[Modded] XEN keep losing Matrix 451 early - then others

[user1679]

I'm running into a problem where XEN lose several of their sectors within the first 2 hours. From what I see, Matrix 451 is the first to go...

Mods:

VRO - general balance changes
FOCW - I disabled all options except ones that add XEN
lc4hunter XEN overhaul / vro - this adds several new XEN ships

Problem:

Today I loaded up a save that was only 5 minutes old that I use to test weapons (I don't save over it). I flew to Matrix 451 after messing around a bit so it was about 1.5 hours at this point. Once I entered, TEL had already set up a defense platform, had 2 battleships and a carrier, XEN was nearly wiped out. I checked a few other XEN sectors and same problem, some other faction had already set up defense platforms and was wiping them out.

Any idea why, when I have mods that add XEN, would they have trouble holding their sectors? I read somewhere that certain seeds can lead to weaker XEN. Is this true?

[Hammerhirsch]

In all my playthroughs, the Xenon rampage the "north" (Teladi and Split) and lose the south to HOP and ANT. If there are seeds I always have the same one or just bad luck. I am playing without mods.

Best Regards

Hammerhirsch

[Starlight_Corporation]

Do your mods also add Xenon jobs? If not, it can be they're scrapping ships to replace them with the newly added XEN ships from mods, making them weaker in the short run.

Recent additions in patches also gave Teladi a good advantage in attacking Xenon. They have no real enemies except Xenon & defense stations generated at Universe creation spawn more often close to gates these days + NPC capitals can keep range better then before (this does not help Xenon as graviton guns have shorter range then plasma guns) + Teladi got extra shield slots for their capitals compared to others, giving more survivability. Add all that up & you got Teladi cleaning Xenon from the start.

Note that the stations spawning at gates & captains keeping range better also helps other factions (except Split, as their plasma cannons have similar range to graviton guns, hence the Split got more trouble with Xenon then others), but they often got other enemies as well to deal with, so them engaging Xenon early is more a roll of the dice.

[user1679]

I was just looking at my mods and it seems the culprit might be VRO. The jobs file adds at least two battleship jobs for all factions so it appears that is why my universe is flooded with patrols so early in the game.

After my OP I started a new game and flew directly from Argon Prime to Matrix #451, took me maybe 20 minutes because I got distracted watching a fight between ARG and HOP. By the time I jumped into Matrix, TEL had a battleship patrol in there, MIN had two battleships and a defense platform under construction. The XEN defense platform near the gate was obliterated and there were no XEN XL ships to be found, not even wrecks.

In past games, I think I played around with disabling the VRO jobs file in favor of the FOCW one and I remember that TEL / XEN would fight over Matrix quite often but it usually ended in a draw. I would see several L and XL ships from both sides blasting my FPS to hell, but they seemed to be able to hold their own.