What have they done ??

[Trevelvis]

I put many many hours into X3 but just started X4 and built my first station but now I don’t know why. It isn’t anything like X3 and I am struggling to know what to do with it.

Also I wanted to try auto trading but have no one near 3 stars, will manual trading help this or is there a better way as automine seems to be my only income ??

[Shepp]

Go to the trading kiosks as the various stations and by the basic pilot training and 1 star training seminars. These will get your pilots up to 2 to 2.5 stars. Then you can look for missions that offer 2 star piloting seminars as a reward. This will get your pilot to 3 stars. You can also have them automine or distribute wares to increase their skill. That will take much longer.

Distribute wares is kind of a starter autotrade. The ship will load up on wares you designate, then fly around selling them until its empty, and repeat.

[grapedog]

I put many many hours into X3 but just started X4 and built my first station but now I don’t know why. It isn’t anything like X3 and I am struggling to know what to do with it.

Also I wanted to try auto trading but have no one near 3 stars, will manual trading help this or is there a better way as automine seems to be my only income ??

Autotrading and automining were the backbones in X3, not so in X4. You'll net more profits by building a good station and letting your traders work for your station. So, you're already on the right path!

What type of station did you build, and where is if located? If you haven't explored the surrounding sectors, and put down satellites near stations you can trade with, your traders will have a hard time knowing where to sell.

One thing to know.... war essentially drives the entire economy. Everything that is built pretty much goes to building stations and ships. Keep that in mind as you build stations, and where you place them, who are your customers...

[Trevelvis]

I put many many hours into X3 but just started X4 and built my first station but now I don’t know why. It isn’t anything like X3 and I am struggling to know what to do with it.

Also I wanted to try auto trading but have no one near 3 stars, will manual trading help this or is there a better way as automine seems to be my only income ??

Autotrading and automining were the backbones in X3, not so in X4. You'll net more profits by building a good station and letting your traders work for your station. So, you're already on the right path!

What type of station did you build, and where is if located? If you haven't explored the surrounding sectors, and put down satellites near stations you can trade with, your traders will have a hard time knowing where to sell.

One thing to know.... war essentially drives the entire economy. Everything that is built pretty much goes to building stations and ships. Keep that in mind as you build stations, and where you place them, who are your customers...

I followed a guide so built an energy station in Argon Prime but now its built not sure what to do with it. I have a manager in it but that's about it so far ??

[Falcrack]

I put many many hours into X3 but just started X4 and built my first station but now I don’t know why. It isn’t anything like X3 and I am struggling to know what to do with it.

Also I wanted to try auto trading but have no one near 3 stars, will manual trading help this or is there a better way as automine seems to be my only income ??

Autotrading and automining were the backbones in X3, not so in X4. You'll net more profits by building a good station and letting your traders work for your station. So, you're already on the right path!

What type of station did you build, and where is if located? If you haven't explored the surrounding sectors, and put down satellites near stations you can trade with, your traders will have a hard time knowing where to sell.

One thing to know.... war essentially drives the entire economy. Everything that is built pretty much goes to building stations and ships. Keep that in mind as you build stations, and where you place them, who are your customers...

I followed a guide so built an energy station in Argon Prime but now its built not sure what to do with it. I have a manager in it but that's about it so far ??

Assign a freighter or two as a trader for that station, so that it will get energy cells from the station and sell to those who need it. Be aware though that energy cells are such a ubiquitous and cheap commodity that you may have difficulty selling it because of competition from other NPC ecell stations. If so, you could try manually selling your price for ecells to encourage moving your product. After all, ecells cost nothing to produce, so any price you sell them for, even if it is the minimum possible price, will actually be 100% profit.

I would use that ecell station as the foundation for a larger complex, with the ecells it produces powering the other modules of the station.

[Gimbutz]

Also I wanted to try auto trading but have no one near 3 stars

Repeat Orders (1 star) is your first automated trading behaviour, and the one you can fine tune the most, though it also requires that you understand the rules of supply and demand.

Distribute Wares (2 stars), as others have said, is harder to get, and easier to set up. The price for this hands-off, fire and forget automation is that the ship won't make you as much money, since it behaves like a player with low information: It fills its cargo and then goes looking for buyers.

AutoTrade (3 stars) is more efficient than Distribute Wares. The ship will look for a profitable trade (compares buy and sell prices) and execute it. This is only feasible if you have a lot of information, read: vision on many stations. The setup is very easy, again, and the price is that you'll need to play for quite a while until you get an experienced pilot like this. It's not something you can actively work towards, or train pilots for, unless you manually order them to do dangerous stuff. If you're dead set on getting this advanced automation that works without you understanding the economy, seminars from mission rewards are your best bet.

[Tamina]

Solarfarms are boring, they need no ressources, everyone needs E-Cells... end of story.

I tell you how you CAN have fun with stations, if this is fun to you, of course:
Explore the universe a bit, discover products or ressources in high demand. Also consider ressource buying prices. Consider how much said blueprint costs and especially how much it costs to build one module. Find a good build spot from where your traders have the best buying and selling opportunities (1 manager star = 1 gate your station traders can buy/sell). You can immeadiatly train your manager to 2 stars.

When you have your station, get yourself some traders. Then search more buy/sell opportunities in vicinity of your station. Throw some satellites near them to keep their offers updated. Expand your satellite network with the experience of your manager over time. You can also buy automatic trading offer updates from each faction (~10mio).

To min max, you can search for data leaks on other stations to get better buy/sell prices. Or hack their "trading terminal" for better deals, hack your customers "storage terminal" to increase demand and hack your competitors "storage terminal" to decrease supply Or, you know, you can also overtake sectors and declare some ressources illegal to stop competitors from trading with YOUR customers or introduce your rattlesnake(s) to them.

When your station is growing, you can think about getting some habitats to increase production efficiency. You can also finetune each of your modules production rates, i.e. to match output of one product to the input of another module consuming said product.

As you can see, X4 plays a little bit differently and offers you more things to do the way you want Hopefully you will find some fun
[The universe, its stations and its market overall is random from the beginning and slowly but steadily changing.]

[Nort The Fragrent]

Solar Plants are an easy start up station, For the cost they still take time to get your money back !
Wars, fighting are the core of the game. Although you don't have too, the game is harder if you do not fight.
2 star pilot to go distribute wares, is also an easy start, but again takes time to get anywhere.
The game is very slow to start,
That is unless you are an expert like some brag, and have fleets in a week. Don't believe them.

I keep my station numbers to a minimum , my ships also to a minimum. As the game will generate so much money so fast once you get going. Then it becomes a baby sitting game, replacing all the dead ships you suffer. ( Not much fun baby sitting ) Keep it small, neat, tidy.
Then you can enjoy the game.