Are the new Xenon pussies?

[keeshah]

I stopped playing for a while, and now started to come back, with some time on my hands to fix my mods. I always play X4 with a heavy modded game.
First of all bug thanks to Egosoft, for keeping it alive, X4 is now as wonderful and great as X2 and X3, even though I sometimes miss the hard possibilities to get uber weapons, like the flamethrower from pirates in X3 and the Paranid m2 shockwave weapons.
What I found absolutely exciting in my game: Borons are back, and you found a really wonderful solution for them. They fit greatly into the ecosystem, and their ships are beautiful like ever, also the stations.
The new Khaak destroyers pack a Punch and gave me some headache, which I really appreciate. They are back from being a nuisance to a serious threat. Every Khaak destroyer means some destroyed ships or stations, excellent job done.
But what happened to the Xenon? In my Universe, and this time I didn't play long, which is 2d and 8h, for X still a game at the very beginning. To my absolute astonishment I had to find out, that the Xenons are already more or less wiped out. I didn't fly through their sectors earlier, but when I did, the Split and HOP already overran them. I have to admit, I miss the old times, when the Xenons were a real big threat to the Universe. Maybe I need to try a completely unmodded game, to see, if it happens there, too.
Anyhow, next thing I tried to upgrade to the new Beta Version, to see, how this works, but the new Game Version has some new UI protection, which makes problems with my mods, and as soon as I disable it, my game is stuck at Reloading UI. If I keep it on, my UI flickers once in a while and seems to be very unstable. A lot of menus won't work. So the new Beta is also not an option yet. I also tried to adapt my ship mods to the new pathing, and so far it feels not really better to me, but that might be because of my obviously bad modding skills. I will invest some time and work here.
Anyhow, I still am not sure, what to think about that Xenon desaster. I still have to see a bigger ship that an m3 of them.
BTW, the Barbarossas stormed my universe, a few of them attacked HAT HP and almost wiped them out. I think, they were saved by the argon.
Maybe some problem with my mods, and I definitely will give it a few more tries, but I'm a bit disappointed about the Xenon disappearance.

[Feloidea]

Sounds like your fresh game just got a very passive Xenon seed. That can happen. I've also had gamestarts where the Xenons absolutely smashed everyone and the next gamestart they hardly did anything.

[LameFox]

Economic changes have improved conditions for the other factions (except Terran, who were always pretty well off) and now Xenon are comparatively weak as a result. Every vanilla game I've started since 7.0 has been this way—and that's been quite a few.

Adding mods to that as well, it's possible your situation is even worse.

[keeshah]

Well, I will have a look at it. First thing I did today, was to triple their hullpoints. Maybe do the same thing for their shields, and also did raise the hullpoints for miners and m4 to x5. I will see, if that helps. Poor Xenon, really.
Seriously, thanks a ton for your answer, good to know, that it isn't a problem solely in my game. I can work with that and unnerf the Xenon a bit.

[PersonyPerson]

But what happened to the Xenon? In my Universe, and this time I didn't play long, which is 2d and 8h, for X still a game at the very beginning. To my absolute astonishment I had to find out, that the Xenons are already more or less wiped out.

Should point out that anything after 7.10 Beta 4 up until the latest Beta (where it's been fixed), there was an issue with the Xenon where multiple clusters starved themselves of all resources because they kept sending miners from said clusters to their death without making replacements. That's probably why the Xenon in your save is so weak, because they were not building or sending anything to fight their opponents with in certain areas of the map.

Sounds like your fresh game just got a very passive Xenon seed. That can happen. I've also had gamestarts where the Xenons absolutely smashed everyone and the next gamestart they hardly did anything.

It's not that the Xenon were "passive" it's that the other factions had better RNG when it comes to starting fleet/station placement, so the Xenon do not perform as well. That's all the different seeds really do in regards to Xenon effectiveness.

Economic changes have improved conditions for the other factions (except Terran, who were always pretty well off) and now Xenon are comparatively weak as a result. Every vanilla game I've started since 7.0 has been this way—and that's been quite a few.

Adding mods to that as well, it's possible your situation is even worse.

Not true from my observations. Early 7.00 Betas did indeed have a weak start for the Xenon, however changes were made to them in the later 7.00 Betas that made their performance a lot more variable. Early 7.10 Betas were more of the same until 7.10 Beta 4. This had it as I stated earlier that Some Xenon clusters starved themselves to death (Typical sectors that did this were Emperor's Pride, Matrix #598 and Scale Plate Green). However, it made the remaining ones much stronger, which enabled them to start steamrolling the surrounding areas much later into the game. Final version of 7.10 I observed it where the Xenon were doing so well in some areas of the map (typically the middle), that they managed to revive previously starved sectors. Multiple AI only saves ended up with the Xenon controlling the entire Northern part of the map, with 4 Xenon clusters all directly connected to each other.

7.50 imo on a new save, the Xenon are in the optimum condition. They behaved like they did in 7.10 HF3, but the resource starving issue no longer happens. They expand a lot more often than they don't and it's not just limited to certain areas of the map, and it's not as if it's just steamroll their opponents either. It takes them time and effort in order to achieve it. If a Xenon cluster dies now, it's almost certainly due to enemies invading and killing all the miners instead of the miners going outside of Xenon space, wondering off into enemy sectors to uselessly die. And that's how it should be. Defeat by military action instead of defeat by broken SE miner logic.

[keeshah]

Wow, I really love your reply, I have to admit. I wrote a lil patch, doubled some Xenon weapon dmg and also improved their hulls, but listening to you, I might have overdone it. Well, I will see, what happens now. I guess, I'm in for interesting times.

[LameFox]

Economic changes have improved conditions for the other factions (except Terran, who were always pretty well off) and now Xenon are comparatively weak as a result. Every vanilla game I've started since 7.0 has been this way—and that's been quite a few.

Adding mods to that as well, it's possible your situation is even worse.

Not true from my observations. Early 7.00 Betas did indeed have a weak start for the Xenon, however changes were made to them in the later 7.00 Betas that made their performance a lot more variable. Early 7.10 Betas were more of the same until 7.10 Beta 4. This had it as I stated earlier that Some Xenon clusters starved themselves to death (Typical sectors that did this were Emperor's Pride, Matrix #598 and Scale Plate Green). However, it made the remaining ones much stronger, which enabled them to start steamrolling the surrounding areas much later into the game. Final version of 7.10 I observed it where the Xenon were doing so well in some areas of the map (typically the middle), that they managed to revive previously starved sectors. Multiple AI only saves ended up with the Xenon controlling the entire Northern part of the map, with 4 Xenon clusters all directly connected to each other.

7.50 imo on a new save, the Xenon are in the optimum condition. They behaved like they did in 7.10 HF3, but the resource starving issue no longer happens. They expand a lot more often than they don't and it's not just limited to certain areas of the map, and it's not as if it's just steamroll their opponents either. It takes them time and effort in order to achieve it. If a Xenon cluster dies now, it's almost certainly due to enemies invading and killing all the miners instead of the miners going outside of Xenon space, wondering off into enemy sectors to uselessly die. And that's how it should be. Defeat by military action instead of defeat by broken SE miner logic.

The only place I've seen them "steamroll" is ZYA, as they are still the weakest faction and once the Xenon lose other areas of the map, the ones surrounding ZYA seem the most likely to survive. That's including my test of 7.5, in which they lost Atiya's and Faulty Logic, and were economically neutralized in Scale Plate Green and Emperor's Pride. TEL also kept them largely in check around Matrix #9, so FRF were damaged but alive. But ZYA were down to 2 systems with basically no chance of recovery.

ARG, ANT, PAR, were all doing well. ANT was actually up to 11 systems. HOP were a bit more resilient than Xenon, which surprised me given their more complex economy, but they were still in the process of being dismantled.

Personally I much preferred their older balance where things would play out very differently depending on seed, but I haven't seen that for a long time. Now I end up getting bored of most of my saves after they are trivialized by the AI factions without me even doing anything.

[stooper88]

ARG, ANT, PAR, were all doing well. ANT was actually up to 11 systems. HOP were a bit more resilient than Xenon, which surprised me given their more complex economy, but they were still in the process of being dismantled.

Indeed, the same situation has appeared in my current game. ANT are by far the most powerful faction with 11 sectors (even higher if counting subsectors). They first steamrolled the XEN then proceeded to tear HOP apart. I've been making it my latest quest to stem the tide of ANT and preserve HOP. As I'm remaining militarily neutral, it's become quite a challenge requiring a lot of creativity and resourcefulness. My latest discovery is that I can destroy the containers inside the ANT station build modules without triggering any hostility or reputation loss, so long as I target the containers only and take care not to damage the "scaffolding" around them.

[LameFox]

Probably the most effective (non cheese) way to stop a friendly faction from wiping things out is to hack their build modules. It has an hours long duration. In my pre-beta save I was doing that to stop ZYA from being wiped out by Argon while I shielded them from Xenon with my gate fleets. I don't love that I'm spending this much time just keeping factions alive, but, oh well.

[keeshah]

I did some research last night, and the Xenon are definitely wiped out, besides one single Shipyard. I capped a Terran battleship and his surviving cruiser, to stop them from destroying the last station. The Yaki seem also to be gone completely. Xenon Economy seems to be completely down. Still got to check Scale Plate though and the Teladi. I wonder, if this is the result of XR Ship Mod? This adds some powerful battleships and they are used by the KI.

[adeine]

While it may have exacerbated the issue, unfortunately this has been the fate of the Xenon in the long run for a good while. The last time they had any teeth was in early 3.x

[Raptor34]

Probably the most effective (non cheese) way to stop a friendly faction from wiping things out is to hack their build modules. It has an hours long duration. In my pre-beta save I was doing that to stop ZYA from being wiped out by Argon while I shielded them from Xenon with my gate fleets. I don't love that I'm spending this much time just keeping factions alive, but, oh well.

Just accidentally leave your L/XL ships in their fab bays for maintenance and repairs. S/M fighters generally do not have enough firepower to break the Xenon, so I don't bother dealing with those because as you noted, it's a PITA.
The bigger pain is trying to keep the map on status quo since just opening fire isn't always viable.

[PersonyPerson]

Personally I much preferred their older balance where things would play out very differently depending on seed, but I haven't seen that for a long time.

I'm not saying I don't believe you from what you've observed, however it's in contradiction to what I've observed. For me the outcomes are quite still variable per save. Whilst ZYA dying and leading to a mass collapse in the north of the map is a common outcome, it doesn't happen all the time.

I just did a 7.50 Beta 2 AI only save that I left on over night on SETA (ignoring the fact that I lost 2 IRL hours of it because I accidently left the engines on which made me crash into the planet in Heretic's End and die ). ZYA and PAR held their northern areas, whilst the Xenon were performing strongest in the Atiya's Misfortune cluster. TEL killed the miners of Scale Plate Green so that sector has no ship production, but still has ships alive protecting the sector.

Some saves, Scale Plate Green cluster is dominant and pushes all the way to Hewa's Twin I or even Trinity Sanctum III. Some saves, Atiya's Misfortune is the strongest, taking The Void and/or Getsu Fune, providing it with improved resource connections from the middle cluster. Some saves it's just Status quo. But I haven't witnessed a properly weak Xenon for the entire map where they're unable to break through anywhere since early 7.00 Betas. I've done 19 AI only saves from then to present day. For context, the average time I let a save run on for is ~4 ingame days.

In regards to ANT/HOP. I don't see any issues with this. Most saves I've played it's mostly status quo for the entire duration, where HOP ends up contesting Second Contact II, but hasn't pushed ANT out. I've had one save in 7.10 HF3 (that lasted 7d+) where HOP was the only commonwealth faction with a military and had conquered Argon Prime (The Xenon did exceptionally well in this save too):
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... rbox=false
I've had a few saves where it's mostly status quo, but the inverse scenario to the most common one where ANT is instead contesting True Sight. Total domination from either faction on new saves is rare. Never seen ANT clear out Atiya's Misfortune, furthest I've seen them is guarding the south of Frontier Edge whilst they occasionally raided Atiya's Misfortune. Couple of times where I've seen HOP destroy Atiya's Misfortune, but in those occasions, it takes them an absolute age for them in order to do this.

I did some research last night, and the Xenon are definitely wiped out, besides one single Shipyard. I capped a Terran battleship and his surviving cruiser, to stop them from destroying the last station. The Yaki seem also to be gone completely. Xenon Economy seems to be completely down. Still got to check Scale Plate though and the Teladi. I wonder, if this is the result of XR Ship Mod? This adds some powerful battleships and they are used by the KI.

For your save, it seems like the damage has already been done. Scale Plate Green was one of those sectors that regularly had all the miners die.

According to the dev of VRO, the XR Ship Mod buffs the Xenon and breaks the overall balance of the universe. So if anything has busted them up for you, it was the vanilla changes to miner logic in 7.10. Only way you're going to fix it is by further cheats/mods of which I'm not aware of to get the Xenon back into play, or just start a new game.

[keeshah]

Yeah, going to start a new play with the latest Beta. I could figure out my display problems, by removing some mods, strangely enough the screen continues to flicker. Maybe time to replace my rig, since a RTX 2060 seems to be a bit overloaded?

[adeine]

Yeah, going to start a new play with the latest Beta. I could figure out my display problems, by removing some mods, strangely enough the screen continues to flicker. Maybe time to replace my rig, since a RTX 2060 seems to be a bit overloaded?

No, it's just broken for a lot of people.

[LameFox]

I just did a 7.50 Beta 2 AI only save that I left on over night on SETA (ignoring the fact that I lost 2 IRL hours of it because I accidently left the engines on which made me crash into the planet in Heretic's End and die ). ZYA and PAR held their northern areas, whilst the Xenon were performing strongest in the Atiya's Misfortune cluster. TEL killed the miners of Scale Plate Green so that sector has no ship production, but still has ships alive protecting the sector.

Out of curiosity do you know the seed for this? I've been trying for ages to get one where the Atiya's cluster survived.

[PersonyPerson]

I just did a 7.50 Beta 2 AI only save that I left on over night on SETA (ignoring the fact that I lost 2 IRL hours of it because I accidently left the engines on which made me crash into the planet in Heretic's End and die ). ZYA and PAR held their northern areas, whilst the Xenon were performing strongest in the Atiya's Misfortune cluster. TEL killed the miners of Scale Plate Green so that sector has no ship production, but still has ships alive protecting the sector.

Out of curiosity do you know the seed for this? I've been trying for ages to get one where the Atiya's cluster survived.

Sure. I did randomise it, but the seed is 281867709, according to the extracted save file.

However I should point out that there's no guarantee that you'll get exactly the same results that I did. Butterfly effect and all that...

[LameFox]

I just did a 7.50 Beta 2 AI only save that I left on over night on SETA (ignoring the fact that I lost 2 IRL hours of it because I accidently left the engines on which made me crash into the planet in Heretic's End and die ). ZYA and PAR held their northern areas, whilst the Xenon were performing strongest in the Atiya's Misfortune cluster. TEL killed the miners of Scale Plate Green so that sector has no ship production, but still has ships alive protecting the sector.

Out of curiosity do you know the seed for this? I've been trying for ages to get one where the Atiya's cluster survived.

Sure. I did randomise it, but the seed is 281867709, according to the extracted save file.

However I should point out that there's no guarantee that you'll get exactly the same results that I did. Butterfly effect and all that...

Thanks. I'll run it for a while and see, might not happen the same way but it's not like I've had any luck with random ones either lol.

[MKL81]

Not true from my observations. Early 7.00 Betas did indeed have a weak start for the Xenon, however changes were made to them in the later 7.00 Betas that made their performance a lot more variable. Early 7.10 Betas were more of the same until 7.10 Beta 4. This had it as I stated earlier that Some Xenon clusters starved themselves to death (Typical sectors that did this were Emperor's Pride, Matrix #598 and Scale Plate Green). However, it made the remaining ones much stronger, which enabled them to start steamrolling the surrounding areas much later into the game. Final version of 7.10 I observed it where the Xenon were doing so well in some areas of the map (typically the middle), that they managed to revive previously starved sectors. Multiple AI only saves ended up with the Xenon controlling the entire Northern part of the map, with 4 Xenon clusters all directly connected to each other.

7.50 imo on a new save, the Xenon are in the optimum condition. They behaved like they did in 7.10 HF3, but the resource starving issue no longer happens. They expand a lot more often than they don't and it's not just limited to certain areas of the map, and it's not as if it's just steamroll their opponents either. It takes them time and effort in order to achieve it. If a Xenon cluster dies now, it's almost certainly due to enemies invading and killing all the miners instead of the miners going outside of Xenon space, wondering off into enemy sectors to uselessly die. And that's how it should be. Defeat by military action instead of defeat by broken SE miner logic.

Cannot say for the beta, don't play betas, but then I must be one unlucky X4 player, because for the past 2 years at least I haven't seen Xenon actually being threat to anyone, other that Split. Hatikvah's sometimes has it's issues, same for the Void, but other that that? Never. Teladi steamroll SPG sectors and the Matrix 451. ANT conquers Frontier Edge and usually holds it pretty well, trying to advance into Atiya's. HOP can be very aggressive and has little problems advancing in Faulty Logic I. Litany of Fury is a mixed bag, sometimes Paranids overwhelm Xenon, sometimes Xenon are successful in taking it over. The only sectors that have consistent staying power are Tharka's Cascasde with the surrondings.

[Exxx]

X4 is a wonderful game, it has a great economy and many other aspects are also on top. But the weak point of this game is weak AI in combat terms. I have two fleets: 40 L-class destroyers (they are fully modified) and 20 M-class ships (Dragon Raider, also fully modified). And with these two fleets, I can easily capture xenon systems and do not even feel the confrontation. Xenons never fly in large fleets, they fly one at a time, like lemmings))). Dear developers, I really ask you to strengthen the AI in combat. Because at the end of the game I got disappointed - I spent a week of real time and I have more than 1000000000 credits in my account and two powerful fleets in control. And I don't feel hardcore - and nothing can oppose me either.

P.S. This is my cry of the soul )))