FYI a Xenon I spawned with Jump Beacon in my game

[fireanddream]

How did I know? I tried to fry a colossus in my game that has a jump beacon. Literally tearing my hair out, wasting a whole 3hrs

For some reason its cargobay shielding won't show up in scan until much later it does when the ship is like 60% hull from non-stop PBE shower.

I thought I was just unlucky, because it lost its huge amount of E-cells for no reason at all. I thought hmm if I did get rid of the E-cells I can certainly fry its lifesupport system. But nooo, the E-cell loss was for some random reason.

Anyway, out of frustration I cheated and pulled out the all seeing eye script. Turns out a Xenon I in my game has a jump beacon.
https://imgur.com/a/1k9bd6l
That's also supposed to be extremely unlucky for me. Because I saw that ship before, saw it has 85% hull, and thought nah I'll grab a healthy one elsewhere.

Could have easily blown it up without thinking twice.

[fireanddream]

Jump Beacon spawn is so strange. I thought the universe will always have 2 RRF ships (M7 or above) with it. My old save for some reason has utterly none. The only jump beacon was already in my HQ.

Which is how I also realize this colossus with a jump beacon + hidden cargobay shielding is the first time I ever encountered this combo. All RRF ships with JB didn't have shielding before.

Also I dived into the availability of beam weapons in FL and wrote a steam guide tonight. Come check it out. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3403848982

[fireanddream]

I just capped the I with only one casualty!

You think I'd remember about the 25 marine thing in FL... I didn't.

Come to think of it, capping the colossus might be possible with 26 max fighting marines.

Anyway, the 28 marine space on M7Ms is just perfect now that I know no casualty is possible on deck 2-5. Send in 26 initially, send 1 more well-timed reinforcement that joins in before deck 2, and maybe 1 more as a security measure. The rest is in space god's hand.

[BrigandPhantos77]

I just capped the I with only one casualty!

You think I'd remember about the 25 marine thing in FL... I didn't.

Come to think of it, capping the colossus might be possible with 26 max fighting marines.

Anyway, the 28 marine space on M7Ms is just perfect now that I know no casualty is possible on deck 2-5. Send in 26 initially, send 1 more well-timed reinforcement that joins in before deck 2, and maybe 1 more as a security measure. The rest is in space god's hand.

Thats lucky. I got 2 of my beacons in a previous play from I's. And my current came from an I as well.

[Jimmy C]

Checking what ships have beacons is the second thing I do on starting a new game after I got the All-Seeing Eye script. The first and more important is assessing what HSAPs are in play and what resources are available in them.

From that, I believe that Beacons are spawned at the start of a game. Your experience makes me wonder if they aren't replaced if the ships are destroyed before you make an attempt to grab them.

Since I'm on vanilla, I go after HepCorp Sabres for beacons instead. That's not an option if you're on the unofficial patch. I'll go after the Xenon ships with beacons later. I want the Xenon ship plans eventually anyway, might as well be them.

[fireanddream]

Checking what ships have beacons is the second thing I do on starting a new game after I got the All-Seeing Eye script. The first and more important is assessing what HSAPs are in play and what resources are available in them.

From that, I believe that Beacons are spawned at the start of a game. Your experience makes me wonder if they aren't replaced if the ships are destroyed before you make an attempt to grab them.

They are replaced but I'm thinking the replacement only happens to the newly spawned RRF M1/M2/M7, or Xenon I. I capped the aforementioned colossus, a few days later I met another colossus, info tells me it's only been flying for a couple of hours (so most likely newly spawned), I scanned it, wola, another jump beacon.

The first and more important is assessing what HSAPs are in play and what resources are available in them.

Struggling to motivate myself to claim the sectors, because how much resources it takes to build an HSAP let alone 5. I wanted one behind Lasting Vengeance to try to bait their boarding ship into buying marines off my own marine training barrack. The "You've been duked" achievement is supposedly bugged but I wanna try my hardest to see if it's possible at all in vanilla.
Other than that, I think the one north of Harmony of Perpetuity is notable because 450% sun, there's another behind a Xenon unclaimed sector, all the others are pretty useless. I even blacklist them all to prevent my trader ships to crawl through all that space behind the gates...

[Jimmy C]

Struggling to motivate myself to claim the sectors, because how much resources it takes to build an HSAP let alone 5.

It was hell starting new game after new game to check their HSAPs until I found one set that was satisfactory, the game I am currently playing. I had targeted 5 HSAPs for acquisition, I don't remember how many hours I spent restarting, had to be 12 or more, until they appeared with ample resources. In the end, I outraced the game and managed to claim 7 HSAPs. All the ones I wanted and 2 more.

That's the key to getting all of them. You have to treat it as a race. Have several TOAs built before you place the first. Then keep building them and claiming sectors until you get every one of them. The game forces you to wait a few hours between claims to give the factions the opportunity to make their own claims. You have to make a habit of making claims all the time after putting down a TOA to claim the next sector at the earliest opportunity.

[fireanddream]

It was hell starting new game after new game to check their HSAPs until I found one set that was satisfactory, the game I am currently playing. I had targeted 5 HSAPs for acquisition, I don't remember how many hours I spent restarting, had to be 12 or more, until they appeared with ample resources. In the end, I outraced the game and managed to claim 7 HSAPs. All the ones I wanted and 2 more.

That's the key to getting all of them. You have to treat it as a race. Have several TOAs built before you place the first. Then keep building them and claiming sectors until you get every one of them. The game forces you to wait a few hours between claims to give the factions the opportunity to make their own claims. You have to make a habit of making claims all the time after putting down a TOA to claim the next sector at the earliest opportunity.

I don't even want them. I want one as an actual factory hub (harmony of perpetuity 450% sun), another behind Xenon sectors as like a role play secret Xenon research station, and then finally another next to Lasting Vengeance to experience for the achievement. Luckily that's about 1/8 of a chance and I got it right as I was about the close the game to do something more fun.

[BrigandPhantos77]

If you destroy a beacon in play by the AI, like one in Omicron Lyrea or such. I've seen rapid response ships replace them. Might be worth looking into it if you want to get more without exploiting the build service, or if your patched to the unofficial.

If you want to avoid a hate loss in rep from it, run into it. The trade station will turn hostile with any laser towers, but the trade it worth it and you can reset it with an agent anyway. Now that I think about it, I think I used a mosquito missile when I did it. The goal was to drop boron so I could raise Terran's to buy there capitals. Even if there ships are weaker than commonwealth ones, they look way better. I still prefer them.

[fireanddream]

Heads up people, A XENON K came with a JB in my latest playthrough and it's been on my top right corner for about 60 hours now
So it's not just Xenon I. Scan those capitals people.