I'm a bit lost in this...

[Thorski]

I put off buying this game from launch due to the mass amount of bugs and unfinished feeling I got from a lot of people complaining online.
I've now decided to take the plunge and i'm already beginning to wish I hadn't.

I'm not new to the X universe, put 1000's of hours into X2, couldn't play X3, even though I owned it due to their anti-pirate software killing my HDD, but that's another story.
So, after playing for about 20+ hours so far my frustrations are PLENTY. I am REALLY hoping that someone can give me some advice on this to make this game enjoyable, as its such a beautiful game and looks to have so much potential but it is riddled with problems I hope can be remedied through mods or others.

I think the biggest frustration so far is combat, the AI seem to do all sorts of different things. As an example, been roaming around in 4 Cerberus all fitted out to the max, telling the other 3 to guard the one i'm in (mostly not piloting it, just watching from cockpit/on map trying to command the fight). And they seem to not want to fight. I went up against a few xen fighters, nothing crazy and they manage to wipe a fully fitted Cerberus out and there was NOTHING I could do to stop it. Even with 6 drones out each on 4 Cerberus (via the Escort method) 3 little tiny fighters managed to wipe out a Cerberus. Surely this can't be the case??
I read about the ways AI behave differently depending on if you were OOS or in system at the time, and still think its f'king bonkers that a Cerb can get wiped out like that.
On the flip side, I have Cerberus's guarding my miners/traders and sometimes they're sooooo far away from what they're guarding there isn't any point them being there. Good example is a medium sized transporter I had was wiped out before my guarding Cerb could even land a bloody shot on the 3 fighters that did him.

And then there are the MULTIPLE issues with mining & trading and AI ships just seemingly wanting to sit around with their thumbs up their arse, WTAH! I don't even know how to word this, so i'll simply say, its broken. There is no logical sense on what they're doing - for example mining ore in a system with an ore facility, or ice with an ice facility etc and they won't dock.

I've had a look at mods and stuff and advice on what to do to make this game playable but honestly, I don't know what i'm looking for at this stage. I guess, please help? Is the only thing I can ask.

And a big F you Egosoft for making something so beautiful and yet so unplayable.

[chew-ie]

Best advice I can give you: forget about the M class. They are useless, even in numbers. Their defense values are good only on paper. Even my heavily augmented Peregrine is worth for only one thing: docking on a ship to provide additional turrets.

By using L ships my joy with X4 rocketed. I'm flying destroyers only and I am using L miners and freighters only. Zero losses.

[GCU Grey Area]

been roaming around in 4 Cerberus all fitted out to the max, telling the other 3 to guard the one i'm in (mostly not piloting it, just watching from cockpit/on map trying to command the fight). And they seem to not want to fight.

Sounds like you've got them set to Defend. With that assignment they'll wait until the fleet leader is being shot at before doing anything. Might be better off using either Attack (they'll attack anything the fleet leader is ordered to attack, or anything hostile that is selected as a target if flying personally) or Intercept (will automatically attack any hostile S or M sized ships which get too close to the fleet leader).

M ships in general however are a bit of a compromise - OK if flown personally (probably my favourite ship class for personal use), but flying coffins under AI control if sent to attack capitals or stations - too big to dodge incoming turret fire, not sturdy enough to withstand it for long enough to accomplish much before destruction. They also, as you have discovered, can have have issues dealing with S fighters - M ships are often quite fast but are easily evaded by much more nimble S fighters, which can nibble them to death while dodging most of the return shots from slow turning M ships. They do have some uses (e.g. marine dropship) but they also have distinct limitations.

[EGO_Aut]

Put your thumbs out and adapt, once you improved you can watch again and feel like a general.

Hint: use the right commands, guns and turrets.

[dtpsprt]

Really understandable frustration from someone who just came from the X Universe Games (personally I don't class X4 as an X Universe one).

Some truths:

1) Generally ships with AI pilots suck IS.
2) The game is heavily oriented towards the building/commercial side (therefore not X Universe)
3) The UI is almost trash
4) There are mods that bring significant improvement for the Pilot/combat oriented players. Get the ones that will also bring you some money in to have your ships and forget about the rest...

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

I put off buying this game from launch due to the mass amount of bugs and unfinished feeling I got from a lot of people complaining online.
I've now decided to take the plunge and i'm already beginning to wish I hadn't.

I'm not new to the X universe, put 1000's of hours into X2, couldn't play X3, even though I owned it due to their anti-pirate software killing my HDD, but that's another story.
So, after playing for about 20+ hours so far my frustrations are PLENTY. I am REALLY hoping that someone can give me some advice on this to make this game enjoyable, as its such a beautiful game and looks to have so much potential but it is riddled with problems I hope can be remedied through mods or others.

I think the biggest frustration so far is combat, the AI seem to do all sorts of different things. As an example, been roaming around in 4 Cerberus all fitted out to the max, telling the other 3 to guard the one i'm in (mostly not piloting it, just watching from cockpit/on map trying to command the fight). And they seem to not want to fight. I went up against a few xen fighters, nothing crazy and they manage to wipe a fully fitted Cerberus out and there was NOTHING I could do to stop it. Even with 6 drones out each on 4 Cerberus (via the Escort method) 3 little tiny fighters managed to wipe out a Cerberus. Surely this can't be the case??
I read about the ways AI behave differently depending on if you were OOS or in system at the time, and still think its f'king bonkers that a Cerb can get wiped out like that.
On the flip side, I have Cerberus's guarding my miners/traders and sometimes they're sooooo far away from what they're guarding there isn't any point them being there. Good example is a medium sized transporter I had was wiped out before my guarding Cerb could even land a bloody shot on the 3 fighters that did him.

And then there are the MULTIPLE issues with mining & trading and AI ships just seemingly wanting to sit around with their thumbs up their arse, WTAH! I don't even know how to word this, so i'll simply say, its broken. There is no logical sense on what they're doing - for example mining ore in a system with an ore facility, or ice with an ice facility etc and they won't dock.

I've had a look at mods and stuff and advice on what to do to make this game playable but honestly, I don't know what i'm looking for at this stage. I guess, please help? Is the only thing I can ask.

And a big F you Egosoft for making something so beautiful and yet so unplayable.

If you are playing with 4.0 release know that the defend command is broken (already fixed in beta 4.10 anyway).
Despite this, the command does not work as it should and for this reason I have found a very effective solution.
Try to assign miner defenders with the attack command (Cerberus in your case) and through the individual ship settings choose to counterattack in case of aggression.
This means that when the miner ship is attacked by someone it will return fire and immediately all defending ships will get the command to attack against attackers.
It is a bit of a mangy workaround, but all in all it gives good results!
If you want to use M-size miner, and prevent them from dying immediately under enemy fire, opt for Manorina Sentinel because thanks to their 2 shields and large hull they can resist khaak threats longer.
In my HQ I have about fifty miners individually escorted by a single Kuarokami, who is equipped with terran shields and pulse lasers.
This combo allows the ship to wipe out 10 khaaks at the same time. If your Cerberus performs OOS attack operations correctly it should have no problem with Khaak

[Clownmug]

Cerberus is a frigate/gunship, it's not the optimum choice for escorting/defending other ships or dogfighting 1v3. Look to the corvette type M ships like Nemesis, Dragon, and Katana if you want something that supersedes S fighters.

[oddible]

The star rating of you pilots and manager has a big impact on how quickly they take a trade. That said, there seems to still be a bug that has traders sometimes get stuck, just reset their orders.

Regarding in sector combat, just capture an SCA Behemoth and start flying around an L ship personally. In sector mostly sucks. Out of sector is different. I put 3-6 Gorgons with bolts and flak on gates to Xenon sectors and they clean up pretty well with the protect location command. Armament and command are important too.

Lastly, the game is complex and has quirks and very specific ways you have to do things (like all prior games). While this can be frustrating initially until you learn them, it evens out. My advice is that when you run into something not working as expected, don't blame the game or call it a bug or come to the forums to rage about the failure if Egosoft, rather chalk it up as another Egosoftism and come here curious to find the workaround. Your cardiologist will thank you. Don't get me wrong, there are legit bugs and definitely things that need to be improved but the peculiarities of the game are just that, don't make every single one of them your hill to die on our it just ends in frustration for you.

[af_2017]

docking on a ship to provide additional turrets.

That's a good hint. I will try that. Thanks!

[Tamina]

The combat AI struggle is real though. Ships set to defend, often enough, do nothing. Neither if their leader gets attacked, nor themselfes, nor any other ship in the fleet. This game can get really frustrating and I think "AI" in general (except trading) is the biggest pet peeve for most players as other surveys have shown before.

Good thing this game is such a versatile sandbox.

[Alm888]

3 little tiny fighters managed to wipe out a Cerberus. Surely this can't be the case??
…
I read about the ways AI behave differently depending on if you were OOS or in system at the time, and still think its f'king bonkers that a Cerb can get wiped out like that.

Oh, but it IS the case! X3 veterans often think if they are in a frigate (M3, M6 or whatever, I don't remember which frigates were in) and encounter a fighter or a scout that they are completely safe and will swat it like a spacefly. This is a grave mistake. S-class ships are powerful in this game! They are maneuverable, are small targets, and have deadly weapons, while their shields recharge very fast. M-class ships are: big and easy to hit, have terrible dynamics (breaking, turning speed); their shields are slow to recharge while total HP is not that better and their turrets are nearly useless against agile targets, while their weapons only have, like, +60% DMG compared to S-class counterparts (for the reference: M Pulse Laser Mk2 = 251.7MW; S Pulse Laser Mk2 = 156.7MW).

And Your Cerberus only has two weapons while some fighters can have 4 (Ares, Eclipse, Moreya, Balaur, Gladius, Quasar), 5 (Chimera) or even 6! (Pulsar).

So, a Moreya with 4x S Pulse Laser Mk2 is in fact more powerful than your Cerberus with 2x M Pulse Laser Mk2, even if we do not take into account that you will most probably miss most of the times while your enemy will be turning you into mincemeat.
Not to mention a Heavy Torpedo is a Heavy Torpedo no matter what ship launched it! Gone are the times when you could be sure a M5 scout would not be able to launch a devastating missile salvo (due to it being incompatible with most dangerous missiles).

I see no error in your defeat. It was brought upon you by your mistake of using a really bad ship.

And then there are the MULTIPLE issues with mining & trading and AI ships just seemingly wanting to sit around with their thumbs up their arse, WTAH! I don't even know how to word this, so i'll simply say, its broken. There is no logical sense on what they're doing - for example mining ore in a system with an ore facility, or ice with an ice facility etc and they won't dock.

I acknowledge there are multiple problems with station-bound miners, which AFAIK are being addressed in current 4.10 beta, but…
Didi you check whether there is demand for Ore at the "ore facility"? Unlike most previous X-games (with the exception of X: Rebirth) this game has "hoest" economy, so spamming endless stream of autominers will not work. The market will be over-saturated in no time.

I've had a look at mods and stuff and advice on what to do to make this game playable but honestly, I don't know what i'm looking for at this stage. I guess, please help? Is the only thing I can ask.

And a big F you Egosoft for making something so beautiful and yet so unplayable.

This game IS playable. Not ideal, no. Some rough edges are present (like fleet behavior or aforementioned station miners bug), but most of the game mechanics do work.