Why don't xenons have missiles?

[abc0000]

Why do xenons have no torpedoes or missiles? I honestly don't understand. kind of weird.

[mr.WHO]

Because missiles in this game are not worth a bother, so Xenons play optimal

[LameFox]

Indeed, automation options for missile use and resupply are pretty bad. Most times I see a ship with missiles in AI hands, it's puttering around with none left, and makes no effort to resupply. Xenon also use unique weapons, so they'd be looking at creating a new set of missiles for a faction that (until recently) isn't accessible to players, while knowing the AI will hardly make any real use of them.

[Alan Phipps]

.. because every smart missile they sent out would have a tiny piece of themselves doing the target tracking and guidance. Would you want to keep suffering death by a thousand cuts, or sending your babies out on guaranteed suicide missions?

[GCU Grey Area]

Suspect it may be to keep encounters with the default enemy faction relatively straightforward.

Missiles have the potential to significantly complicate matters in a game with destructible subsystems on capital ships. That's certainly been the case in my games where I've had at least one major faction as additional enemies. Within hours of declaring war on HOP in my 3.0 game (1st game where I had a major faction as an additional enemy) my Behemoth lost it's engines almost instantly after flying under a crippled Atlas only to find that it's one remaining turret was a missile turret & it still had a significant amount of ammo left in it's missile bay...

Might be a few complaints if that sort of thing was a frequent experience for new players who have just bought their very first L ship & taken it into a fight with Xenon forces. At least with the missile-using factions it generally takes a deliberate act to get to the point when they pelt you with missiles on sight (which incidentally is one of the main reasons I almost always have at least one of them as enemies - makes combat a bit more spicy when missiles are involved).

[taztaz502]

or sending your babies out on guaranteed suicide missions?

Can you tell this sentiment to the other factions, by that logic the xenon are the most human species in the entire universe.

[palm911]

x3 was very dangerous to get attacked by the unknown objects. i always wondered why there was no missiles on the xenons

probably dev forgot.

[Scoob]

Was pointed at this topic from another thread.

Xenon in my 100% vanilla game certainly ARE using missiles, and quite frequently too. I have a Defence Platform in Hatikvah's Choice I, near the gate to the Xenon sector. So, it experiences a lot of action. The DP has a Fighter group assigned in a Defence role that can regularly be seen launching Flares to counter Xenon-launched missiles. I can clearly see that my Fighters were running out of flares, failing to replenish them, and falling to those Xenon missiles.

I watched this A LOT as I was compiling things for a bug report where Subordinate Fighters were NOT automatically returning for Repair and resupply as they did prior to v7.0. Thankfully, as of v7.1 Beta 4, this appears to be working. I've seen subordinate Fighters dock for repairs (and they'll now also top-up on any expended ordinance while doing so) and dock to replenish Missiles even if not damaged. I'm still testing to verify that they'll return to JUST replenish Flares. I hope they do, as they're vulnerable to the missiles that the Xenon are clearly using without them.

Just sharing my experience. I've been monitoring this Defence Platform and the goings on around it for many hours now, mostly due to that resupply bug. I've seen the Xenon use missile in vanilla. A lot. I've lost dozens of Fighters to them due to the resupply bug.

Query: Do ships targetted by missiles go evasive to try to evade them? The slower, more damaging missiles, can readily be avoided in a relatively nimble ship. I've seen my ships evade missiles, but I cannot actually tell if it was triggered by the missile lock as ship was also under regular fire - which can of course trigger evasive flight. Pilot level doubtless has an impact here. I ask because, once out of Flares, my fighters (Nova Vanguards and Eclipse Vanguards) seemed easy prey for those Xenon missiles. The Nova is a fairly nimble ship, but they all died before the Eclipses. So, once out of Flares, they seemed to ignore attacks from just missiles. I.e. the Xenon fired off a missile at the ship, but did not engage directly with main guns or turrets.

[jlehtone]

Why do xenons have no torpedoes or missiles?

A much more intriguing is why Xenon do drop ammo crates on destruction?

[LameFox]

Was pointed at this topic from another thread.

Xenon in my 100% vanilla game certainly ARE using missiles, and quite frequently too. I have a Defence Platform in Hatikvah's Choice I, near the gate to the Xenon sector. So, it experiences a lot of action. The DP has a Fighter group assigned in a Defence role that can regularly be seen launching Flares to counter Xenon-launched missiles. I can clearly see that my Fighters were running out of flares, failing to replenish them, and falling to those Xenon missiles.

I watched this A LOT as I was compiling things for a bug report where Subordinate Fighters were NOT automatically returning for Repair and resupply as they did prior to v7.0. Thankfully, as of v7.1 Beta 4, this appears to be working. I've seen subordinate Fighters dock for repairs (and they'll now also top-up on any expended ordinance while doing so) and dock to replenish Missiles even if not damaged. I'm still testing to verify that they'll return to JUST replenish Flares. I hope they do, as they're vulnerable to the missiles that the Xenon are clearly using without them.

Just sharing my experience. I've been monitoring this Defence Platform and the goings on around it for many hours now, mostly due to that resupply bug. I've seen the Xenon use missile in vanilla. A lot. I've lost dozens of Fighters to them due to the resupply bug.

Query: Do ships targetted by missiles go evasive to try to evade them? The slower, more damaging missiles, can readily be avoided in a relatively nimble ship. I've seen my ships evade missiles, but I cannot actually tell if it was triggered by the missile lock as ship was also under regular fire - which can of course trigger evasive flight. Pilot level doubtless has an impact here. I ask because, once out of Flares, my fighters (Nova Vanguards and Eclipse Vanguards) seemed easy prey for those Xenon missiles. The Nova is a fairly nimble ship, but they all died before the Eclipses. So, once out of Flares, they seemed to ignore attacks from just missiles. I.e. the Xenon fired off a missile at the ship, but did not engage directly with main guns or turrets.

Out of curiosity what is firing them? I have never noticed Xenon firing any missiles in vanilla, but I have a creative start in the beta where I'm friendly with them to watch how well they hold up to the other factions, might go and scan some to see if I can find any launchers equipped.

[LameFox]

Just now realized that of course I don't need to scan them when they are friendly: I can already see their loadouts.

So far I can't find a single Xenon ship or station with missiles on it. Some do carry tracker mines—do flares affect those? Not something I've really experimented with.

[MKL81]

Xenon in my 100% vanilla game certainly ARE using missiles, and quite frequently too. I have a Defence Platform in Hatikvah's Choice I, near the gate to the Xenon sector. So, it experiences a lot of action. The DP has a Fighter group assigned in a Defence role that can regularly be seen launching Flares to counter Xenon-launched missiles. I can clearly see that my Fighters were running out of flares, failing to replenish them, and falling to those Xenon missiles.

Weird. I clocked around 1000h on the game so far, but honestly - never have been attacked by missile launched by any kind of Xenon ship, never saw them launching missiles or torps against other ships.

[Alan Phipps]

Missile usage would rather assume that the XEN 'jobs' would have to create ships with the appropriate launchers/turrets instead of XEN guns/turrets and to stock them up with ammunition. It may even be a bug somewhere in the updates if they only recently started to do so as there is no mention of XEN being given the use of missiles in any changelog. This should all be easy enough for the code-savvy to check in the current jobs gamefiles.

A possible contention is that tracker mine deployment is a more likely source of the confusion over damage and flares as the devs only just recently stopped ships deploying flares against dumbfire missiles while I suppose that tracker mine deployment could be another unforeseen attack situation that triggers flare use. XEN do indeed use minelayer and saboteur ship variants. (In some ways, tracker mines are indeed big slow homing missiles though!)

@ Scoob: Out of interest, to your knowledge has a XEN ship ever fired a missile at your player ship? Then you would know for sure because of the missile lock and incoming missile alert systems.

[Scoob]

Out of curiosity what is firing them? I have never noticed Xenon firing any missiles in vanilla, but I have a creative start in the beta where I'm friendly with them to watch how well they hold up to the other factions, might go and scan some to see if I can find any launchers equipped.

I can't be sure exactly which Xenon ships are shooting me, it's a bit of a furball a lot of the time. There are regular "classic" Xenon like the M, but also plenty of the new ships like the F and SE. I'm not looking out for who exactly is firing, just that Xenon are the only hostiles present, so who else could it be?

@ Scoob: Out of interest, to your knowledge has a XEN ship ever fired a missile at your player ship? Then you would know for sure because of the missile lock and incoming missile alert systems.

I'm not really flying ships myself in my vanilla save, I'm simply watching my ships fight (F3) while in-sector standing on the Defence Platform. My ships are clearly getting through their Flares though, and I've seen some destroyed by missile fire. I've not really thought much about it really as Xenon using missiles didn't seem unusual to me. Perhaps that's because I'm usually playing modified games where it has been the norm for ages. I wasn't even aware of this "Xenon don't use missiles" thing. However, my current vanilla game is indeed 100% vanilla, not a trace of a mod in the Folder at all - as I have the GoG version of the game, it's dead easy just just create a new self-contained instance. Indeed, with the no-Steam.exe it's just as easy for Steam users now. I have three instances on my PC currents:

- The Live copy maintained and updated by the GoG Client - currently v7.1 Beta 4.
- A vanilla v7.0 (current release) copy (a backup from just before enabling the Beta)
- A Modded v7.0 copy.

My test game is running on the first one of course, my separate modded game on the last one.

[Xkuka]

I play currently with the X4 Reemergence mod, and Xenon have missiles there. The PE's got a small missile launcher too but the most dangerous are the V (K variant with missile turrets) and LX (from X3 and has some nasty long range missiles that can kill fighters with one hit). And its awesome and does not break the game. The argument Xenon would care about their "babies" is kind of nonsense because why would they send wave after wave of small fighters only to blow up. And simply because Xenon use cannon fodder tactics (basically like everyone^^) the rearming is not an issue either, they just rebuild the lost ships and continue. The rearming thing is more an issue for factions or the player, but the Xenon are the least affected of this, also because of the simplistic Xenon economy.

[Alan Phipps]

"The argument Xenon would care about their "babies" is kind of nonsense ..." Heh, didn't see the attempt at some related humour or the laugh icon eh? Oh well!

[Gnorp]

Why do xenons have no torpedoes or missiles?

A much more intriguing is why Xenon do drop ammo crates on destruction?

I would like to see an explanation for this, too.
Is this to make sure that we don't get enough High Energy Catalysts?

[Scoob]

A much more intriguing is why Xenon do drop ammo crates on destruction?

Because they have missile perhaps? They're certainly firing missiles in my game and, as mentioned, it's totally vanilla, started in v7.0 Beta 1, continued in (currently) v7.1 Beta 4.

[Nanook]

Or perhaps, just like all the other factions as well as the player, they scoop them up from battlefield drops. KISS principle.

[Scoob]

Or perhaps, just like all the other factions as well as the player, they scoop them up from battlefield drops. KISS principle.

Well, that might be true, but they're also FIRING missiles at my ships. Sorta surprised they're not for others. My game was started - custom start to remove highways - in v7.0 Beta 1, and has been continued into v7.1 Beta 5 - it's totally vanilla. I also have a modified game (VRO) and they're using Missile in that too. While VRO adds more missiles and gives many of them longer ranges, I'm not aware of it changing the AI in regards to missile use. Regardless, as mentioned, Xenon use missiles in my vanilla game too - the missiles just aren't quite as dangerous, though I've still suffered losses to them.