DA Jobs
DA’s overhaul of the vanilla faction-jobs system. Two independent subsystems live under this menu:
- Expeditions — long-range XL-flagship attack fleets similar to Terran Interventions. Each
tag.claimspacefaction gets one active expedition at a time. - Smart Sector Tags (SST) — per-faction, per-sector-role fleet quotas. Sectors are classified as Critical / Core / Border / Contested and each faction has quota rows per role × ship class.
In-game view
Section titled “In-game view”
Layout:
- Top section (
DA Jobs Options) — 6 configurable fields covering subsystem master toggles + 3 debug channels. - Bottom section (
DA Jobs Menus) — 2 sub-menus for per-faction quota editing and vanilla-job whitelist management.
DA Jobs Options
Section titled “DA Jobs Options”| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Expeditions | Enabled | Master toggle for the Expeditions subsystem. $DAJobsEXPEnable in source. |
| Enable Smart Sector Tags | Enabled | Master toggle for the SST subsystem — turns per-faction fleet quotas on/off. $DAJobsSSTEnable. |
| Remove Space Job Exclusivity | Enabled | Allows multiple factions to simultaneously patrol the same “contested” sector. Off = classical DA behavior (single dominant patroller per contested sector). $DAJobsSSTRemoveExclusivity. |
| Enable Jobs Exped Debug | Disabled | Verbose [JOBSEXP] log lines. $DAJobsEXPDetailedDebug. |
| Enable Jobs SST Debug | Disabled | Verbose [JOBSSST] log lines. $DAJobsSSTDetailedDebug. |
| Enable Jobs SST Extra Debug | Disabled | Very verbose — every ship-order attempt is logged. Diagnostic only, huge spam. $DAJobsSSTXtremelyDetailedDebug. |
DA Jobs Menus
Section titled “DA Jobs Menus”- Jobs Quotas — per-faction quota tables. Each faction has one entry, expanding it reveals sliders for Critical/Core/Border/Contested Sector Patrol + L/M Trader + L/M Mineral Miner + L/M Gas Miner rows.
- Vanilla Spawned Jobs Menu — whitelist of specific vanilla job IDs that DA leaves alone. Per-job Enable/Disable toggle.
Expeditions — how the subsystem works
Section titled “Expeditions — how the subsystem works”DA maintains a dynamic list of tag.claimspace factions eligible for expeditions (populated at gamestart from get_factions_by_tag, so modded factions plug in without patching DA). Each eligible faction gets one active expedition at a time — an XL flagship + escort tree launched from that faction’s shipyard, patrolling distant sectors.
When the expedition flagship dies or the expedition completes, DA queues a replacement from a faction shipyard with a full loadout. Requires Enable Expeditions to be on.
v2.0.0 change (mlog013): modded factions are enumerated dynamically instead of via the original hardcoded 8-faction list. Companion compat mods (Apus, ETW) add tag.claimspace to their factions and they participate automatically.
See Modded-faction dynamic support for the architecture.
Smart Sector Tags (SST) — how the subsystem works
Section titled “Smart Sector Tags (SST) — how the subsystem works”Each sector is classified into one of four roles per faction:
- Critical — main-arterial defensive sectors (usually where the faction’s headquarters or highest-value shipyard sits).
- Core — inner-territory sectors well inside the faction’s borders.
- Border — sectors touching hostile-neighbor faction borders.
- Contested — sectors bordering Xenon fronts or heavily-disputed frontiers.
Each faction × role × ship-class combination has a Galaxy Quota (total ships in that pool across the entire galaxy) and a Sector Quota (max ships of that role in any one sector) plus a Fleet Size selector (Small = 1 escort per flagship, Medium = 2, Large = 3).
DA’s runtime scheduler continuously monitors these pools. When a patrol is destroyed and the pool drops below the Galaxy Quota, DA queues a replacement order at a faction shipyard. Requires Enable Smart Sector Tags to be on.
Fully-editable per-faction values live in the Jobs Quotas sub-menu. Roles per faction:
- Critical / Core / Border / Contested Sector Patrol (fleet-based, units = Fleets)
- L Trader / M Trader (ship-based, units = Ships)
- L Mineral Miner / M Mineral Miner (ship-based, units = Ships)
- L Gas Miner / M Gas Miner (ship-based, units = Ships)
Modded factions: SST automatically enumerates factions with the required job tags. Without a companion compat mod, a modded faction row will show “No suitable ships available!” — the compat mod is what registers the modded ship classes into DA’s job pool.
Related subsystems documented elsewhere
Section titled “Related subsystems documented elsewhere”Two additional job-adjacent subsystems live under a different menu:
- Station Subordinate Traders (ST) — subordinate M-traders for player-friendly trade stations. Introduced Phase 2+3+5v2. Configured in Mlog Trade Optimizer.
- Production Station Traders (PST) — subordinate M-traders for production factories. Introduced Phase 4. Configured in Mlog Trade Optimizer.
These were originally planned as separate submenus but Phase 5v2 (mlog094) merged them into the Trade Optimizer menu as sub-sections rather than adding another top-level DA menu entry.
Gameplay effect at recommended defaults
Section titled “Gameplay effect at recommended defaults”- Any given sector inside a lawful faction’s Core zone has 2-4 patrol groups active at any time.
- A Critical sector (with an important shipyard) has 4-8 patrol groups.
- Xenon incursions get repelled unless heavily outnumbered.
- Each faction has one XL-flagship expedition running somewhere in the galaxy, hunting distant targets.
- Player-friendly trade stations get their own 20-M-trader logistics net automatically.