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timn
Mar 16, 2010
Is there a mod or method out there to expedite workforce immigration? Even when you have all of the supplies in check it seems like it will take 10's and 10's of real time hours to build up a workforce of thousands for a big station.

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Oh dear me
Aug 14, 2012

I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal
What is the general advice about illegal crafting items? I have just got various faction licences and don't want to have to get them again, so I've been ditching illegal items asap. But should I hang on to any, and if so is there a way to do so safely?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Once you get friendly with a faction they generally won't hassle you about cargo scans.

And if they do you can just run away. Just generally try to avoid parking for long durations in the space of people who you're not super friendly with.

I've never bothered about doing it because inventory management is dull. Also frankly I've never bothered to craft anything other than SETA and spacefly caviar either.

Nicodemus Dumps
Jan 9, 2006

Just chillin' in the sink

You can also safely store whatever you want in the lab at the PHQ. Once you open up access to the black market on a station somewhere just run all your illegal inventory items over there to sell.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

popewiles posted:

You can also safely store whatever you want in the lab at the PHQ. Once you open up access to the black market on a station somewhere just run all your illegal inventory items over there to sell.

It's a shame I can't add that functionality into an admin centre station, for example. Since I wouldn't mind actually using that ability...but I'll be damned if I'm gonna bother flying over to Grand Exchange to do it.

Also, speaking of the Black Market, is it only at pre-defined stations, or is the BM at random stations for each playthrough? (Or alternatively, is there a BM at all stations?) Since I'd love it if I could discover a black market at the HAT Free Port in my sector (Silent Witness XI). I haven't really been keeping an eye on it for data leak missions though

Krogort
Oct 27, 2013

timn posted:

Is there a mod or method out there to expedite workforce immigration? Even when you have all of the supplies in check it seems like it will take 10's and 10's of real time hours to build up a workforce of thousands for a big station.

The trick is to go for multiple race at the same time.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

Krogort posted:

The trick is to go for multiple race at the same time.

Oh, so you mean building the different habitat types? Hmm, I guess I'll finally have to finish the research needed to steal those blueprints, since I'll be damned if I'm gonna buy any more of 'em! The M sized Argon one was pricey enough. I DO like the look of the large Teladi ones though - they look like the real hub of a station, as they should be - rather than a block sticking off a pipe

Also, how many destroyers (specifically ex-SCA Phoenixes :v: ) would be needed to reliably take out a K without losses? I only have one right now, but I'm currently hunting down more in the neutral/pirate-infested sectors, to quickly create a fleet.
I might also buy a Behemoth or something as a flagship for that fleet, though. I'm not really sure what the best AI-controlled destroyer would be, to be honest.


EDIT: Also, thanks to those who recommended keeping my stolen Dragon Raider - I've been using it to whittle down this fleet of Xenon (I've spent maybe three hours on it so far. Not sure how many I've killed, but the east end of Hatikvah's Choice 1 was flooded with xenon. I reckon I've taken out around 75 Ps and Ms so far (shame I'm only being paid for a few of them, despite having a police license), which is most of the fleet. Still probably 30 more to go, plus a K, which I'll use my Nemesis to destroy, I think. The Dragon is great at nuking wings of small ships though - they haven't even touched my hull, yet!

Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 14:34 on May 11, 2020

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

You might have an Argon police license but hatikvah's choice 1 is hatikvah free league space by default, and they don't have a police licence and your argon one doesn't work there.

Which is deeply annoying given how much conflict the sector sees.

timn
Mar 16, 2010
Does the police license actually do anything besides allow you to legally police scan ships? You can still get bounties and rep from blowing up hostiles without the license, temperamental as it is.

Duodecimal
Dec 28, 2012

Still stupid
I went on a weird little adventure trying to fix the Hatikvah faction mission. It had disappeared from my game, and discovered the cause was the faction rep relocating from the Argon trading station in Hatikvhah's Choice to elsewhere. In my case, the free port pirate base in Heretic's End.

I found the name of the rep and looked for her in the 500 megabyte XML file that is the save game. First of all, holy poo poo. Secondly, it's not as simple as taking the NPC section of the XML for that station and plopping her 'connection' somewhere inside the XML for the other station (I tried sticking her in the same room as the trading station's manager).

It appears that NPCs may be just another bit of station hardware that attach to their desk, which attaches to their room, which attaches to that weird 4-way intersection hallway that attaches to the transporter room. So I went back and tried to cut her entire room and paste it into the trading station. I was walking up the XML tree trying to see where one station ends and the next begins but there is. Just. So. Much. Garbage. in this XML file. There has to be because it's half a loving gigabyte.

In the end I gave up, subscribed to Cheat Menu, and deleted the free trade port. As soon as I jumped out of that sector, the quest re-appeared in my log and hoo boy do I hate the voice acting in this game.

Anyhow, that wet firecracker of a quest is over with and I have a nagging curiosity about how this XML file is structured and how the save state ought to be optimized.

Duodecimal fucked around with this message at 14:33 on May 13, 2020

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

timn posted:

Does the police license actually do anything besides allow you to legally police scan ships? You can still get bounties and rep from blowing up hostiles without the license, temperamental as it is.

You get bounties without the license if you are close to either a station or a police ship. The police license means you are a police ship, which means you always get paid for killing baddies who are hostile to the sector owner.

Antigravitas
Dec 8, 2019

Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

Duodecimal posted:

Anyhow, that wet firecracker of a quest is over with and I have a nagging curiosity about how this XML file is structured and how the save state ought to be optimized.

Tbh., I doubt it matters much. Ingesting that XML is fast and really not much trouble for a computer.

The problem is that they chose to make effectively the entire universe persistent, which is utterly insane. It's what makes X, well, X, but it's still insane.

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



I'm fairly sure they're also doing some utterly nuts things like running a VM because the game appears to do atomic state transition, and it can be arbitrarily paused at any point during the simulation.

Corzen
Dec 2, 2006

This is bullshit! Try again.

D. Ebdrup posted:

Another trick is to put the task of a ship along with a number in parenthesis, in front of the name. That way your list of ships gets sorted better when doing alphabetical sorting (which is the default, can be changed).
So you end up with:
(M-Miner#1)Magnetar(XXX-420)
(M-Miner#2)Magnetar(XXX-042)
(G-Miner#1)Magnatar(XXX-069)
(Trader#1)Shuyaku(XXX-666)
And so on and so forth.
That way you can easily spot when one has gone missing, and can search for that - and if you want to know what a particular ship has been up to, you can search for its Type#N to get all of its history.

This was from a few pages back, but I am curious how you are using the suffixed parenthetical. Is it based on ship, station, or sector assignment? I really like this suggested naming convention.

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



Corzen posted:

This was from a few pages back, but I am curious how you are using the suffixed parenthetical. Is it based on ship, station, or sector assignment? I really like this suggested naming convention.
The suffix is whatever IDs the game gives you, I was just including them for completeness' sake. orz

Unknownmass
Nov 3, 2007
Picked up the game thanks to this thread. Been having fun playing split and boarding all the zya ships in the sector. Will I miss anything if I just keep doing this and ignoring any story quests?

Sillybones
Aug 10, 2013

go away,
spooky skeleton,
go away
Most of my play time seems to be going around looking for ships who's AI has broken and reassigning them the same task so they start up again.

Antigravitas
Dec 8, 2019

Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

Unknownmass posted:

Picked up the game thanks to this thread. Been having fun playing split and boarding all the zya ships in the sector. Will I miss anything if I just keep doing this and ignoring any story quests?

Well, you can play however you like, but you'll miss out on all the research (ship mods, teleporting, stealing blueprints) that you get from the HQ plot, as well as ventures and a few free ships, but also the plot to SMASH THE PATRIARCHY and completely gently caress the ZYA. And I think at some point you'll want Argon or Paranid shields for your ships.

Corzen
Dec 2, 2006

This is bullshit! Try again.
Quick question: do explorer assigned ships just stop when they've uncovered all of the grey fog of war tiles, or do they still roam around looking for possible changes to sectors?
E.g. lockboxes, new structures, etc.

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



Corzen posted:

Quick question: do explorer assigned ships just stop when they've uncovered all of the grey fog of war tiles, or do they still roam around looking for possible changes to sectors?
E.g. lockboxes, new structures, etc.
They start by uncovering the fog of war and then once that's done they start moving around in three-dimentional space above and below the sectors plane.

Speaking of planes, I couldn't believe how much easier dog-fighting got once I turned off align-with-plane or whatever it's called - it's night and day!
The AI has a HARD time dealing with strafing while flying too, especially if you change directions even semi-often.

Happy Underpants
Jul 23, 2007
Is there a trick for getting drones to dock in a timely manner or do they only work out of sector?

Xerophyte
Mar 17, 2008

This space intentionally left blank

Happy Underpants posted:

Is there a trick for getting drones to dock in a timely manner or do they only work out of sector?

The only trick I am aware of is to grab a cup of tea or other beverage while waiting so you don't care that your drones always take forever to trundle towards your drone-hole. There is also a mod for that, which fixed at least some of the problem for me. Some drone operations still seem to take forever so it's not 100%.

Happy Underpants
Jul 23, 2007

Xerophyte posted:

The only trick I am aware of is to grab a cup of tea or other beverage while waiting so you don't care that your drones always take forever to trundle towards your drone-hole. There is also a mod for that, which fixed at least some of the problem for me. Some drone operations still seem to take forever so it's not 100%.

This is my go to game for setting up some menus and watching things gradually happen with snacks and podcasts but watching 20+ drones gunk up the drone hole was stretching my patience. This mod is perfect for me, thanks for the link.

timn
Mar 16, 2010
Me: *45 minutes into a station build planning session, meticulously aligning modules with my face 6 inches away from the monitor*

Random Paranid passerby: GREETINGS

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



timn posted:

Me: *45 minutes into a station build planning session, meticulously aligning modules with my face 6 inches away from the monitor*

Random Paranid passerby: GREETINGS
The best is when you somehow didn't realize your ship was moving forward while you were in menus and you suddenly pop through a gate and then a cop or pirate wants you to drop all your cargo.

Duodecimal
Dec 28, 2012

Still stupid
I like how in this game, unlike others, you can do all your administrating while the game is paused. Fit and buy ships, give stacks of orders, design stations.

It's not unusual for a 4X or RTS, but it feels weird here.

Duodecimal fucked around with this message at 14:32 on May 17, 2020

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



X4 isn't a 4X, except for all the 4X elements.

timn
Mar 16, 2010
Not a (real) programmer, but I suspect that whatever functionality which handles ramping up the engine's timescale on the fly for SETA is also responsible for allowing you to pause time at any point without restricting player input.

The 4X/RTS comparison is pretty apt because in many ways the game's actual simulation is a fusion of those genres similar to Sins of a Solar Empire. From a certain perspective you could say it is one of those games with everything else layered on top.

staberind
Feb 20, 2008

but i dont wanna be a spaceship
Fun Shoe

Xerophyte posted:

The only trick I am aware of is to grab a cup of tea or other beverage while waiting so you don't care that your drones always take forever to trundle towards your drone-hole. There is also a mod for that, which fixed at least some of the problem for me. Some drone operations still seem to take forever so it's not 100%.

We were talking about the fact that even the drones were modular while Shib was making that mod, and er, it turns out that the fighter drones guns may also be editable.
I think the reason why Shib did not go all split mk4 engines on the drones was it would instantly deplete eq's and ship builders of engine parts.
I'm probably going to add yuge storage to the actual wharf, l & xl macro's at some point, with maybe a script to auto add 20% stock levels periodically, its lovely and arcadey, but it would allow us to at least build ships at any point in the game, just not fleets unless we are also supplying all the wares as well.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011
So, yesterday I managed to bring my total of destroyers up from one stolen ex-SCA Phoenix, to three ex-SCA Phoenixes and one bought Behemoth, as the fleet flagship. I also bought six plasma-laden Nemesis corvettes too, as a secondary fleet to assist my destroyers with rapidly depleting Xenon capital ships' shields. I'm looking to increase that to ten Nemesis corvettes though - I think that should be pretty powerful even without the destroyer support, right? I might need to be in-sector though I guess, so that they don't get auto-hit by K turrets.

Just before heading off for the night though, while doing the Split plot with my Dragon Raider (damned funeral caviar donation) I encountered a marauder Rattlesnake, who tried robbing me... So naturally I called in my Sonra for some more boarding action. :getin: I've been planning on getting a Rattlesnake for my main ship eventually too, so as long as I can swipe it off the current owners, this is perfect! (saves me ~15mil, at least :D ) Hopefully it doesn't require TOO many marines to take it, compared to the Phoenix. ~50 guys should be able to handle it, surely

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

pretense is my co-pilot

Major Isoor posted:

So, yesterday I managed to bring my total of destroyers up from one stolen ex-SCA Phoenix, to three ex-SCA Phoenixes and one bought Behemoth, as the fleet flagship. I also bought six plasma-laden Nemesis corvettes too, as a secondary fleet to assist my destroyers with rapidly depleting Xenon capital ships' shields. I'm looking to increase that to ten Nemesis corvettes though - I think that should be pretty powerful even without the destroyer support, right? I might need to be in-sector though I guess, so that they don't get auto-hit by K turrets.

Just before heading off for the night though, while doing the Split plot with my Dragon Raider (damned funeral caviar donation) I encountered a marauder Rattlesnake, who tried robbing me... So naturally I called in my Sonra for some more boarding action. :getin: I've been planning on getting a Rattlesnake for my main ship eventually too, so as long as I can swipe it off the current owners, this is perfect! (saves me ~15mil, at least :D ) Hopefully it doesn't require TOO many marines to take it, compared to the Phoenix. ~50 guys should be able to handle it, surely

In my experience, FRF rattlesnakes can have a sizable cadre of veteran marines. Make sure to scan it first.

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

In my experience, FRF rattlesnakes can have a sizable cadre of veteran marines. Make sure to scan it first.

Alright then, will do - thanks for the heads-up. In my past engagements, my opposition never seemed to offer a lot of resistance (including one where in a 24 vs 40 fight, of my 40 I only lost two guys!) so that's definitely good to know.
I'll definitely have to make sure I've taken out all the turrets so I don't get any DoA boarding pods, and also shoot the hull up a fair bit. (Since that kills some of the ship's occupants, right? I generally take ships fully intact, but I vaguely recall shooting up the enemy ship before my first boarding operation, and seeing that they lost a couple of guys)

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

pretense is my co-pilot

Yeah, dealing hull damage definitely reduces the crew - it's chance based though, so there's few guarantees. SCA ships tend to be poorly defended in my experience, but the FRF is a tougher target. Note that you may have to scan it twice (once to remove IFF masking, once to complete scan) to see the full crew manifest in the ships details.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Does anybody know of a way and/or mod that allows me to hide things from the property list?

Because I've been peppering the universe with defense stations and yeah I don't need to see those in my property list.

E: I'm considering just using the cheat script to switch ownership of my defense stations to other races so that they don't clutter up my property list, but I'm not sure if that's going to screw up the AI or not.

Shrimp or Shrimps fucked around with this message at 09:42 on May 20, 2020

Major Isoor
Mar 23, 2011

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

Yeah, dealing hull damage definitely reduces the crew - it's chance based though, so there's few guarantees. SCA ships tend to be poorly defended in my experience, but the FRF is a tougher target. Note that you may have to scan it twice (once to remove IFF masking, once to complete scan) to see the full crew manifest in the ships details.

Well, I capped it! Out of 90 marines, 45 died - by far my most costly engagement, in terms of loss of life. However in term of credits, it's actually pretty good! :v: After selling all the mines, lasertowers, etc and outfitting it how I like (including hiring 45 service crew) I've made 90k, despite anticipating losing millions on upgrades.

Annoyingly though, the FRF don't like me much now (-11, down from 0) despite the fact that THEIR Rattlesnake was the one who tried robbing ME, and took the first shot. But oh well, they're not openly hostile, so hopefully it won't mess with the plotline too much...I might need to send traders/miners to repair relations, though.


EDIT: Speaking of lasertowers and mines earlier, does anyone here actually use them? And if so, what for? Just disposable mid-combat distractions for the enemy to contend with, or placement within your space, to protect your turf?

Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 15:38 on May 20, 2020

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy
So I ordered my first ship, a courier, so I can blow up the starter ship for that quest. Only the station is missing 1 component so I guess it won't get built.

So how do I actually take 2 ships out, and leave one behind to get blown up

Dreadwroth2
Feb 28, 2019

by Cyrano4747

Phi230 posted:

So I ordered my first ship, a courier, so I can blow up the starter ship for that quest. Only the station is missing 1 component so I guess it won't get built.

So how do I actually take 2 ships out, and leave one behind to get blown up

You can hire a pilot to drive the other ship. I did the totally cool thing of accidentally declining the starter mission chain, and there is no way to fix it so be careful.

Antigravitas
Dec 8, 2019

Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:
You pilot the sacrificial ship yourself, but make sure it has no crew. At your destination you EVA, tell the pilot of your second ship to fly to you, then dock, take control, fly to a safe distance.

Duodecimal
Dec 28, 2012

Still stupid
You can also just fire the pilot when he gets to the destination. He magics himself out of there.

Dreadwroth2 posted:

I did the totally cool thing of accidentally declining the starter mission chain, and there is no way to fix it so be careful.

If you mean the mission you get from scanning data leaks, you can find it again from another leak.

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Dreadwroth2
Feb 28, 2019

by Cyrano4747
Oh really? Well thats good to know.

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