Confusion & Oddities

[DJVicious]

Hey everyone, longtime X3 player. I have played X3: Reunion, AP, TC and while I overlooked and didn't seem interested in FL for years, I've picked it up and glad that I did (even prefer it a bit over X4). What that said, there are some things that I simply cannot find clean answers to and other oddities that are a pinch annoying.

Starting Point: Argon Official

Confusion:

1. While I've searched the forums I cannot find a clean answer on how to unlock the Terran sectors and activate that portion of the storyline.
2. I'm going to guess that getting additional and better HQ's are locked behind the Terran storyline activation.

UPDATE: I did find a solid walkthrough for unlocking the Terran sectors. Still the questions remains about better or additional HQ's....

Oddities:

1. Ships controlled by "Station Manager" often stall. Even when the station has plenty of money and there are no environmental factors that would keep the ships from moving, they stall. Sometimes is it just one ship, sometimes it can be all of them. By stall I mean, the ships are stuck at the stations they went to for resources (Yes plenty of energy cells if jumpdrive is installed.

2. In the event a station/complex runs out of money, the station manager won't send the ships out to sell product to make money even when the inventory threshold is reached for products to be sold. (I've worked around this by using auto fund transfer to ensure this doesn't happen)

3. Spacelab Headquarters provided by the story line does not register as an actual HQ even though ships can be produced, repaired etc at the dock. I noticed this as I had some damaged ships there were set to repair at "Headquarters" and they'd never go there. Digging further in my empire inventory it shows that I have no HQ's. (wondering if this goes back to my previous about where/how to unlock better HQ's)

4. I've read in some threads that there is a supposed issue with patrolling sectors with capital ships (I would consider these M1 & M2 class) in that they will not pass through the jumpgates. I've noticed this same behavior with M7's as well. In my testing, I've setup a group of 5 M7's to patrol. In one test, I set one as the fleet commander and the rest to tag along. In this instance, the ships won't pass through the gate and will just patrol the sector the patrol started in. In another test, I set 5 M7's as a wing and used the wing commands to patrol multiple sectors. In that instance, the ships would patrol the starting sector, but when they reach the next sector, the ships end up going to about the middle of the sector and the patrol commands are cancelled.

5. Race relations. While I see the dynamic race relations add a bit of shall we say...flare to the game, there seems to be some oddities here. On numerous occasions, my race relations are good with a given race, but in certain sectors, race ships appear as enemies and they start attacking my ships. If I'm lucky retransmitting my global race relations set fixes this, but not always. At current, I have an Argon Cerberus camping my Adv Satellite in Omicron Lyre Beta. While it is not attacking it (it started to), the Argon ship remains red and my satellite remains forever flashing red.

6. It would seem the issue have having too many credits is still an issue. I have billions in credits scattered between the player account and my stations. In several occasions, I observe that if my player account has north of 1 billion credits (not sure where the trigger is) when I attempt to move money from a station to my account, the stepping is locked at " 1 " and does not progress like it should. If I move a chunk of money to a smaller station/complex that doesn't make a lot of credits and reduce my player account balance to less than 1 billion, things seem to go back to normal.

That is enough for now, I do hope someone(s) can shed some light on these topics as it would be of great help.

Thanks for reading,

DJ V

[Cycrow]

Hey everyone, longtime X3 player. I have played X3: Reunion, AP, TC and while I overlooked and didn't seem interested in FL for years, I've picked it up and glad that I did (even prefer it a bit over X4). What that said, there are some things that I simply cannot find clean answers to and other oddities that are a pinch annoying.

Starting Point: Argon Official

Confusion:

1. While I've searched the forums I cannot find a clean answer on how to unlock the Terran sectors and activate that portion of the storyline.
2. I'm going to guess that getting additional and better HQ's are locked behind the Terran storyline activation.

UPDATE: I did find a solid walkthrough for unlocking the Terran sectors. Still the questions remains about better or additional HQ's....

There are not other HQ's available, just the Spacelab Headquaters.
The Terran Plot is started by first claiming a HSAP sector and building a TOA to conenct it

Oddities:

1. Ships controlled by "Station Manager" often stall. Even when the station has plenty of money and there are no environmental factors that would keep the ships from moving, they stall. Sometimes is it just one ship, sometimes it can be all of them. By stall I mean, the ships are stuck at the stations they went to for resources (Yes plenty of energy cells if jumpdrive is installed.

There could be a number of reasons for this, but you could try stopping the station manager, waiting a minute then starting it again. This will clear its pathing cache which may be blocking the ship from going somewhere.
There were also a few issues that were fixed in the Unofficial Patch

2. In the event a station/complex runs out of money, the station manager won't send the ships out to sell product to make money even when the inventory threshold is reached for products to be sold. (I've worked around this by using auto fund transfer to ensure this doesn't happen)

This was fixed in the unofficial patch

3. Spacelab Headquarters provided by the story line does not register as an actual HQ even though ships can be produced, repaired etc at the dock. I noticed this as I had some damaged ships there were set to repair at "Headquarters" and they'd never go there. Digging further in my empire inventory it shows that I have no HQ's. (wondering if this goes back to my previous about where/how to unlock better HQ's)

If you can produced and repair ships, then it must be classed as a HQ. How did you send the damaged ships to repair?
You could check the global blacklist to see if they are getting blocked from getting there

4. I've read in some threads that there is a supposed issue with patrolling sectors with capital ships (I would consider these M1 & M2 class) in that they will not pass through the jumpgates. I've noticed this same behavior with M7's as well. In my testing, I've setup a group of 5 M7's to patrol. In one test, I set one as the fleet commander and the rest to tag along. In this instance, the ships won't pass through the gate and will just patrol the sector the patrol started in. In another test, I set 5 M7's as a wing and used the wing commands to patrol multiple sectors. In that instance, the ships would patrol the starting sector, but when they reach the next sector, the ships end up going to about the middle of the sector and the patrol commands are cancelled.

i've not seen this happen, but i've not really tested patrols with larger ships. What ship command did you use?

5. Race relations. While I see the dynamic race relations add a bit of shall we say...flare to the game, there seems to be some oddities here. On numerous occasions, my race relations are good with a given race, but in certain sectors, race ships appear as enemies and they start attacking my ships. If I'm lucky retransmitting my global race relations set fixes this, but not always. At current, I have an Argon Cerberus camping my Adv Satellite in Omicron Lyre Beta. While it is not attacking it (it started to), the Argon ship remains red and my satellite remains forever flashing red.

This was pretty normal in previous games too. Each ship has its own relations, so some ships can be enemies, even if you are friendly with the race as a whole. You can try placing a satelite in the sector, then viewing the sector remotly, this causes an update of the ships relations in the sector (you must not be in the sector yourself).
This can depend on why the ship was flagged as enemy though

6. It would seem the issue have having too many credits is still an issue. I have billions in credits scattered between the player account and my stations. In several occasions, I observe that if my player account has north of 1 billion credits (not sure where the trigger is) when I attempt to move money from a station to my account, the stepping is locked at " 1 " and does not progress like it should. If I move a chunk of money to a smaller station/complex that doesn't make a lot of credits and reduce my player account balance to less than 1 billion, things seem to go back to normal.

can you set the stepping manually, by trying in the numbers?

[DJVicious]

Cycrow,

I'll have to refresh my lingo as to "HSAP". That said, I've already claimed two unclaimed sectors.

As to:

Question #1: I done this repeatedly (stopping the station manager and restarting) and still the same happens. It's a bit random and hard to track down. Wondering if I just have way too many complexes/stations...*shrugs* Also, "Unofficial Patch"? I've acquired my game from Steam, so how would I get an "unofficial patch"?

Question #2: Same notation as before..."Unofficial Patch"?

Question #3: From the station/complex commands you have a choice of where to send damaged ships, Headquarters or Shipyards. I had tried setting it to HQ but the ships simply don't go there for repair. Note: My Spacelab HQ is still in the default place as provided by the storyline and the sector is not blacklisted.

Question #4: As noted, I've attempted to have patrols by setting up a wing (and the results are as reported) and I've attempted to set one ship as a fleet commander and use the patrol sectors from the fleet menu (results are as previously stated).

Question #5: For clarity, when viewing the sectors remotely, I find that even though my race relations with a specific race are good, in some sectors of said race (viewing remotely) race ships will appear red as an enemy and will often attack my ships regardless of their friend/foe rating or station they belong to. I tend to build enormous complexes in which to be self sufficient as possible. But some ships still find their way into various sectors picking up certain resources. I have seen on plenty of occasions my ships from any given complex have been fine several Argon sectors (for example) but other Argon sectors, those ships from the same stations will show argon ships as enemies (yes I have satellites in those sectors).

Question #6: Yes, I can manually enter a value to increase the stepping. But odd that this behavior exists with some station and not others or dependent on how many credits I have in my player account or station isn't it?

Look forward to your input,

DJ V

[BrigandPhantos77]

Question #2: Same notation as before..."Unofficial Patch"?

Hey,
Sorry to butt in.

Unofficial Patch - Created by Cycrow to un-officially fix broken parts of the game. Its in the modding section, linked for you below. It fixes a lot of things. There should be a fix list in that thread as well.
Q2: viewtopic.php?t=448962

[DJVicious]

Question #2: Same notation as before..."Unofficial Patch"?

Hey,
Sorry to butt in.

Unofficial Patch - Created by Cycrow to un-officially fix broken parts of the game. Its in the modding section, linked for you below. It fixes a lot of things. There should be a fix list in that thread as well.
Q2: viewtopic.php?t=448962

No worries butting in...information was useful. That said, I note that the "unofficial patch" version is 1.3.20. I'm running a vanilla game and my current version is 1.3.2021. I'm wondering what installing the patch would do in this case as technically it's an older version?

Thanks,

DJ V

[Cycrow]

Cycrow,

I'll have to refresh my lingo as to "HSAP". That said, I've already claimed two unclaimed sectors.

HSAP is the Hyperspeed Access Points, they are the ones you unlock using the LFL (Low Frequency Locator) and Relay Becons.
You can then find the Explorers Guild Representative and pay to gain access to one of these you have unlocked.
So will grant you the TOA construction kit blueprint at your HQ, which you can then deploy on the HSAP to connect the remote sector to the rest of the universe.

Question #1: I done this repeatedly (stopping the station manager and restarting) and still the same happens. It's a bit random and hard to track down. Wondering if I just have way too many complexes/stations...*shrugs* Also, "Unofficial Patch"? I've acquired my game from Steam, so how would I get an "unofficial patch"?

Question #2: Same notation as before..."Unofficial Patch"?

viewtopic.php?t=448962

as for the version, the steam version of the game is jsut 1.3, the 2021 is the year of release not part of the version number. So the unofficial patch is newer than the steam version

NOTE: this will disabled achivements unlocking in steam if thats a problem (they will still work locally though)

Question #3: From the station/complex commands you have a choice of where to send damaged ships, Headquarters or Shipyards. I had tried setting it to HQ but the ships simply don't go there for repair. Note: My Spacelab HQ is still in the default place as provided by the storyline and the sector is not blacklisted.

That sounds like the station manager command, so that only applies to ships that are under the control of the station manager. Also, they will only send ships to HQ or Shipyards that are within the jump range of the station, so its possible your HQ is too far away. You can either move the HQ, use the Hub to make it closer, or increase the range of the station

Question #4: As noted, I've attempted to have patrols by setting up a wing (and the results are as reported) and I've attempted to set one ship as a fleet commander and use the patrol sectors from the fleet menu (results are as previously stated).

Are you jsut using this for 1 ship? if so, just installing the Patrol Software, and using the single ship commands would work best

[DJVicious]

Cycrow,

Once again, thanks for the replies...

Here's where I'm at:

Station Manager Command: I'm still having issues with the station manager controlled ships getting stuck. I've reset them, but to no avail. As I am writing this, I have installed your "Plug-in Manager", downloaded the SPK, have used the Plug-in Manager to install the update package, I've renamed my pilot as has been for years, and activated the script editor. Still having the issue where they are getting stuck. At this point, I have recalled all ships controlled by station managers for each station/complex and will attempt to reset them all at the same time now that I have the patch installed, will see how it goes.

Patrol Command: As noted, I've attempted this a few different ways using a multitude of ships as outlined below:

• With 1 M2 and 5 M7's: I set the M2 as a fleet commander and added the the M7's to the fleet. Using the Patrol command from the fleet menu (when setting it to patrol multiple sectors) The entire fleet does not leave the starting sector

• With 5 M7's: Setting 1 as the fleet commander and adding the other 4 to the fleet. Using the patrol command from the fleet menu (when setting to patrol multiple sectors) The entire fleet does not leave the starting sector.

• WIth 5 M7's: Adding all 5 to a wing. Using the patrol command from the wing commands (when setting to patrol multiple sectors) The entire wing will patrol the starting sector. However, when the wing moves to the next sector, the entire wing will move to about the middle of the sector and cancel all wing commands

While the patrols are a thing, I can work around this by sadly just using more ships in a single sector patrol (but would be nice if the patrols worked the way they used to). I'd never noticed any issues in previous X3 iterations of the patrol commands not working with multi-sector.

My BIG issues is the station managers. Wars cost money and resources and I really need them to be doing what they are supposed to so I can go and finish off the Split since they decided to pick a fight with me. I'm at a point where I miss the CAG's. Sure, they needed to level up before they become useful and efficient, but they worked. I have built massive complexes for purposes of either making me tons of credits or tons of resources/weapons so I always have what I need.

Side note about sector patrols in FL: I've noticed it's not a great idea to have sector patrols in Teladi space. If one of your patrols takes out an enemy of yours, it really, really pisses off the Teladi. I've had to struggle to repair my relations with them no less than twice from this.

[Cycrow]

if you send me a save game showing the issue with the station manager i will take a look

[DJVicious]

if you send me a save game showing the issue with the station manager i will take a look

I may do that. I'm testing it out now. I had to work out some issues with race relations before giving it a proper go. I'm in the process of restarting all of my stations managers properly after they've been recalled to the station. I'll post an update when I have one.

Side Note: I'm not sure if it is from the "Unofficial Patch" or the "Trading System Extension MK2" scripts, but one of them turns off factories shown in the property list. At first I was freaking out knowing that I had a ton of ore and silicon factories missing from the list. I dug into the options and discovered it was turned off.

Thanks again as always,

DJ V

[DJVicious]

if you send me a save game showing the issue with the station manager i will take a look

Ok, I still have ships stalling using the "Station Manager". What files do I need to make available to you? I already have a method to share the files. Just need to know which files to grab.

Thanks,

DJ V

[DJVicious]

if you send me a save game showing the issue with the station manager i will take a look

Cycrow,

Ok, I think I got what I needed. Please find here the link to my saved game data: https://1drv.ms/f/c/99eec68caa02089f/Ig ... Y?e=o867io

From that save file, some of the complexes in question are the 200 MJ shield complex, BoFu, 1 GJ Shield complex, HEPT complex and many more. Those are just a few examples of the ones constantly being at issue.

At this point, I think my game data has gone haywire. The station manager issue has gotten worse. In addition, now that I've installed the "unofficial patch", I just watched a Xenon PX lay waste to a fully loaded Megladon...Really?

Not to mention my race relations have gotten more odd than usual. At 290 hours of gameplay in, I feel like I might have to start a whole new game...ugh.

Thanks,

DJ V

[Cycrow]

So it looks like the issue might be with SEWN. For some reason its added Void Gamma as a sector with enemies, this is causing the station manager to block that sector, preventing any of the ships from returning, as theres no route from the closest gate.

Im still looking why it might be blocking that sector considering theres no satellite there.

to temporarily solve the issue, you can disable the station manager from using SEWN, or get a jump beacon and deploy in the sector so theres a closer jump point

[DJVicious]

So it looks like the issue might be with SEWN. For some reason its added Void Gamma as a sector with enemies, this is causing the station manager to block that sector, preventing any of the ships from returning, as theres no route from the closest gate.

Im still looking why it might be blocking that sector considering theres no satellite there.

to temporarily solve the issue, you can disable the station manager from using SEWN, or get a jump beacon and deploy in the sector so theres a closer jump point

The funny thing is, if you look at my layout, I have many stations/complexes in the "Void" sectors. Not all stations are affected by this issue. Well, at least not many of them. It has seemed to increase in the number of stations/complexes affected.

I've been looking for how/where to get a jump beacon...I have yet to discover that. Would love to have one as this would seriously speed up transport times.

Thanks,

DJ V

[DJVicious]

So it looks like the issue might be with SEWN. For some reason its added Void Gamma as a sector with enemies, this is causing the station manager to block that sector, preventing any of the ships from returning, as theres no route from the closest gate.

Im still looking why it might be blocking that sector considering theres no satellite there.

to temporarily solve the issue, you can disable the station manager from using SEWN, or get a jump beacon and deploy in the sector so theres a closer jump point

Cycrow,

Thus far, turning off access to the SEWN for the station managers in the Void sectors seems to have done the trick. Now I can get back to killing off the Split!

Would still be interested in what caused it.

Thanks,

DJ V

[Cycrow]

When i figure it it ill add the fix to the next unofficial patch.

For jump beacons, some captial shipd will carry them, you jave to board them to get it. Usually its it Rapid Response ships, or some Xenon ships