I am very sad for the future of X4

[warjager]

I know the OP feeling.Its not that we hate Egosoft and all, but that we dont understand why a game 3 year after its OFFICIAL release, is still playing like a beta. Pretty sure if it was advertised as a early acces (as it really are) and cost less because of that, people would complain less about it. I really think that most of the complain they have in the game is not really related in MAJORITY to the adding or substracting of a feature or system, but more on the half baked one that we have in place right now.

I'm on the 4.0beta, and i must tell that they are really on the right path, but sadly, its only a start (at least i see hope). I know that, when you have fun and everything playing, and suddently, the poor ai slap you in the face, breaking this fun immersion you were living, its really infuriating.

Again, personally i dont hate on Egosoft,they do their job the best they can ... i just dont understand, as a customer who had paid the full price for the game (AND a dlc!), why the product that i've baught, is still broken down after 3 year (lazyness? not enought feedback from player? want to acquire more money with more dlc? Dunno cause Egosoft dont talk about this). And for people who will tell me that it's not broken... thats you own opinion, but for me, if a game that i have fun in suddently or partially broke my immersion, its BROKEN, end of argument. I got game in my steam library that play like it should and its fun, and when i stop playing them, i'ts because my craving for that type of game is over, not because it suddently break my immersion because of a technical problem.

[jlehtone]

for me, if a game that i have fun in suddently or partially broke my immersion, its BROKEN, end of argument

Agreed. Like you say, "thats your own opinion".

[Ovni]

" .. even simple turn off and turn on in gameplay option to keep everyone happy .." Let's hope dev CBJ is looking elsewhere ...

You are using am X Rebirth thread, while we are talking about X4.

Looks like the whole point of the linked post flew completely over your head. It's a general statement about options being very bad for game development, from a game design, development, testing and stability point of view. It's such a well-known principle that the Battle for Wesnoth open-source project's original developers had a saying: "Options Are Bad". It applies to developing any game out there. That it was posted with X Rebirth as context is completely irrelevant.

many of the long term players are now ridiculously old and flatulent.

Well played, you really cracked me up with this. From now on, I'll be visualizing all my forum interlocutors as farty, mostly toothless old geezers shaking their canes at the monitor while cursing at the damn kids on their lawn. I wonder how far from the truth this is .

[Alan Phipps]

Damn, did my webcam switch itself on again?

[jlehtone]

From now on, I'll be visualizing all my forum interlocutors as farty, mostly toothless old geezers shaking their canes at the monitor while cursing at the damn kids on their lawn. I wonder how far from the truth this is .

If one could trust Off Topic, particularly the Covid thread, then you are spot on.

[Mr.Killer]

Somebody interrupt me if I talk nonsense, but I see three options for getting crew for ships:

1.) You order them together with the ship, easy as pie. For now this has been no problem for me, there was always enough crew available (thousands).
2.) If you found the ship lying by the side of the road, you fly it to an equipment dock/shipyard/wharf and restock crew there.
3.) You walk around on the platforms and buy out the crew members you meet. If you have own stations with hab modules you just order them elsewhere. They're yours anyway.

... and one option for getting crew on a station (apart from the manager, which is ordered there personally):

1.) You buy a faction's hab module plan (expensive) and construct the hab module/s on each station. A hab module needs food of sorts and medical supplies. Station crew is then 'produced' automagically by the hab module/s you've constructed on that station until it reaches the limit you see in the Logical Overview dialogue.

hth, if not, describe the problem in more detail and good luck, pilot

Man, it is not how I don't know how to get personel onboard, it is the core situation, when other factions buy a ship from your shipyard, do you think they are eager to come back when there is no crew on board? or that it takes a very long time to produce a ship caused by the lack of personel that actually builds the ship? (How Egosoft did this is a mystery to me) Or even building a ship with no personel, and ordering one ship, you check all the facts needed, but que-up a line of 100 or so ships, then you do not check every damn ship, but it is getting build anyway when material is there... The fact that a damaged ship does not get repaired by its crew is because... THERE IS NO CREW!!!!!!
So your scarce builded line of ships send into battle come out very tormented, and noone onboard that can slowly fix it a bit. That is what happens....
Stations, and I mean 6 times 2000 habitat modules, 8 food modules, same number medical, Spice, meat, Nostropoil, I mean, all the stuff is there, and no personel, not a buttload that wants to work in a good and healthy station, building ships on the factory line, on and on........ Nope....

Managers? Why do we have them? If I had a gun in the game, I would certainly put one to his head and tell him to start working and earning some money..... (Hypothetically of course)

[hxsgame]

NO FREAKING CARGO SHIP OF MINE would even use its brain to pick cargo up and place it back in buildcargo, no they send super slow drones to pick it up, and by the time they are back with the first box, the rest is gone, THAT HOW SMART THIS IS!!!!

This is indeed one of the most incomprehensible questions, I can only stop picking up things in the end...…
This problem is indeed annoying, obvious, and has been around for a long time.

But I still support ego, after all, their task list priority should be more reasonable than mine.

For those junior, sometimes stupid AIs, I choose to ignore...play other content first.

[Wehrwolf_10]

Somebody interrupt me if I talk nonsense, but I see three options for getting crew for ships:

1.) You order them together with the ship, easy as pie. For now this has been no problem for me, there was always enough crew available (thousands).
2.) If you found the ship lying by the side of the road, you fly it to an equipment dock/shipyard/wharf and restock crew there.
3.) You walk around on the platforms and buy out the crew members you meet. If you have own stations with hab modules you just order them elsewhere. They're yours anyway.

... and one option for getting crew on a station (apart from the manager, which is ordered there personally):

1.) You buy a faction's hab module plan (expensive) and construct the hab module/s on each station. A hab module needs food of sorts and medical supplies. Station crew is then 'produced' automagically by the hab module/s you've constructed on that station until it reaches the limit you see in the Logical Overview dialogue.

hth, if not, describe the problem in more detail and good luck, pilot

Man, it is not how I don't know how to get personel onboard, it is the core situation, when other factions buy a ship from your shipyard, do you think they are eager to come back when there is no crew on board? or that it takes a very long time to produce a ship caused by the lack of personel that actually builds the ship? (How Egosoft did this is a mystery to me) Or even building a ship with no personel, and ordering one ship, you check all the facts needed, but que-up a line of 100 or so ships, then you do not check every damn ship, but it is getting build anyway when material is there... The fact that a damaged ship does not get repaired by its crew is because... THERE IS NO CREW!!!!!!
So your scarce builded line of ships send into battle come out very tormented, and noone onboard that can slowly fix it a bit. That is what happens....
Stations, and I mean 6 times 2000 habitat modules, 8 food modules, same number medical, Spice, meat, Nostropoil, I mean, all the stuff is there, and no personel, not a buttload that wants to work in a good and healthy station, building ships on the factory line, on and on........ Nope....

Managers? Why do we have them? If I had a gun in the game, I would certainly put one to his head and tell him to start working and earning some money..... (Hypothetically of course)

Explain, please, why everything works fine for me, but not for you? And it is normal that the stations can operate without personnel, because they have robotic assembly lines.

[BaronVerde]

THERE IS NO CREW!!!!!!

I admit the game creates the potential for aggression, though aggression never solves nothing

Question: did you cheat the money for the complex without actually building the chains and giving it the time necessary to run it ? Because I would expect someone who has come all the way though the game to that point of building such a thing would see the problems you describe as very minor. I'm not defending the game too much, but it sounds like ...

Just reacting to being yelled at, anyway, I promised elsewhere to be off. That's what I am

[Mr.Killer]

Explain, please, why everything works fine for me, but not for you? And it is normal that the stations can operate without personnel, because they have robotic assembly lines.

Are you serious????????????????????? ROBOTIC ASSEMBLY LINES?????????? Ooooh, right, those robots need Medical, food, sleeping barracks..... Wait, let the game run completely on its own by robotic assembly lines.... then we can have a break and not having to annoy ourselves by such stupidity!

How in the F**Ks first place do you thing who operates those lines? Who put them there? Also robots? Come on man. this answer is beyond smart.

And if I could explain this shite question, I would not have to bring up this issue in the first place.

[CBJ]

This thread is heading towards a lock if the abuse of the swear filter and the unnecessarily personal nature of the discussion doesn't stop.

[Mr.Killer]

THERE IS NO CREW!!!!!!

I admit the game creates the potential for aggression, though aggression never solves nothing

Question: did you cheat the money for the complex without actually building the chains and giving it the time necessary to run it ? Because I would expect someone who has come all the way though the game to that point of building such a thing would see the problems you describe as very minor. I'm not defending the game too much, but it sounds like ...

Just reacting to being yelled at, anyway, I promised elsewhere to be off. That's what I am

I tend to buy advanced satellites and sell them for a small profit elsewhere, that way I build up money. Before I can actually buy a blueprint, afford a module and cargo ships to haul stuff, I am so hard trying, trading to make a tiny profit, that it hurts my eyes sometimes.. (from concentrating, remembering where I bought adv. sats an for how much etc etc...)

It takes a long time for all of us to even own a station....Remember the first time they introduced the Boron? telling you to find very scarce material and put that into a little ship? that is a tedious process, but we all get there eventually.

[Roeleveld]

THERE IS NO CREW!!!!!!

I admit the game creates the potential for aggression, though aggression never solves nothing

Question: did you cheat the money for the complex without actually building the chains and giving it the time necessary to run it ? Because I would expect someone who has come all the way though the game to that point of building such a thing would see the problems you describe as very minor. I'm not defending the game too much, but it sounds like ...

Just reacting to being yelled at, anyway, I promised elsewhere to be off. That's what I am

I tend to buy advanced satellites and sell them for a small profit elsewhere, that way I build up money. Before I can actually buy a blueprint, afford a module and cargo ships to haul stuff, I am so hard trying, trading to make a tiny profit, that it hurts my eyes sometimes.. (from concentrating, remembering where I bought adv. sats an for how much etc etc...)

It takes a long time for all of us to even own a station....Remember the first time they introduced the Boron? telling you to find very scarce material and put that into a little ship? that is a tedious process, but we all get there eventually.

Huh?
3x Anti Matter Cells is not a scarce product. Never had problems finding those at the station that just got added to my map (or any other antimatter cell factory)

It's not like that mission where I have to deliver space fly caviar (those eggs can be rare)

[Mr.Killer]

This thread is heading towards a lock if the abuse of the swear filter and the unnecessarily personal nature of the discussion doesn't stop.

Then like all problems, do shut us down.....

or, you really do not understand what it can do to a person, so indulged in a game that it hurts, really hurts yes. And when we use a little to loud words, you flip the switch?

If you people can not answer in name of the makers of the game, then what is the use then to ventilate our frustration that builds up at times? or rather you leave us hanging out there to dry, and point at us when we are hurt!

Do you really think we like to curse about this??????? NO! We want to play a fun game, have a tremendous time playing this game, have noone disturb you, alone behind the pc playing the game we all like.... and yes, it hurts when people tend to not take you serious. Very..... And I understand that it is not your most fun times to tap our fingers everytime we using certain words that are not allowed, but give us a forum to ventilate, good and bad, we are disussing, is it not?

[CBJ]

This has nothing whatsoever to do with "shutting you down". When you signed up to this forum you agreed to the forum rules. These include:

• Personal abuse directed towards another forum member is not permitted under any circumstances. If you are offended by another user's post or conduct, try to contact that user directly to peacefully resolve the issue. In most cases a single PM can solve misunderstandings quickly. If you do not succeed, please contact a moderator for assistance. Do not respond in kind.
• Mild swearing is permitted, but minors do use these boards so please bear that in mind. A 'swear filter' is in place on these forums, but users who consistently rely on it in their posts may receive a warning.

You are simply being reminded that you must comply with these rules. I suggest you go back and re-read all of those rules, because you are now running foul of another one.

• Discussion of any action taken by a moderator or site administrator is not permitted. This includes discussion of warnings, bans or locked topics, and also the re-starting of a topic that has just been locked.

[Mr.Killer]

I admit the game creates the potential for aggression, though aggression never solves nothing

Question: did you cheat the money for the complex without actually building the chains and giving it the time necessary to run it ? Because I would expect someone who has come all the way though the game to that point of building such a thing would see the problems you describe as very minor. I'm not defending the game too much, but it sounds like ...

Just reacting to being yelled at, anyway, I promised elsewhere to be off. That's what I am

I tend to buy advanced satellites and sell them for a small profit elsewhere, that way I build up money. Before I can actually buy a blueprint, afford a module and cargo ships to haul stuff, I am so hard trying, trading to make a tiny profit, that it hurts my eyes sometimes.. (from concentrating, remembering where I bought adv. sats an for how much etc etc...)

It takes a long time for all of us to even own a station....Remember the first time they introduced the Boron? telling you to find very scarce material and put that into a little ship? that is a tedious process, but we all get there eventually.

Huh?
3x Anti Matter Cells is not a scarce product. Never had problems finding those at the station that just got added to my map (or any other antimatter cell factory)

It's not like that mission where I have to deliver space fly caviar (those eggs can be rare)

True, but also in the beginning it is somewhat harder, if you do not have the money to put adv. sats everywhere to see stations offering those items, flying there is no problem, but then dock and see that they have none for sale..... Ok, If you remember from before you played, you could tell where to get them, you might even wrote that station and sector down on a piece of paper.... that is every time the same. (In the beginning)

[jlehtone]

I tend to buy advanced satellites and sell them for a small profit elsewhere, that way I build up money. Before I can actually buy a blueprint, afford a module and cargo ships to haul stuff, I am so hard trying, trading to make a tiny profit, that it hurts my eyes sometimes..

It takes a long time for all of us to even own a station....

It is subjective what is long or small. At start of Xbtf hauling two whole units of Nostrop Oil was a hoot. Finding profit in X2 felt equally hard. After those X3R felt "easy", and X3TC/AP and X4 feel like credits credits everywhere! Everyone has their expectations and if they don't match the game, then there is disappointment. For example, the X4 feeling too easy and too casual compared to the expectation set by the earliest games.

330+ hours into the game and I don't have a station yet. I won't talk to the squid either. That is not "a long time" for me.

While I don't have a station, I have built some for NPC. Initially, they had no Pier nor Habitat. (None was requested/paid for and yes, to gather blueprints takes some effort.) Not having Pier and Dock is a clear mistake; it limits how you can trade with that station. Habitats are an optional sink for wares. Deliver Foodstuffs missions are way easier when the sector has mouths to feed.


Back to OP.
You have a station that has habitat. It is not clear if, or how much staff is in that station. Production modules presumably use some staff, if they can. Are crews for new ships supposed to be shanghaied from the workers, or from "surplus" workforce?

I have met NPC Yards that said: "We are starving here. No crew."

[Roeleveld]

I tend to buy advanced satellites and sell them for a small profit elsewhere, that way I build up money. Before I can actually buy a blueprint, afford a module and cargo ships to haul stuff, I am so hard trying, trading to make a tiny profit, that it hurts my eyes sometimes.. (from concentrating, remembering where I bought adv. sats an for how much etc etc...)

It takes a long time for all of us to even own a station....Remember the first time they introduced the Boron? telling you to find very scarce material and put that into a little ship? that is a tedious process, but we all get there eventually.

Huh?
3x Anti Matter Cells is not a scarce product. Never had problems finding those at the station that just got added to my map (or any other antimatter cell factory)

It's not like that mission where I have to deliver space fly caviar (those eggs can be rare)

True, but also in the beginning it is somewhat harder, if you do not have the money to put adv. sats everywhere to see stations offering those items, flying there is no problem, but then dock and see that they have none for sale..... Ok, If you remember from before you played, you could tell where to get them, you might even wrote that station and sector down on a piece of paper.... that is every time the same. (In the beginning)

In all but my first play-throughs, I managed to get the PHQ up and running (including dock) in the first 5 hours of game play without rushing things.
The first time, building the dock took a long time, until I realised I actually had to put money into the build-budget.

Then I figured out that going crystal-hunting is, for me at least, actually nice and relaxing and also helps with getting some initial credits. Similar to hauling energy cells in XBTF and X2.
It's just too bad I can't mark multiple targets of interest (sometimes I see 3 asteroids with crystals, I loose at least 1 of those while harvesting another. The 3rd is targeted, so won't loose that one)

[Gavrushka]

It's just too bad I can't mark multiple targets of interest (sometimes I see 3 asteroids with crystals, I loose at least 1 of those while harvesting another. The 3rd is targeted, so won't loose that one)

Oh how I wish we were able to do that. - I know you can't queue orders when you're the pilot, so that's where the conflict is *BUT* what I'd like to see is a new kind of deployable that can be fired at notable asteroids, and marks them for a period of time (turns them luminous green or whatever.) - Such an effect could be shortlived.

[Roeleveld]

It's just too bad I can't mark multiple targets of interest (sometimes I see 3 asteroids with crystals, I loose at least 1 of those while harvesting another. The 3rd is targeted, so won't loose that one)

Oh how I wish we were able to do that. - I know you can't queue orders when you're the pilot, so that's where the conflict is *BUT* what I'd like to see is a new kind of deployable that can be fired at notable asteroids, and marks them for a period of time (turns them luminous green or whatever.) - Such an effect could be shortlived.

Like a paint-bomb where the paint dissappears after a while?