Check out the successor project: Renegades (continuation of Zero Hour)
Summary:
- Addon for Mayhem 3 by Joubarbe
- expanded game mechanics + content
- dynamic warfare and diplomacy
- more believable AI from lowest ship level up to the strategy of faction governments
- more activity and bigger fleets but the game still runs better
- less clunky UI and empire automation
Download:
Zero Hour 2.2 (includes ZMap 1.7.4 by Mordan)
->https://drive.google.com/file/d/12qt0h1 ... sp=sharing
Optional sector backgrounds pack:
-> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-yfpHa ... sp=sharing
Note that Cat/Dat files are numbered to match a stock Mayhem 3 installation without any submods and bullet/ship trails not having been disabled by the user.
Installation:
- install Litcube's Universe and Mayhem 3
- download Zero Hour
- extract the download archive directly into your X3 root folder (location of X3AP.exe), override everything
- create at least 1 galaxy map using the original Map Generator (X3/Mayhem Galaxy Generator.exe)
- Run that map from within the Map Generator tool to boot X3 once. Then exit the game.
- create your actual galaxy map with the new ZMap generator (X3/ZMap.1.7/X3_Mayhem_Galaxy_Generator.exe) -> Youtube Tutorial: https://youtu.be/2BLIcpQAH94
- set your galaxy 'active' in ZMap
- run X3AP.exe (non steam version) and start a new game
Ingame encyclopedia has not yet been updated with Zero Hour content!
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Changelog:
2.2 [Mayhem 3.21b] 02/06/2024
Fixes:
- random freezes during battles
- if you had jump beacons in 2 adjacent sectors your ships would always prefer the beacon route even the warpgate was closer
- ZMap feature randomized ship stats was using an outdated file
- recycling Research Station or Solar Power plant would bug out the wares in the nearest Outpost
- blueprints cannot be aquired via Datascanner anymore once the player has sided with the OCV
- friendly OCV was still building Xenon stations in player sectors
Old version 2.1a
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hpPOHb ... sp=sharing
Hotfix a:
- betty can speak again (\mayhem_data\template_00044.xml)
- integrated ZMap 1.7.4
- Xenon U (TL)
- Xenon F (Miner)
- t-file option to allow war declarations by all factions, not just your neighbors (default OFF)
- hide blueprints from ship construction screen
- use Agents to quickly transfer all resources to another Outpost. A new macro can replace your current Agent job list with Export jobs for every ware in the game. Ship components get transported first, followed by station components and then the rest. Waste + Energy are last.
- experimental t-file option "Unlimited Battlegroups" (default OFF)
- removes the global cap for Commonwealth invasion fleets (Battlegroups)
- the AI doesn't cheat and still needs resources to build them
- their currently existing BGs also need to have a minimum average strength level before the AI is allowed to build extra fleets beyond the usual limit
- the coalition mechanic should prevent that the most powerful factions can snowball out of control, but this theory has not been tested. The gameworld might become unstable. Use at your own risk.
- Origin galaxy start rebalanced:
- begins with a new expansion phase -> AI Battlegroups claim empty sectors much faster (and invade each other much less)
- expansion phase will end forever once X amount of Unknown sectors have been claimed by any Commonwealth factions
- where X is a certain % of galaxy size. The exact threshold is hidden and randomly defined at gamestart, ranging from 50 to 70% (t-file customizable)
- maintenance (ship upkeep):
- infamy has less effect on the dynamic upkeep rate for Yaki ships. -25% reduction with infamy (from -50%) and +50% increase without infamy (from +100%)
- using fighters independently without carriers is more expensive:
- passive inspections. Ships docked at carriers slowly reduce their maintenance factor down to 50% (half original cost)
- maintenance factor increases twice as fast on fighters
- fighters base upkeep cost +50% (no upkeep when docked to other ships)
- alternate capship laser graphics
- NPC fleets consider to retreat before battle (not just after suffering losses)
- Nomad Flagship is not boardable (will self destruct immediately)
- research not disabled when you are in permanent war with the manufacturer race
- local Khaak & Xenon get removed when the player's story TL spawns in
- security ship escorts for neutral traders are now capped to 15 ships max. Previously there was no limit, spawning them in excessive numbers if the player had lots of infamy
- OCV Virus Outpost event:
- now halts all crafting progress. Essentially your Outpost cannot finish the construction of infected ships anymore. This should make the event less scary and annoying and the 'Insurance' perk is less important.
- construction of an OCV ship has a 1% chance to trigger the OCV Virus event in that Outpost (ship size or 'Insurance' perk don't matter)
- the virus event tends to end faster when its getting triggered from OCV ship production vs. happening naturally as a typical Outpost disaster
- new Xenon ship types now spoken by ship computer (requires new galaxy)
- 'Drop Station' / 'Drop Station At...' commands didn't work for mining stations (wrong yield)
- removed jumpdrive from Phanon Colony Ship TL
- Xenon F + H wrong cargo capacity
- Player could loose control over his ship's speed throttle when it was leading a fleet
- extra safety against a rare Xenon bug where they would conquer a sector which still had a station left
- Phanon engine colors (thanks XenonArchitect07)
- faction AI didn't manage its standard Crystal economy
- auto-cash transfer and worker settings now removed from factories when player transfers the sector to another faction
- player could transfer sectors to Phanon before their colony ship had arrived
- duplicate laser entries in Outpost storage (retroactive fix)
Synthetic Dawn Fixes (the optional ending where Player joins the OCV was still missing critical gameplay ajdustments):
- Nomad Ozias no longer buildable
- black market closed
- removed 'protectorate' cash penalty
- removed 'killed trading station' penalty
- trading stations not rebuilt in player sectors
- no generic missions
- removed constant rep restoration for Waverider corp (neutral traders)
- Phanon colony ship gets destroyed (don't be inside )
- transfer sector to Xenon now possible with Xenon/OCV capships present
- mission generated Xenons would still attack the player
- turrets of Xenon/OCV don't shoot at player assets and vice versa (additional safety)
- unintentional Player/Xenon/OCV ship attacks between each other abort with a forced relation update (reset to friendly)
- station kills by Xenon/OCV ships in a sector which is currently claimed by the player count as player kills (sector turns abandoned)
- research stations don't make progress. Removed notifications. All previously unlocked blueprints are properly removed now.
- hacking doesn't cost money (free virus/port research)
- mercs get disbanded and cannot be hired anymore
- no more Phanon favors + fixed diplo menu
- auto-build Workers: deletes your saved ship types but keeps desired quantity
- auto-build Fleet followers: deletes your saved ship types and quantity
- ship templates: deletes everything. New templates only allowed for Xenon/OCV/Phanon ships
- free ship upgrades (Triplex Scanner, Transporter Device, etc.)
2.0 [Mayhem 3.21b] 10/28/2023
New game required
Old version 2.0b:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JewF3_ ... sp=sharing
Hotfix a:
- ZMap 1.7.1 - fixed root folder + savegame location getting reset when running the program
- ZMap 1.7.3
- number of shields now affected by ship stat randomizer
- option to randomize stats +/-30%
- bailed and abandoned ships should always have full lasers and shields now
- default Agent job list adjustments (new game only):
- removed duplicate Crystal import job
- reduced import levels for ship parts (to keep all parts balanced and prevent overstocking)
- turrets stop shooting at boarding targets (needs marine contact with ship hull)
- Fleet ships also won't engage, but already ongoing attacks are not aborted (performance reasons). If you simply rejoin all Followers with the fleet after marine hull contact they should not re-engage again
- non fleet ships and other factions continue to shoot at your boarding targets
- rep loss from boarding now happens for the actual ship owner (not the manufacturer race)
- less infamy gains from boarding huge ships
- marine skills:
- mechanical, engineering & hacking skills level up faster
- rookies start with +5 hacking, +20 mechanical and +10 engineering
- marines who already survived their first boarding have a higher chance for a massive fighting skill increase after followup operations
- new TL command 'Drop Station At' (a distant position)
- new 'Defend Position' command. Engages enemies within 10km radius and then returns to original position
- 'Attack All Enemies' no longer requires satellite vision to cover the entire sector
- 'Fly:Safe' once again only available to player assets (fixes some bugs & bad performance)
- renamed 'Collect Astronaut' into 'Collect Marines' (same functionality)
- Strip ship command removed
- removed the concept of individual laser & shield items from the game.
- every ship simply equips the highest compatible DPS laser for free
- laser/shield items still exist, but they cannot be used for anything. No production, recycling or trading
- sometimes lasers/shields drop from kills (hardcoded). You are not supposed to pick them up. These containers get despawned automatically once a Looter searches the sector for stuff to pick up
- all lasers/shield items have a volume of 1, so that they never clutter your cargospace if you ever pick them up.
- standard crystals are now used directly for ship production & ships are 33% more expensive. Global crystal economy got adjusted for this
- ship templates are optional for all empire automation features. You can simply select a ship type to build
- Ship Compendium screen decluttered and added DPS column
- construction backlog will only ever be filled up to 50% by any empire automation features so that the player can always manually order additional ships
- new t-file option to add Quantum Tubes to trading stations (OFF by default because its intended that ship parts are not traded so much between factions so that they can be starved out. But if the long production chain for Quantum Tubes causes you issues you can activate this setting (not retroactive for existing trading stations)
- Energy Cells are now used as resource to make Silicon Wafers (old: C-Rations)
- yields of Ore asteroids now taken into account when considering how many mining stations the NPCs want to build
- slightly reduced global overproduction of many intermediate products like Protein Paste, Chemicals, Teladianium, Microchips, etc. NPCs produce slightly more high-end products like ship parts & Rastar Oil.
- Ore production in the mobile factory never worked
- all Nomad factory ships eventually got stuck trying to produce Ore (this fix is huge for the global economy!)
- Nomad TL factory ships can now detect global shortages and will switch their product if the required resources aren't available anywhere
- Nomads now help to distribute resources on a global scale. This allowed to reduce the amount of wares that trading stations cheat-teleport between each other.
- population growth update cycle doubled (better script performance & reduced food consumption)
- slower pop growth when above 50% pop limit, but extremely fast growth when below 30 people
- added red & yellow crystals to the starting resources of first player Outpost
- reduced Ore volume
- station placement doesn't get blocked by small enemies anymore, only by capships. The AI is now also unable to rebuild its stations when Xenon capships are present.
- all stations cost 33% more
- trade screen: all trade threshold entries where the demand is currently not being met get highlighted (to see at a glance which wares the Outpost wants to buy and sell)
- disassembling factories now rescues all held resources, adding them to the local outpost
- maintenance: building ships with custom quality level is less useful (diminishing returns). 'Normal' quality level or 1 above or below is kind of the new sweetspot. Highest quality (impeccable) should almost never be worth it and lowest level (garbage) leads to an extreme increase in upkeep costs (can still be worth it though if the ship is not supposed to survive very long)
- maintenance: cost cycle increased from 10 min to 60 min for performance gains and for parity with the tax cycle. Maintenance factor still increases at the traditional rate (now +6 per cycle instead of +1. The extra +5 are ONLY applied if you don't change the new default 3600 second maintenance cycle in 9972-L044.xml t-file. If you input any other value the factor will only increase +1 per cycle
- the cash meta is completely different. You get high passive income from your Outposts
- balanced for hard difficulty where you have to pay upkeep for sector ownership & jump beacons
- on easy or normal diff. money should quickly become a non-issue after the earliest stages
- How it works:
- your sectors have a tax efficiency rating which levels up over time
- for smaller empires it levels faster and higher
- tax efficiency gains are semi permanent. It can deteriorate but only very slowly. Early tall playstyle keeps high tax efficiency in the starting sectors even after conquering lots of territory later on.
- Good for tax efficiency:
- having fewer sectors
- short jump distances between your sectors (this considers jump beacons)
- higher station density (it hurts your income when you only plop down a single station to claim many sectors)
- being a nation (huge impact)
- Bad for tax efficiency:
- having many sectors
- long jump distances
- unused station support slots
- nation status has not been aquired yet
- Tax Perk caps your minimum tax efficiency at 100, which is quite low. Its only useful lategame once your empire is large with inefficient natural taxation
- loosing a sector removes all accumulated tax efficiency.
- your oldest sectors will generally form the core of your empire, having the highest tax efficiency ratings. Isolated sectors which are far away from the rest of yor empire will struggle to develop high tax efficiency.
- reduced amount of NPC Agent ships by 33% to reduce idle freighters and to increase trade opportunities
- ~50% less NPC Miners, Explorers, Traders, Looters & Salvage ships but more varied distribution. Some Outposts won't have certain types of Workers, others might have multiple
- lowered max. player miners by 25% but increased general mining rates for Color minerals & crystals by 50%, except Red Mineral + Crystal which were already quite common.
- fixed Miners causing serious lategame performance issues in the 2.0 Beta version.
- improved Architect TL. Works a bit faster and should no longer order excess station kits
- Agents scroll their jobs faster
- default 'Complete' Agent Job preset already active on new Outposts (will do nothing if you don't assign Agents)
- search jump range for Traders/Agents who check 'all reachable factories' is now customizable (t-file, default eight). Jump beacons do NOT reduce this distance. Only bump it up if you have a fast CPU.
- player miners don't get killed from collision with debris anymore (t-file option, default on)
- Explorer workers can be homebased to Outposts
- entire factions can now be added to the Explorer Whitelist (not just sectors)
- more worker slots per outpost (except miners)
- greatly improved "Auto-Replace Worker" and "Fleet Reinforcement" features, both renamed to "Auto-Build" for better clarity
- when lacking resources or crew the Outpost will produce the request ships in smaller batches
- "Auto-Assign" Workers only recruits the correct ship type if one got selected for the "Auto-Build" feature
- you can set exactly how many Workers you want for each type. The Outpost will only assign ships up to the specified amount.
- import/export Worker settings between outposts
- option to assign default Worker settings for new outposts
- workers are now by default hidden in the property screen
- no default worker ship name coloring (can be activated again from Player Console > Global Ship Naming)
- Unknown sectors are claimed much less often and new Unknown sectors will pop up during the game
- Battlegroup invaders sometimes only destroy all stations but not conquer the sector. Depends on territory size (larger faction = more likely) and sector stats (better sector = less likely to be abandoned).
- new t-file setting for desired amount of empty sectors in galaxy (default 5%)
- when there are not enough empty sectors in the galaxy this reduces NPC claim frequency and chance to abandon sectors
- note that this is a 'soft' mechanic. There is no minimum amount of Unknown sectors which must be available at all times. Once allowed in general the factions are free to claim them. This just makes it less likely.
- Yaki arrival event eventually happens automatically after a few days if the player doesn't trigger it
- mercenaries and trading stations no longer become angry if you attack neutral traders. Also now they eventually turn friendly again if they ever end up hating you for some reason.
- Battlegroups estimate the value of sectors different
- Xenon, Player and empty sectors are no longer a special invasion priority
- Trading stations are valued more
- Asteroids less
- more desire to destroy enemy sectors with important ship part industry
- empty sectors can be claimed directly for other factions without reputation losses and from anywhere else in the galaxy. But its not available during the earlygame (you need nation status)
- the AI can refuse to get a sector transferred to them (able to detect certain exploits)
- in order to develop a good or evil personality the most powerful faction in the galaxy doesn't need to dominate as much as before
- free favor actions for coalition allies didn't work
- higher Loyalty gains from Commonwealth kills (no Xenon/OCV/Pirates/Khaak targets). Also depends on ship size now: (M6/TM;M7;M1;M2 > 1;2;3;4 Loyalty)
- three times better discount for buying Favor points with Loyalty points if player doesn't spend all his Loyalty points. Added UI feedback about the exact threshold.
- infamy no longer prevents you from activating favors with your coalition allies
- Zone of Control did nothing on hard difficulty. Now it does but of course its less effective than on easy or normal
- less production boni for small/weak AI factions
- less production boni for every AI faction when the Xenon are strong
- at each factory build cycle the AI can only build in 2 different sectors at the same time. This reduces cases where currently desired factory types gets spammed too much.
- protection favor now forces allied fleets to actually shoot at invaders (your allies and your invaders are oftentimes not enemies)
- AI cannot enter Exodus strategy (trying to expand away from the OCV portal) if the galaxy has just won a Xenon Crisis
- greatly reduced missile spam. Factions equip only about 1/3 of their ships with missiles (except M7M & M8)
- Terrans got buffed. They already had the best ships, but their average fleet size was so low that they tend to loose. Now there is a chance that the Terrans build some of their fleets larger.
- new command: 'Flee to Position'. The old flee command is now called 'Flee to safe Stations'
- new Retreat command. The leader will stop all fighting and rushes to the selected destination. Any orders from empire automation features get suppressed until he reaches this destination. All Followers stay 'with fleet' but don't attack targets within scanning range and they don't go for repairs. They will initiate attacks when being shot at themselves though.
- Basically FLEE means: "Code brown! Run you fools! Every man for himself!". While RETREAT means: "The enemy is still 60km away. Time to get away from them, but stay in my formation and don't scatter to the four winds."
- auto-Hiding & Joining of new fleet members
- fleet merging, splitting & settings import from another commander
- new fleet setting to not respond into a monitored sector if other response fleets are already there or on their way
- some more useful quick-commands in the fleet settings screen
- Followers no longer go for repairs or attacks during Retreat or Flee commands
- the bigger the leader ships is, the further he allows his followers who are 'with fleet' to fall behind before he slows down to let them catch up again.
- leader will no longer wait for any 'with fleet' followers who are currently engaged in a fight, except if they have fallen so far behind that they are not even in the same sector anymore
- fleet commander prefix is now customizable in the t-file 9973-L044.xml
- followers allowed to go for auto-repairs if the only enemies in the sector are freighters
- scanning range: followers don't switch their target so much, especially when attacking stations
- added Quickhacking!
- its finally easy to do hacking, even if you don't invest into perks
- Quickhacks only require your playership with a Hacking Rootkit and 1 Hackerchip
- its a brute force method without delays and random hack efficiency of 30 to 70%
- doesn't work on Oxygen or Accounting subsystems (cannot bail the ship or steal money). Its about the more combat oriented effects (disabling shields, turrets, etc.)
- always gets traced back to you. This means that the subsystem is patched immediately (for the entire ship line)
- additionally all other ports on the quickhacked ship get closed.
- Patched ports last much longer (about 3 days)
- Hackerchips are cheaper
- Port research is instant
- all credit costs rebalanced (mostly reduced)
- detection risks & upload times reduced and now vary between subsystems
- can only select up to 3 relays (performance reasons) but relays are generally more efficient
- UI:
- button to select all relays for virus upload
- button to open closest hacking station directly from ship system screen
- button to transfer 500k credits from hacking station screen
- removed some redundant buttons from ship system screen
- duration of hack effect now displayed when hitting the target (how long shields stay down, etc.)
- Rootkit range 30 km (+10)
- 'Network exploit' is now the most common attack vector. A Network virus is the best now because it can be used against many different types of ships.
- Cyberwar perk:
- works faster (20 min update cycles, from 30 min)
- can install backdoors into all subsystems (Accounting & Oxygen now supported)
- now works for all ship sizes
- will target sectors 3-5 jumps away more often, but still preferring 2 jump range
- cargo system hack will not eject lasers or shields anymore. But massive cost reduction so it can still be useful as relay for other hacks.
- renamed ship systems for clarification. Power > Shields; Cooling > Hull Cooling; Radar > Weapons
- oxygen hack now guaranteed to work at any efficiency level (always suffocating the entire crew). Virus efficiency only affects upload range. Increased virus cost and detection risk.
- oxygen bailed ships can only be claimed by the player (no more AI salvage crews stealing them)
- Weapon hack also disarms ships which are already attacking (not just preventing new target selection)
- Ability to queue up research projects for inactive research stations to work through automatically
- research rate bonus depending on relation to manufacturer race
- +3 for player's origin faction
- +3 from sharing a sector border (wormhole connection)
- +1 for every reputation rank above 5
- +20 from a new diplomatic favor action 'Technology Transfer' (costs 1 favor point, 6 hour duration)
- +50 from being in a coalition
- turrets can track targets beyond 10km. All laser ranges increased
- better capship movement during combat
- keeps greater distance
- less turning, spinning and better usage of verticality to avoid collisions
- attack runs against huge targets always created a circular path around the target with the first nav point always facing north. This was problematic if the attacker was coming from the south (trying to move through the target first). Now the circular movement path begins from the actual attack direction.
- recovery respawn for player owned ships when they die in a collision with another player owned ship
- Orbital Weapon Platforms! Requires station material and black crystals. Global limit is customizable (t-file setting) and gets increased +1 from each new 'Fortress' perk. Factions also build OWPs
- faster capturing of terran jump beacons by the player
- Black Market is always fully unlocked and everything is 50% cheaper, but buying an M7 adds 1 infamy.
- Yaki sabotage feature removed (too artificial and irrelevant)
- Ascension: changed some goals. Increased money reward. Removed Ascension menu from player console after completion.
- changed Merc soft limit mechanics. No suicide runs against OCV Maelstrom. Mercs don't need to be hired to be able to turn into pirates.
- repair speed 5x
- reduced refugee pop limit for Outposts (130% of sector pop limit, from 200%)
- fixed many crashes & freezes
- revised all texts and menus. Shorter, clearer, better.
- new 'Jump Station' perk. Outpost works like a jump beacon which doesn't cost upkeep and the Xenon cannot infect it.
- new 'Fortress' perk:
- combines 'EMP' and 'Ring of Fire'.
- less Lasertowers and without shields, but 5x more hull points and slow respawn for some of them
- also generates free security fighters which cannot leave the sector (Mordan's fighter support perk)
- each Fortress perk also increases your global OWP cap by 1 (can be built in other sectors)
- 'Drydock' perk now reduces upkeep for fighters & corvettes too, but only 25% (capships still get 75% discount)
- Pirate contract:
- now protects against Yaki sector claims (but unlocking it will not abort an ongoing invasion!)
- triples initial fight skill for fresh marine recruits, but only if there is a pirate base or yaki sector up to 1 jump nearby
- removed 'Spaceweed Manufacture' perk (see Drug overhaul)
- Tax perk reduces growth rate more, but not when below 50% pop limit
- the latest Terraformer branch. Friendly to player
- you create their empire from a single colony ship. Gets unlocked during the midgame (nation status)
- its sort of a vassal faction for players who don't want to control a huge empire directly and instead work together with an allied faction (you receive all their sectors after the main plot)
- they can also improve your sectors for a tall playstyle (terraforming)
- new ship set (MSS stellaris port by XenonArchitect)
- if you choose the evil ending Phanon will become a powerful antagonist
- Phanon sectors have a special aura which prevents other Terraformers (Xenon/OCV) from attacking anything in adjacent sectors for reasons unknown. Speculations range from a sensor jamming field to secret contracts with the OCV or everything just being a trap by the AI overlord to lul everyone.
- ingame it works similar to the pirate contract perk, but at a jump range of 1 and it's simply protecting everyone.
- using this you can now set up safe sectors deep inside Xenon territory, even right next to the OCV Maelstrom. Xenons won't invade as long as a Phanon sector is directly adjacent (wormhole connection).
- ships know when they are being protected by this ability and therefore won't attack the Xenon or OCV in these sectors (turrets also hold fire)
- you can override this attack restriction by giving an explicit attack order against a specific Xenon ship. But orders against an unspecified amount of targets like 'Invade' or 'Attack all' will not engage Terraformers
- forced alliance with player. You cannot conquer Phanon sectors (it will just respawn a new Outpost if you try). Your attacks against Phanon ships get ignored by them and it won't drop any loot for you. You are simply intended to be permanent friends with them.
- Xenon + OCV should never attack Phanon (please report a bug if they do)
- Commonwealth factions (Argon, Paranid, etc.) are able to wipe out Phanon because they have dynamic relations. Your relation with other factions is separate from Phanon's and you don't have to follow them into war. But to keep them in the game it might become necessary to give them additional sectors or help defending.
- the favor actions 'Truce', 'Federation' and 'Restriction' cannot be used to protect Phanon against NPC invasions but the 'Pacifism' favor works
- Phanon will never join any coalition or non-aggression agreements with commonwealth factions. Only the standard Truce. Phanon remains neutral during a Xenon Crisis but the Commonwealth will also not attack them during a crisis
- you always have free unlimited favor actions with Phanon
- Phanon fleets use your jump beacon network and their invasions can target any sector in the galaxy
- Phanon Outposts don't generate or buy food (since they are robots)
- Phanon crafting specialization is equal to the abnormal signal strength in their sectors. Once their fleets have been built up they prefer to invade high signal sectors. You can stimulate their ship production by giving them sectors with high abnormal signal strength.
- Phanon ships cannot be hacked, boarded, recycled, scanned or researched. You will get all their ship blueprints after the main plot.
Spaceweed/Drug overhaul
- removed Spaceweed perk. All Player Outposts slowly generate weed for free. Selling all of it is almost impossible. The goal is rather to sell as much as possible.
- infamy still increases production (up to doubling it)
- space weed is no longer blacklisted by default (nobody will scan your ships in ZH)
- pirate bases buy huge amounts of space weed, but you generally don't want them near your Outposts and factions tend to destroy them eventually until they get rebuilt somewhere else
- some NPC factories have limited demand for drugs as secondary resource, but these clients must be discovered first (the more the better)
- your Traders have a small chance to passively discover new clients on each trade deal, but only if you have infamy
- player activity 'Cargo Hauler' detects clients even without infamy (your striking charisma)
- new diplomatic favor action 'Reduce Drug Controls' immediately unlocks many clients at once. It only costs 1 Favor point, but activation gives you +10 infamy
- Nomad TS Traders are the only NPC ships who might come to your Outposts to buy spaceweed
- its now possible to attract their mobile factory TLs to visit your sectors specificallly. This is more likely if you are a large seller for the resources that they currently need
- the TL ship names now indicate what they are producing
- lets say a Nomad TL is currently producing C-Rations so it needs Protein Paste. If your Outpost sells more Protein Paste compared to other factions, then this Nomad TL will visit your sector more often.
- he brings his TS followers who will buy your Protein Paste to supply their TL
- on every such trade the Nomad TS also buys 10% of your current Spaceweed stockpile as an extra (the more you have stored the better)
- the TS crew consumes the weed while still being on your Outpost. You get money and the Nomad flagship is able to generate mercs a bit better for some time
Terraforming overhaul
- complete rework. Terraforming is now more of a strategic process instead of a tower defense mechanic
- it has more benefits. Every terraformed planet increases all sector stats by 25% and adds an extra perk slot. The unique planet bonus gets added ontop of all of this.
- sector stat gains get multiplied ontop of each other, so terraforming multiple planets in the same sector can be super powerful (sectors can have up to 5 planets)
- terraforming is done by the friendly robot population of the new 'Phanon' faction. It goes faster if Phanon has more people (Outposts).
- every ongoing terraforming project must constantly get supervised by an adjacent Phanon sector. If this sector connection breaks before completion you will loose all planet progress.
- terraforming multiple planets at the same time gives a global efficiency bonus, but workforce still gets split, so it will take longer to finish the last planet project.
- terraforming is a huge strain on Phanon's economy. Their population will be busy on your planet. During that time they cannot build any new factories and almost no new ships. This only ends once all planet projects are done.
- your local outposts will also be out of order for the duration (serves as Phanon's terraforming base)
- in case of an emergency you can abort terraforming projects to unlock your Outpost and give Phanon their population back
- Phanon doesn't charge you money for their terraforming services. But they still want something in return. For every terraformed planet (including ongoing projects) they will demand that their empire owns 1 extra sector. You don't necessarily need to transfer any sectors to them. Its also fine if they manage to expand on their own (but its highly unlikely unless their faction is already well established).
- if you choose the evil ending (join the OCV) then the Xenon will replace Phanon as your new terraforming partner faction. Xenon stations provide more terraforming workforce, but they demand 3 times more territory for themselves compared to Phanon.
- tweaked planet boni:
- reputation bonus 10x better
- favor point bonus 3x better
- removed crafting specialization bonus (overpowered) & mining rate bonus (performance hog)
- perk bonus more common
- when factions declare war on you and you have high rank or loyalty there is a good chance to receive an ultimatum instead.
- they will demand a specific sector (of their choosing). You get 1 hour to transfer sector ownership to them.
- doing this gives you a long lasting non aggression pact
- not giving in leads to war
- rep rank 7 or higher makes it very likely that you get an ultimatum but its never guaranteed
- especially scummy factions like Yaki or Split will always have a certain chance to backstab you immediately, even at high rank or Loyalty (depending on their 'Ethos', see t-file setting).
- new main plot with 2 endings. Help Phanon to remove the Xenons and OCV from the game or join the machines to conquer the galaxy
- increased potential for Xenon escalation
- Xenon invader fleet limit is now dynamic. +1 fleet for every 5 Xenon sectors (new t-file setting)
- Xenon fleet limit applies separately for small and big invader fleets each (not combined for both). This prevents cases where no more Xenon capships were allowed to spawn because the Xenon already had too many small raider fleets.
- Xenon fleets are now able to conquer faction sectors just like the OCV (they don't create empty sectors anymore). But only the OCV can conquer a sector which was already empty.
- Xenon reinforcement rate scales to galaxy size (larger = faster) and on hard difficulty it also scales with Xenon territory size!
- when the OCV go into overdrive mode this also buffs up the Xenon now (overdrive mode can only happen if the Xenon territory is still small and they have struggled to expand for a while)
- Xenon Crisis mechanic
- the level of Xenon/OCV progress which is required before the Xenon crisis can be triggered is more varied. Sometimes the Xenon need to overrun the galaxy, other times the UNC might overreact and push them back very early.
- faction voting has more influence, i.e. the crisis tends to happen much earlier if the majority of factions wants this
- previously the crisis had a very small chance to trigger earlier even when more than 50% of faction votes were still contra. This got removed. Absolute voting majority is now a required to trigger the crisis prematurely.
- more refugee ships from factories destroyed by Terraformers
- less Xenon defense fleets
- certain Xenon & OCV ships were still attacking player owned Terraformer ship designs
- on hard difficulty the OCV started with too many ships and a buggy Mammoth herd
- Xenon ship types are now buildable in sectors with abnormal signals
- OCV fighters and corvettes are more expensive
- fixed teleporting out of OCV ships being considered a self destruction (which incurs a fine)
- new Xenon TS (design by XenonArchitect). Its a freighter which doesn't get attacked by Xenon or OCV. Very useful to loot or trade safely near the Xenon border.
- new Xenon M7M
- fixed inactive Xenon ships