Rage-quit level issues

[ahostofissues]

And then there's The Big One that is very steadily driving me nuts. I can't stand having to click twice to take over as pilot of one of my ships. Once should be enough. And why does the pilot I'm replacing say, "Hello!" when clearly the whole intent of the interaction is, "Goodbye!"

Oh. Yes. Yes yes yes. The number of times I've said to an empty room "Oh. My. God. Get the F'k out of the way!" after starting a conversation with my pilot by accident trying to take over the chair is... large. The two most repeated why-are-you-talking-to-yourself? phrases uttered while in X4 are "get out of the way!" and "get out of the damn chair already!" Good thing I don't live with anyone who can hear me.

[ahostofissues]

6. Scanning for data leaks... the "signal" indicator bars ARE PART OF THE SHIP HULL, not the HUD! Seriously? W.T.F. Again. When you're hunting around for a visual indicator of things in a false-color extreme close-up view of the station in front of you, definitely what you want is to have 1/3 of your field of view covered by the ship hull graphic. Awesome. Hide the hull so you can actually see the stuff in front of you while signal hunting, and the signal indicator goes away. Again, how did this make it into release??

Well I've just filed a Bug Report on the Signal H.U.D element hiding along with the cockpit.
so it will probably be fixed soon.

I'm sorry you've felt frustrated with your initial experience.

If at Egosoft "I've filed a bug" equals "... And so definitely it will prioritized highly enough to receive developer resources assigned to it and the bug will be closed" then I would like a job with Egosoft as a developer, please.

[Ormac]

Well I've just filed a Bug Report on the Signal H.U.D element hiding along with the cockpit.
so it will probably be fixed soon.

I'm sorry you've felt frustrated with your initial experience.

If at Egosoft "I've filed a bug" equals "... And so definitely it will prioritized highly enough to receive developer resources assigned to it and the bug will be closed" then I would like a job with Egosoft as a developer, please.

Well filing a Bug Report with the current version of X4 with a standard (unmodified) game at least informs the developers of the problem that they have a chance to debug.
They'll have a look at it and if it's a genuine bug they will fix it.

They're pretty good at fixing identified bugs.

[Prophet1]

Why get mad over dealing with demand to drop cargo? I never comply, and my npc traders don't ever comply. I lose a few, but not many. Losses are to be expected.

When I'm told to drop cargo, I view this as an opportunity to acquire inventory. I switch to map view, see what ship they are in, then target. If pirate is in a destroyer and it's not too early in the game and I have marines, it's an opportunity to acquire a destroyer. If police aren't around.

I would like to know how these pirates can scan my ship from 25 km away while I'm in travel mode though.

The only problem I have with signal leaks is when they are inside the station model and not visible from outside. This also sometimes happens with my own emp bomb. If in spacesuit, I can sometimes force my character into the station and then the leak can be seen. I then teleport out.

[Duncaroos]

My stations are all set for self-supply only. So why do they keep buying things from other factions?

Station Supply is not the same as Station Trades. You need to change the global order for Station Trades.

Trust me I feel you on this. Miners sUpPLy materials to the station for consumption....but apparently it's a trade.....I don't get it sometimes. I find supply is only for drone and missile production. These don't need storage modules.

[HammerHead91]

My stations are all set for self-supply only. So why do they keep buying things from other factions?

Station Supply is not the same as Station Trades. You need to change the global order for Station Trades.

Trust me I feel you on this. Miners sUpPLy materials to the station for consumption....but apparently it's a trade.....I don't get it sometimes. I find supply is only for drone and missile production. These don't need storage modules.

Oooohhhhhhh...!

I think something must have been lost in translation, there.

[user1679]

Mesh/object trapping: I don't expect this to ever be solved. Too hard from a development prospective, I'd bet. Any changes they try to make would likely mess up other important collision behaviors. But there's always hope. Once you research teleportation, if you have a combat ship auto-following the scout you're using to signal-leak-hunt in tight spaces (which is when I keep getting trapped) then you can teleport to the other ship and tell your trapped ship to "move to position" outside the station. Will get itself out. But requires advanced preparation to be prepared for this.

Actually this is fairly easy to solve. An "unstuck" hotkey that disables bounding boxes and collision, jumps your ship 5km in whatever direction the devs choose and enables bounding boxes and collision again. Still stuck? Hit the hotkey again. Many MMORPGS have this (/unstuck) chat feature so players that fall through geometry don't have to flood GMs with tickets.

[ahostofissues]

Why get mad over dealing with demand to drop cargo? I never comply, and my npc traders don't ever comply. I lose a few, but not many. Losses are to be expected.

Different styles. I don't disagree with you, but play differently. I find it frustrating to lose control of the situation in the sense that I, as a player, am faced with a situation where I have to make a blind choice; the information is available, I just can't get to it until *after* the decision is made. It just leads to "well, damnit, if you'd let me see that the pirate was a destroyer two meters away, I wouldn't have tried to run!"

It's the "do you want box A or box B? No, no, we're not going to tell you what's in the boxes, you just have to pick one. And, oh, by the way, one of the two boxes may destroy the result of all the work you did getting that big well-equipped freighter for the last two hours." Not fun for me. It's a game mechanic that exists not because it's a good decision but because developer time was limited to implement it better.

[jlehtone]

Trust me I feel you on this. Miners sUpPLy materials to the station for consumption....but apparently it's a trade.....I don't get it sometimes. I find supply is only for drone and missile production. These don't need storage modules.

Oooohhhhhhh...!

I think something must have been lost in translation, there.
[/quote]
Take a NPC Defence Platform. It has no storage modules nor production modules. Yet, it does need components for drones and missiles. It needs supplies and its one-way traffic -- they don't sell components.

Take a storage module. It can store Drone Components. It can buy them and sell them. It can trade.

I would guess that that is the logical and technical difference that the policy options (names) are based on.

Even after 480 hours, I didn't know that a freighter with a laser tower deployable would use it on a flee order. +1 to you for helping me learn this.

This behaviour is inconsistent. For example I have never seen my freighters do that, even though they have a lot of laser towers on them.

I have never seen my freighters do that either...

Oh my, have I been hallucinating? Bad spaceweed, bad.

[ahostofissues]

Mesh/object trapping: I don't expect this to ever be solved. Too hard from a development prospective, I'd bet. Any changes they try to make would likely mess up other important collision behaviors. But there's always hope. Once you research teleportation, if you have a combat ship auto-following the scout you're using to signal-leak-hunt in tight spaces (which is when I keep getting trapped) then you can teleport to the other ship and tell your trapped ship to "move to position" outside the station. Will get itself out. But requires advanced preparation to be prepared for this.

Actually this is fairly easy to solve. An "unstuck" hotkey that disables bounding boxes and collision, jumps your ship 5km in whatever direction the devs choose and enables bounding boxes and collision again. Still stuck? Hit the hotkey again. Many MMORPGS have this (/unstuck) chat feature so players that fall through geometry don't have to flood GMs with tickets.

This is a good point. I didn't consider this option. In Skyrim, I can toggle on console and use a "move" command when necessary. I've not seen any mention of a console anywhere ever in X, x2, x3, or X4 discussions... but also never looked.

Makes me want to take a look at the mod scripting interface to see if I could implement this myself... Man, it would be useful...

[Nanook]

No, they are not. Pilots are only 'mandatory' when buying a new ship. I rarely have an NPC pilot on my ship unless it's being used as a marine. I have lot's of spare ships sitting around with no pilots. With galaxy-wide teleportation, there's no need to hire pilots for my personal ships that are stationed at various points around the galaxy. When I have a task for a particular ship, I'll find a good, trained pilot to fly it. Otherwise, it usually sits empty.

You are basically going out of the way to make sure ships have no pilot, ignore the upkeep mission, and say a lot of people are doing that? I am fairly sure that most people have most of their ships with a pilot in them.

Given that pilots are as good as free I do not see a reason not to have them when possible. Even for the convenience of having them valet the ship from parking to somewhere in space.
...

And I think someone (not me) is misunderstanding the word 'mandatory', with my follow-on comments illustrating it.

[ahostofissues]

No, they are not. Pilots are only 'mandatory' when buying a new ship. I rarely have an NPC pilot on my ship unless it's being used as a marine. I have lot's of spare ships sitting around with no pilots. With galaxy-wide teleportation, there's no need to hire pilots for my personal ships that are stationed at various points around the galaxy. When I have a task for a particular ship, I'll find a good, trained pilot to fly it. Otherwise, it usually sits empty.

You are basically going out of the way to make sure ships have no pilot, ignore the upkeep mission, and say a lot of people are doing that? I am fairly sure that most people have most of their ships with a pilot in them.

Given that pilots are as good as free I do not see a reason not to have them when possible. Even for the convenience of having them valet the ship from parking to somewhere in space.
...

And I think someone (not me) is misunderstanding the word 'mandatory', with my follow-on comments illustrating it.

Would have to agree. Pilots definitely not Mandatory. But also Nanook has a point in "not mandatory but why would you possibly not??" thinking. I lean towards his style, in the sense that every ship has a pilot, period. A ship sitting idle with a pilot does no harm, and saves hassle when I suddenly decide I want that ship to go do something. Plus, for me, sitting in The Chair pressing the accelerate key and keeping the ship pointed in the right direction has to rank as The Single Most Boring Thing I Could Possibly Do In This Game. Travel time I'd much rather be spending my time standing behind the pilot doing something, anything, other than that.

[Nanook]

When I said my ships sit around without pilots, I didn't mean to imply they were empty**. Unless I'm getting ready to sell a ship, they all have at least one crew member on board that can serve as a pilot if needed. Too many times I've left a pilot in charge, and they flew off on some already finished task that somehow didn't clear from the orders queue. So whenever I leave one of my dozen or so personal (or spare) ships, I make sure there's no NPC pilot in the chair.

**(I did say that, although that's not what I meant to say. My bad. )

[jlehtone]

Plus, for me, sitting in The Chair pressing the accelerate key and keeping the ship pointed in the right direction has to rank as The Single Most Boring Thing I Could Possibly Do In This Game. Travel time I'd much rather be spending my time standing behind the pilot doing something, anything, other than that.

Anecdote from WW2:

Nationality was easy to deduct. A car approaches:
* Soldier drives, General sit at the back: German
* General drives, soldiers are lucky if they don't fall off and die: American

We can do more behind the pilot than car passengers back then could.

[user1679]

Too many times I've left a pilot in charge, and they flew off on some already finished task that somehow didn't clear from the orders queue.
**(I did say that, although that's not what I meant to say. My bad. )

I just recently had this happen. I purchased a couple Osprey from a Teladi Wharf. I had originally issued a "fly and wait" order to have them wait
just off the dock. I decided I wanted to change their loadout so I ordered them to dock and then changed the turrets. At the time I was in the
Manager's office and suddenly the manager's name turned red and he refused to talk to me.

When I opened the map, apparently my pilot executed her "fly and wait" again (instead of staying in "dock and wait") and ended up in the crossfire
between the station and another ship. When the station's turret hit my ship, she started attacking the station which of course blew her up in no time
and left me at "hated" status.

[Alan Phipps]

@ user1679: ... and in the Osprey's log, the last thing the pilot said was: "I was only obeying orders!"

[ajime]

I got the game a long time ago... I actually stopped playing it, hoping that some bugs would be fixed and some features or quality of life improvements would be introduced. When I started you had to have ships side by side to transfer the crew, there was no teleportation or crew overview window. Now I'm playing again. Things like swapping captains, hiring managers is still a pain but 5.10 is much better compared to before.

I am an avid asset acquirer (read:I board ships, rarely make/buy). I still remember docking two ships to a station and and transferring marines after action was a rage-inducing chore. luckily this is no longer the case with the crew transfer feature.

[user1679]

@ user1679: ... and in the Osprey's log, the last thing the pilot said was: "I was only obeying orders!"

At least I didn't have to fire her