Xenon specifics

DA-Eco makes a deliberate design choice: Xenon are fundamentally different from other factions, so most DA improvements skip them. In exchange, Xenon get their own dedicated systems.

Why Xenon are different

Three engine-level facts about Xenon:

1. No workforce. Xenon habitation modules don’t exist. All DA-Eco improvements that boost production via workforce (product=0.5, cycle=0.5) don’t apply to Xenon.
2. No DA-ware consumption. DA schematics require workforce → Xenon can’t produce them → not part of their supply chain.
3. No racial structural connectors. struct_xen_* macros don’t exist in the vanilla asset set, so DAImproveStationLayouts has nothing to place.

If DA applied its normal improvements to Xenon stations, most of them would silently fail or produce broken layouts. The clean solution: skip Xenon in the general subsystems and give them dedicated Xenon-only logic.

What Xenon skip

DA-Eco’s exemption list:

Subsystem	Xenon action
DAIncreaseStartingStorage	Skipped — Xenon use staged construction (module-by-module growth)
DAImproveStationLayouts	Skipped — no struct_xen_* connectors exist
Defence module rebalance	Skipped — Xenon defence works via spawned fleets, not station modules
constructionbias=10.0	Skipped — horizontal-growth bias would fail with Xenon’s limited connector set

What Xenon get instead

Xenon Ship Construction Manager

Custom Ship Construction Manager (SCM) implemented in md/xenon_job_helper_da.xml (176 lines).

Why vanilla failed

Vanilla’s Ship Construction Manager expects the shipyard to have a controlpost.shiptrader entity — the NPC ship-trader who handles orders. Xenon factions have no shiptrader control post because Xenon aren’t shopping — they build for themselves.

Result: vanilla SCM refused to place build orders at Xenon shipyards, so Xenon-owned shipyards produced nothing.

Custom SCM approach

The DA Xenon SCM:

1. find_waiting_subordinate/job_ship for jobs marked as needing ship construction. Capped at 20 outstanding orders.
2. find_station canbuildships=true canbuildfor=$Faction hascontrolentity=controlpost.shiptrader — but for Xenon this returns 0 stations, so drop to:
3. find_station canbuildships=true canbuildfor=$Faction — Xenon shipyard directly.
4. For each ship: pick the closest shipyard by gatedistance, verify the ship class is in BuildableShipWares, check dock size, call add_build_to_construct_ship.

Result: Xenon shipyards actually build Xenon fleets. Without this, DA-Eco stations sit idle waiting for orders that never come.

Dispatch mechanism

md/factionlogic.xml wraps vanilla Ship_Construction_Manager in DAEco_SCM_Handler. IntervalChecker runs every 70-90 seconds:

• For Xenon → signal DAEco Xenon Job Helper.
• For everyone else → signal vanilla Job Helper.

The Xenon flag is set in setup_mod_daeco_v2.xml:101 at gamestart.

3 dedicated Xenon jobs

Added in libraries/jobs.xml:

Job id	Ship class	Galaxy count	Purpose
xenon_free_miner_m_ore_da	M miner	72	Xenon ore mining
xenon_free_miner_m_silicon_da	M miner	72	Xenon silicon mining
xenon_stationtrader_m_da	M trader	60	Xenon inter-station trader

Vanilla Xenon had no mining/trader jobs at all — they consumed resources by generation without moving them. DA-Eco fills this gap with dedicated Xenon economy ships.

Xenon energy cells — separate recipe

From libraries/wares.xml:

Adds a separate production method of energy cells for Xenon with values balanced for lack of workforce.

Vanilla’s shared energycells recipe assumes workforce boost. Xenon can’t take it, so their energy cell production suffers. DA adds a Xenon-specific energy cell production path with tuned amounts and costs that assume 0 workforce. Xenon energy cell production is slower per module but doesn’t require habitation.

Xenon storage sizing

Xenon are skipped in DAIncreaseStartingStorage, but Xenon stations do get storage — just via the vanilla path (staged construction adds storage modules as production ramps up).

Consequence: Xenon storage may be smaller than DA-boosted lawful stations. This is intentional — Xenon expand differently, and imposing 12h-projection storage on staged-construction stations would produce oddly sized initial builds.

What Xenon SHARE with other factions

Not everything is Xenon-different. Xenon still benefit from:

• Bigger factories mechanic — Xenon production modules can grow up to 5 per station (via libraries/parameters.xml production limits).
• Baskets — Xenon appear in some baskets and can trade with Xenon-owned trade stations (though this is rare — no Xenon trade stations in vanilla).
• libraries/loadoutrules.xml — Xenon ships get transport-drone weight adjustments same as everyone else.

Debug / verification

To verify Xenon SCM is active:

1. Check md.$DAEcoVarTable.$ShipManagerDA.{faction.xenon} — should be true after gamestart.
2. Look for [DAEco/XenSCM] debug log lines in script.log when the interval fires (every 70-90s).
3. Observe Xenon shipyards actively producing ships in DA Information Menus → Sector Details — if Xenon-owned shipyards show 0 ship production over time, the SCM dispatch has failed.

Related pages

• Mechanics overview — where Xenon skipping fits in the overall architecture
• Storage sizing — DYN formula that Xenon are exempt from
• Station improvements — the subsystems Xenon skip
• Library changes → jobs.xml — where the 3 Xenon jobs are defined