The Kha’ak are a permanent menace. They have “jump” drives so can appear out of nowhere, they’re very fast and hard to hit, and they have highly accurate weapons.

Fortunately, they have weak ships so are comparatively easy to destroy (once you get your ship to them, and can hit them).

The Ka’ak do not communicate, and do not interact with any faction. They are the “unknowable alien menace” of the X4 universe.

Why they attack

They live in asteroids and crystals and whatnot (they have a whole lore in X games), and they object to mining. Nividium mining especially. Do too much mining in a sector, they’ll take notice.

Mining nividium has the biggest effect, then silicon, then ore. Collecting gasses does not count. The more you and the factions mine, the angrier the ka’ak get, and eventually their ships will start appearing to attack miners.

Why some sectors, not others

Some sectors have a “hive” or an “outpost” (or both). They’re essentially ka’ak stations, located way out on the far edges of the sector, where you’ll likely miss them unless you go looking. These installations make frequency and severity of attacks dramatically worse. Destroying them will gain you a very long grace period in which the ka’ak problem is dramatically reduced.

If you notice any ka’ak in sectors where mining is happening, pay attention. It’s probably going to get much worse if you ignore it.

There is a fixed list of sectors where Hives can spawn:

• Antigone Memorial
• Black Hole Sun V
• Company Regard
• Heretic’s End
• Lasting Vengeance
• Matrix 451
• Open Market
• Pious Mists IV
• Silent Witness X11

Installations can spawn in any sector near a Hive sector.

Ka’ak fighters can appear in sectors up to three sectors away from a Hive sector, and will focus on attacking miners.

Destroying hives

Hives are large bases with surrounding defense stations. Installations are smaller stations without defense stations.

Destroying Hives and Installations is fairly straightforward and safe with two or three destroyers, with some precautions:

• Try not to get too close; use destroyer main weapons, and set L turrets to “attack capital ships” and all M turrets to “attack fighters”
• Expect a fighter swarm to appear when the attack begins, and have strong shields and anti-fighter turrets to handle it.
• Destroy the smaller Defense stations around the main hive first, circling around the station to attack them individually.
• Keep your destroyers from moving into range of several defense stations and/or the main hive simultaneously; individually they’re not powerful, but several firing at once is bad.
• Allow your destroyers plenty of time to do the job (it can take a long while).

Attacking hives with fighters can be difficult due to the highly accurate short-range beam weapons on the stations. Fighters also may have difficulty surviving the the initial defensive fighter response from such such stations.

Protecting miners

M-size mining ships are ka’ak breakfast snacks. L-size ships with strong shields are much harder to destroy, but still need turrets that can track fast targets. Some nearby response ships to respond to miners in distress can help tremendously.

Assigning fighters to protect your M miners will generally be unsuccessful. The way fleets are handled in X4 leaves much to be desired, and your “protect” fighters that are supposed to be with the miner will often end up too far away to be of any actual use, or will respond too slowly.

Supplying your miners with laser towers and giving them a default “Response to attack” setting of “flee and drop laser towers” can help.