know where everything in a sector is automatically while you have long range scanners.

If the enemy had a hidden station far outside of the normal boundaries in a sector how would you find them? In a way, the long range scanner is overpowered for such a situation but if the station was even further out it wouldn't be fun to comb the abyss without some kind of clue.

If you were to hide a station, would the AI need to be changed so they would have to search for new stations?

The reason I ask is that sectors in X4 are massive and their size expands the further you search. Could this be used in gameplay in some way?

[DragonEye501]

Huh never thought that the AI could see everything. Your probably right. However, now I wonder what the point of factions "increasing reconnaissance" and deploying satellites is?

[taztaz502]

I would exploit and go in the station plot build menu to show all of the bases/stations in the sector...

[Alan Phipps]

How would *I* handle a hidden station? - I'd probably not see it and so do nothing about it.

How would I try to hide one? Well there are the old and proven X game tricks of building way above or below the ecliptic, or maybe building behind a dense shielding cluster of asteroids. Those measures might temporarily delay discovery rather than prevent it.

I would also investigate the possibility of building a small hidden and separate station completely inside the envelope of a far larger and overt complex. In priciple that could mask observation of it, unless exploits are used of course.

[DragonEye501]

@taztaz502 Shhhhhh... keep your voice down. 'They' might be listening.

[taztaz502]

@taztaz502 Shhhhhh... keep your voice down. 'They' might be listening.

i'm kinda hoping for a fix on the downlow to be honest haha

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

It seems like the AI know where everything in a sector is automatically while you have long range scanners.

I think that is probably more to avoid station and faction economies drying up. Although I can imagine a faction wanting every friendly NPC to know where all it's stations are, I think the player is left out of that for gameplay reasons.

However, now I wonder what the point of factions "increasing reconnaissance" and deploying satellites is?

I don't know if/how it interacts with decisions on if/when/where to invade a sector, but reconnaissance and satellites can tell you about:

- Ship deployment (different to station location).
- Station locations (assuming military logic is different to trading logic).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

@taztaz502 Shhhhhh... keep your voice down. 'They' might be listening.

i'm kinda hoping for a fix on the downlow to be honest haha

Me too at some point. The existence of that exploit does't break the game compared to, say, a way to magic in a billion credits. However, it does have a couple of downsides:

- Runs counter to the X4 concept of having the player in the action instead of playing the game from the map.
- Bypasses the exploration orders (why sent a ship to explore for stations if you know where they are/are not?).

[DragonEye501]

Me too at some point. The existence of that exploit does't break the game compared to, say, a way to magic in a billion credits. However, it does have a couple of downsides:

- Runs counter to the X4 concept of having the player in the action instead of playing the game from the map.
- Bypasses the exploration orders (why sent a ship to explore for stations if you know where they are/are not?).

I guess it does hurt the experience a little bit but its actually one of the few exploits I kinda enjoy using. It doesn't remove the player interaction from the game for me because I still need to actually go out and see the station type myself. I always found the exploration command to be pretty lame. Also was never good at pinging stations with the LRS. However, if they removed it wouldn't be to bad. Guess I would just have to learn how to explore properly!