K

### Summary

The K fills the Xenon Destroyer capital ship role and is one of two reasons why an X4 game will always end-up with a combat element to it, no matter how hard the player attempts to avoid combat in their game. Currently we are not able to purchase, construct, or pilot any Xenon ships without mods or hacks, but in the encyclopedia it does seem to offer space for one crew (pilot) and it does list its construction material, potentially allowing for implementation later-on as with X3.

Do not be fooled into thinking fighting a Xenon K will be as easy as fighting even a Xenon P with a couple of escorts. Xenon capital ships pack a punch with large turrets that can lay waste to stations with even reasonably good defenses. In fact one of the first signs of a Xenon capital appearance is frequently the rate at which a station outside of your active view on the map appears to be losing hull. To make matters worse, the Xenon K often appears with a sizeable swarm of smaller Xenon sub-capital fighters including P gunships and a lot of M heavy fighters. Another way that the Xenon K can be a real problem is if one appears as support to a Xenon I.

These ships can be handled in one of four ways

1. Place Defense Stations with a lot of Plasma turrets (since they do a lot of damage but their poor tracking speed doesn't matter against ships of this size) at strategic points that matter to you in game. As this is the equivalent of completing a Defense Station deployment mission for a faction and those are rated as hard (as much due to the cost as anything else) - you won't be doing this too early on. However it does have the advantage of stopping you having to destroy every Xenon capital ship that turns-up, which is frequently once you get not even that far in to a game.
2. Build your own Destroyers and use them as a mobile version of the option above. Again, expensive but more flexible. Obviously there's a real risk you'll lose ships (or credits if you see it that way), particularly as Xenon capitals pack a real punch for their hull size, as do all Xenon ships.
3. Build one gunship and fly into the Xenon ship's blind-spot. I find the Paranid Nemesis Vanguard is good for this but you can use anything--I cannot say there's a bad choice here, apart from taking on a capital with it. I sometimes build two or even more and then have the others dock in-system. Now you can personally take the Xenon ship out by flying your gunship into a blind spot and using the Xenon ship's own inertia ("drag-along" phenomenon) to assist with staying in its blind spot. You can't actually destroy it this way because the shields are simply too strong, but you can pick-off all of the modules one-by-one. Once the Xenon ship has no engines and no guns, you can call in the rest of your fleet to overload the main shields. The hull is very weak underneath and the Xenon will be destroyed by mass-fire without much opportunity to retaliate.
4. Ignore Xenon capitals completely. They *will* move on, sooner or later, it just takes a long time and they may indeed move on to your second-favorite station, having just destroyed your most-favorite one. This choice isn't really practical for a simple reason - if you ever want to build your own base, these Xenon attacks can happen to you too, and simply dropping a lot (trust me, I've tried) of laser towers won't stop these ships. Even mine fields have minimal effect on them. Static defenses will only ever delay Xenon incursion. To stop them, you'll need your own fleet.

### Production

As previously mentioned it is not possible to produce or capture xenon ships but the encyclopedia still lists its construction material

* 2908x Energy Cell
* 2437x Ore
* 2447x Silicon

### Notes

The 13 turrets on the Xenon K are a mixture of Pulse Laser turrets of various size. The medium ones sit in groups are provide some degree of fighter cover, protected by small Shield Generator modules nearby on the hull. The remaining turrets (six in the case of the Xenon K) are large laser turrets and these are for engaging XL ships and bases. A couple of hits from these will destroy pretty much any sub-capital fighter but they normally lack the tracking to hit those ships unless they are not moving very much.

Most of the Xenon K's 20 shield generators are small-or-medium-sized and designed primarily to protect the ship's subsystems and turrets. Destroying these shield generators will make the K's subsystems vulnerable, especially to anti-hull and AOE weapons which are normally poor against shields. Only two of the shields modules on this hull are XL sized, but they still provide formidable general protection to the Xenon K. As discussed, mines and laser towers are highly ineffective against the Xenon K, as the K's shields recharge quickly and will absorb the damage. Therefore, in most cases, you'll encounter this ship on full shields, even if it's battled through NPC fighters and station defenses on its way to get to you.

The Xenon K has two engine modules, which if destroyed, will render the ship immobile apart from a very slight rotation and strafe (eliminated entirely by the "drag-along" effect granted to very nearby S and M craft). Please note that engine destruction is temporary, so don't be surprised if the ship starts moving again while you're finishing-off those shields. Your best bet, therefore, is to call in the rest of your fleet to finish off the disabled K before it can repair and escape.