Sector capture

[Chewie]

Having used the script to add Race Wars/Sector Capturing, I decided that the race that colonised a new sector should do something with it... so initially it would seek high yield asteroids and build (replace them with) an Ore/Silicon mine; if there were no high yield asteroids, it would build a basic foodstuff/energy plant and on the next capture it would build some technology plant. Each time a sector was captured, the race would have to leave some patrol ships.

This meant that over time, new trade routes would open up and as a side effect, when a race captured a busy sector, that invading race would gain ownership of the existing mines, factories and energy plants!

[Chris Gi]

Yeah, race wars is one of those great community scripts that are one of the must-have extensions to X2 in my opinion. However, we felt the same way as you do - it should have some effects.

So we came up with the concept of "Border Wars": a race may try to capture a sector adjacent to it's own territory. Sector ownership is marked by having a Trading Station of the owner race. If it gets destroyed, the sector is no longer considered to be owned by a race. According to Teladi law, the first one to build a Trading station in a sector without an owner takes possession of the sector - and this also is true for the player.
However, since (or in case) there are not many military ships left in the sector, the first ones to show up are Pirates. And the expelled race is seeking revenge...

This is just a quick sketch of the Border War concept. It's one of the most complex features of Pandora, and some of the preparatory work is not yet finished (like finishing the concepts for the ship classes and the corresponding fighting routines).
By the way: when the ownership of a sector changes, it's name changes too. Thus, we need a lot more sector names for all major races. If you can think of some names, please feel free to post them!

[AmadanLegre]

Hi Chewie! I never used the Race War mod, but I agree it'd be nice if races did something with the sectors they grabbed or gained something from them. As it's, since I haven't used those sorts of scripts, I can't really comment on them specifically. But I imagine that when a attacker captures another sector that they might gain ready access to weapons that the captured sector produces? Or maybe the sector has a steady supply of solar cells that the attacker can exploit. If the X-universe has a constant presence of military conflict then every captured station is a plus too. If the attacker's enemies don't have jumpdrive then it puts space between the attacker's inner sectors and their enemies. And even if their enemies do have jumpdrive it spreads out their assets.

I never got deep enough into X2 to come to all this. I only ever just created 4 or so "complexes" in my best game. If I had gone further I would have produced fleets and probably would have wanted more larger scale conflict. As it was, I was interested in adjusting the Khaak/pirate presence to make things more interesting, But I just didn't have a larger enough empire to start comprehending racial wars.