How do Xenon look like?

[vkolosov]

If you capture a Xenon ship, it has a pilot's seat. And it also has the ability to host crew, at least B can have up to 5 people on board if I'm not mistaken.

So, how does the THING in this pilot seat look like? What happens at Xenon stations? What kind of robots roam their halls?

[Alan Phipps]

The Xenon entities are just AGI software routines running in the cpus. The reason for the seats and life-support on their ships and stations goes back to their origins in being human Terraforming assets.

The original human-designed assets had to be built, tested and commissioned as 'safe' by humans/humanoids before being turned over to AGI autonomous control. There also had to be some provision for later maintenance, upgrades or modifications by humans/humanoids during their lifetime. I guess these 'safeguards' were hard-coded into the AGI design and still happen now when the AGI builds stuff too. Perhaps the AGI doesn't even notice that it is still doing this 'redundant' work?

There could indeed be provision for drones and automated workers to carry out some of the physical transportation, construction and upkeep/modifications under AGI control, and perhaps even some provision for the AGI to use biological slaves/clones for some of this work on and around their assets. Who knows what an AGI might consider as potential options and future contingencies?

[vvvvvvvv]

If you capture a Xenon ship, it has a pilot's seat. And it also has the ability to host crew, at least B can have up to 5 people on board if I'm not mistaken.

So, how does the THING in this pilot seat look like? What happens at Xenon stations? What kind of robots roam their halls?

Xenon are their ships. There's no one in the seat. When you cap one I guess you fry its control circuitry, suppressing the AGI controller. Previous games, I believe, described danger of xenon ship suddenly waking up.

The stations are empty. Docking ports are boxes with no light inside, though hilariously the game uses human interiors for wharves. Meaning they have potted plants and stores, but with nobody behind the counter.

[vkolosov]

Thank you, it makes much more sense now.

[adeine]

Presumably a Xenon AGI core from the data vault entries, though obviously wouldn't 'sit' anywhere.

An interesting idea would be that Xenon actually did iterate through various designs over the centuries, and the 'ghost ships' continued to perform best thanks to the extra intimidation factor.

[surferx]

If you capture a Xenon ship, it has a pilot's seat. And it also has the ability to host crew, at least B can have up to 5 people on board if I'm not mistaken.

So, how does the THING in this pilot seat look like? What happens at Xenon stations? What kind of robots roam their halls?

Xenon are their ships. There's no one in the seat. When you cap one I guess you fry its control circuitry, suppressing the AGI controller. Previous games, I believe, described danger of xenon ship suddenly waking up.

The stations are empty. Docking ports are boxes with no light inside, though hilariously the game uses human interiors for wharves. Meaning they have potted plants and stores, but with nobody behind the counter.

Maybe the wharves setup could be explained by the Xenon using blueprints derived from some faction. So they just built the stations as is with human interiors without deleting some details like plants and stores.

[LameFox]

It wouldn't be very consistent, though. In other cases where they have interiors, they still have their own designs. Likewise their XL build module is different.

IMO they should have a fittingly themed wharf. But maybe that's not a very high priority, given build modules have magical immunity to having their blueprints stolen and the players would therefore never interact with it very deeply.

[vvvvvvvv]

Maybe the wharves setup could be explained by the Xenon using blueprints derived from some faction. So they just built the stations as is with human interiors without deleting some details like plants and stores.

Unfortunately they're better explained by designers reusing assets due to development time constraints, because interiors of Xenon wharves look exact same as Argon or Terran ones. I think they even play the same announcements. Actually it is one of those things that could be changed, perhaps.

To land there, set Xenon as friendly in creative start.

Something similar happened in Boron DLC, except that time the game tried to handwave it.
"Why, doesn't this room look like argon design"
"Oh, argon were a big influence!" and that's why they stuffed a metal box into organic ship. Didn't sound convincing in the slightest. At least Borons had unique wharves and shipyards.

Normally I'd expect the stations to look the same as interiors of Xenon B, F, PE, SE. Naked metal, red light. Industrial aesthetic in the old ships, Xenomorph Aesthetic in newer ones. They still need a lift redesign though, as it sticks out like a sore thumb.

[H34Dru5H]

The Xenon entities are just AGI software routines running in the cpus. The reason for the seats and life-support on their ships and stations goes back to their origins in being human Terraforming assets.

The original human-designed assets had to be built, tested and commissioned as 'safe' by humans/humanoids before being turned over to AGI autonomous control. There also had to be some provision for later maintenance, upgrades or modifications by humans/humanoids during their lifetime. I guess these 'safeguards' were hard-coded into the AGI design and still happen now when the AGI builds stuff too. Perhaps the AGI doesn't even notice that it is still doing this 'redundant' work?

There could indeed be provision for drones and automated workers to carry out some of the physical transportation, construction and upkeep/modifications under AGI control, and perhaps even some provision for the AGI to use biological slaves/clones for some of this work on and around their assets. Who knows what an AGI might consider as potential options and future contingencies?

What a brilliant answer, did you just make this up? If so, I commend you Sir, keep up the good work

[vvvvvvvv]

The Xenon entities are just AGI software routines running in the cpus. The reason for the seats and life-support on their ships and stations goes back to their origins in being human Terraforming assets.

The original human-designed assets had to be built, tested and commissioned as 'safe' by humans/humanoids before being turned over to AGI autonomous control. There also had to be some provision for later maintenance, upgrades or modifications by humans/humanoids during their lifetime. I guess these 'safeguards' were hard-coded into the AGI design and still happen now when the AGI builds stuff too. Perhaps the AGI doesn't even notice that it is still doing this 'redundant' work?

There could indeed be provision for drones and automated workers to carry out some of the physical transportation, construction and upkeep/modifications under AGI control, and perhaps even some provision for the AGI to use biological slaves/clones for some of this work on and around their assets. Who knows what an AGI might consider as potential options and future contingencies?

What a brilliant answer, did you just make this up? If so, I commend you Sir, keep up the good work

There's a Torus Aeternal quest which makes you interact with an interesting ship. Which is where the talk about Subroutines can originate from. The rest can be inferred from timeline data.

An interesting possibility for x4 is that Xenon we're facing are essentually discarded failures. And deep in the void there's a final fully evolved xenon form, reaching level of gate builders at least, an vastly superior to all organic civilizations combine. Because "the machine is immortal".

[Alan Phipps]

No, I made it up a long time ago ... viewtopic.php?p=3655226#p3655226

[vvvvvvvv]

No, I made it up a long time ago ... viewtopic.php?p=3655226#p3655226

The thing is, that hypothesis is sensible. It is reasonable for early ships to include human controls. An I think it was mentioned somewhere in the lore in earlier titles.

[Imperial Good]

It is my understanding that lore wise it is meant to be the old "classic" Xenon ships, such as the B and H, have features that allow them to be flown by pilots. Newer generation Xenon, such as the XR/X4 style Destroyer K and Destroyer I, do not have such features so cannot be flown by pilots or crew.

It is also possible that this aspect is being changed/evolving as X4 development continues. Before all Xenon ships were not able to be flown by the player, but now some can. Maybe in the future additional ships of theirs will be made flyable such as the K and I. Not that flying such ships would ever be worth obtaining them given how hard it is to obtain the H...

[vvvvvvvv]

Before all Xenon ships were not able to be flown by the player, but now some can.

In X3 you could cap, reverse engineer an build many of the XEN ships.

In Rebirth you could capture non-captial ships. P, S, M, N. I don't remember capturing a T, and not sure if Rebirth had them. It probably did...

P.S. Makes me wonder if we should expect "Xenon ME"

[raythnor]

I suspect it's due to 2 factors. The xenon build things based upon the original ship models they were installed on, or given. Therefore those ships have seats and such.
The other factor is probably in their old programming, they were meant to build and operate ships that could be given crews, and were tested with crews. They may have evolved/broken in their programming but they still maintain a lot of the core programming within them and would still be following some of the original directives. That program may include directives to have ships that humans are capable of using as a crew.

That would explain why ships and stations have interiors still accessible to basic humans, rather than just small worker drones which would require humans to struggle to get inside.

[vvvvvvvv]

That would explain why ships and stations have interiors still accessible to basic humans, rather than just small worker drones which would require humans to struggle to get inside.

Imagine a xenon robot carefully building potted plants and aquariums with living fish out of raw silicon and iron ore.

...

Though I'd need to check whether there was fish on their wharves.

[vvvvvvvv]

In case anyone is interested.

This is normal xenon dock. Dark box with no light inside. Ship magically turns around during deprture.



This is xenon wharf. Plants and fish in acquriums. Stalls are empty.

I suppose, one could theorize that that fish is also murder robots. And plants.

It is not possible to hitch a ride on a SE, it deploys partial lift. Attempting to reach the lift is difficult, as they depart in split second after landing:


Shipyards, interestingly have M0 for sale:


But it is not possible to buy anything from xenon wharves or shipyards, as they'll be always marked red, "missing critical upgrades".

And this is what xenon pilot seat looks like midflight:


Empty and Waiting.