PEO — Player Economy Overhaul

A suite of four X4: Foundations extensions focused on making the player-run economy faster, bigger, and less noisy at scale. Written by and for a solo player/modder — pragmatic, vanilla-friendly, and biased toward letting vanilla systems do the work whenever possible.

Quick start

1. Copy each folder under dist/ into your X4 Foundations extensions directory:

   dist/peo_economy/    →  <X4 install>/extensions/peo_economy/
   dist/peo_fleet_ai/   →  <X4 install>/extensions/peo_fleet_ai/
   dist/peo_resources/  →  <X4 install>/extensions/peo_resources/
   

   On a default Steam install that's C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extensions\.

2. Disable Protected UI Mode in X4: Settings → Game Settings → turn off Protected UI Mode. This is required because peo_fleet_ai ships Lua UI modifications, and X4 silently refuses to load them with protected UI on.

3. Enable the extensions in the in-game extension manager, then start or load a save.

(peo_alerts isn't in dist/ yet; see the extensions table below.)

Extensions

Extension	What it does	Status
peo_fleet_ai	Five custom trade/mine/export orders (Hauler, Haul for Station, Station Miner, Export Goods, Exporter) with manager-range routing, multi-drop deliveries, and proper warebasket handling. Added alongside vanilla orders, not replacing them.	Production
peo_economy	Data-only rebalance: 10× station storage, 2×/3×/4×/6× ship storage by size class, per-faction god quotas, per-station module limits. Fully DLC-aware (Boron, Split, Terran, Pirate, Timelines, mini 01/02).	Production
peo_resources	MD script that seeds high-yield resource fields near player stations when the station's required minables aren't already available in the cluster. Capped at 3/sector and 50 galaxy-wide.	Production
peo_alerts	Economy notifications: critical stock warnings (< 5%), station-under-attack alerts.	Work in progress — not yet built into dist/

See each extension's own README for details, parameters, and compatibility notes.

Building

tools/build.py packages each extension into the format X4 actually loads: content.xml (unpacked) plus ext_01.cat/ext_01.dat for extension data, and subst_01.cat/subst_01.dat for UI file substitutions (Lua files are renamed to .xpl on the way in, matching the UIX convention).

python tools/build.py

The script clears and recreates dist/ on every run and packages the three production extensions (peo_economy, peo_fleet_ai, peo_resources). peo_alerts is currently excluded until it's ready.

The dist/ folder in this repository is the latest build — you don't need to run build.py yourself unless you've changed source files under extensions/. Install directly from dist/ and it will match what the build script would produce.

Installing

tools/install.ps1 (Windows/PowerShell) runs the build, then copies each built extension from dist/<ext>/ into the X4 Foundations extensions directory, overwriting any previous install.

pwsh tools/install.ps1

The script assumes the default Steam install path (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extensions). Edit $GameExtDir at the top of the script if your install is elsewhere.

Manual install (any OS): copy each folder under dist/ into your X4 extensions/ directory. Then enable the extensions in the in-game extension manager and start or load a save.

Repository layout

x4ai/
├── extensions/          # Mod sources (the real code)
│   ├── peo_alerts/      # MD notifications (WIP)
│   ├── peo_economy/     # Data patches: storage, god, modules
│   ├── peo_fleet_ai/    # Custom trade/mine/export AI orders
│   └── peo_resources/   # Dynamic resource seeding
├── dist/                # Packaged builds ready to drop into X4 (latest)
│   ├── peo_economy/     # content.xml + ext_01.cat/dat
│   ├── peo_fleet_ai/    # + subst_01.cat/dat for UI
│   └── peo_resources/
├── tools/               # Build, install, and maintenance scripts
│   ├── build.py         # Package extensions/ into dist/
│   ├── install.ps1      # Build + copy to X4 extensions folder
│   ├── update_cargo.py  # Retune ship storage multipliers
│   ├── update_storage.py# Retune station storage multiplier
│   ├── fix_cargo_bases.py
│   ├── apply_patches.py
│   ├── extract_cat.py
│   └── pack_cat.py
├── vanilla*/            # Extracted vanilla + DLC game data, used as
│                        # reference by fix_cargo_bases.py and other tools
└── docs/                # Reference notes

Maintenance scripts

Beyond the build/install pipeline, tools/ also contains helpers for mass-editing the repetitive storage values in peo_economy:

• tools/update_cargo.py — rewrites ship storage multipliers in extensions/peo_economy/assets/units/size_*/macros/. Class-based: S=2×, M=3×, L=4×, XL=6× by default. Edit the NEW_MULTIPLIERS dict at the top and rerun.
• tools/update_storage.py — rewrites station storage multipliers in extensions/peo_economy/assets/structures/storage/macros/ and DLC equivalents. Single flat MULTIPLIER = 10 constant. Edit and rerun.

Both scripts are idempotent — they only touch files where the computed value differs from what's on disk. See extensions/peo_economy/README.md for details, scope, and the known coverage gap around assets/props/StorageModules/macros/.

Development workflow

1. Edit source under extensions/<mod>/.
2. python tools/build.py to repackage dist/.
3. pwsh tools/install.ps1 to deploy to X4 (or copy manually).
4. Restart X4 and reload the save.