State of X4

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zazie
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Re: State of X4

Post by zazie » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:06

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 7. Sep 21, 21:20
I find fighter pilots mostly do fine learning on the job. I do lose a few every now & then, but fighters are cheap to replace & the survivors generally get to around 2-3* relatively quickly.
What do you mean by "relatively quickly"? Has pilot-leveling been improved since 4.0?

I have stopped playing X4 after 3.10 - for one reason: lack of pilot-leveling. In my two games, ~14 IG-days the first, ~30 IG-days the second, none (=0) of my pilots ever got to 4 star (only exception: pilot from the HQ-plot, but I got him with 4 stars already). Pure Vanilla.
Just to make my point clear: In both games I wiped out the Xenon, using a bunch of about 25 Nemesis Vanguards for fighting Xenon fleets OOS (up to 3 Ks) and - in later game - 12 to 20 Oddysseus for fighting large Xenon fleet with multiple Is and/or stations. I "trained" my pilots from the beginning (as they are numbered I always know which ones to pick) with Kha'ak or other 'disturbancies' of my trading fleet, I make them collect wares after those fights, they land a lot, they travel a lot, the best/oldest have hundreds of kills - but no one ever got 4 stars.

And no: Seminars are not the solution. Giving them 'seminars' is an insult to the idea of "getting reputation and skill through piloting in fights".

GCU Grey Area
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Re: State of X4

Post by GCU Grey Area » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:30

zazie wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:06
GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 7. Sep 21, 21:20
I find fighter pilots mostly do fine learning on the job. I do lose a few every now & then, but fighters are cheap to replace & the survivors generally get to around 2-3* relatively quickly.
What do you mean by "relatively quickly"? Has pilot-leveling been improved since 4.0?

I have stopped playing X4 after 3.10 - for one reason: lack of pilot-leveling. In my two games, ~14 IG-days the first, ~30 IG-days the second, none (=0) of my pilots ever got to 4 star (only exception: pilot from the HQ-plot, but I got him with 4 stars already). Pure Vanilla.
Just to make my point clear: In both games I wiped out the Xenon, using a bunch of about 25 Nemesis Vanguards for fighting Xenon fleets OOS (up to 3 Ks) and - in later game - 12 to 20 Oddysseus for fighting large Xenon fleet with multiple Is and/or stations. I "trained" my pilots from the beginning (as they are numbered I always know which ones to pick) with Kha'ak or other 'disturbancies' of my trading fleet, I make them collect wares after those fights, they land a lot, they travel a lot, the best/oldest have hundreds of kills - but no one ever got 4 stars.

And no: Seminars are not the solution. Giving them 'seminars' is an insult to the idea of "getting reputation and skill through piloting in fights".
Relatively quickly = within a few hours if fighting is fairly continuous, e.g. part of a fleet defending a gate, while a defence platform is built behind them. Naturally earned Pilot XP seems to top out at around 2-3* (i.e. on their own an average pilot can only be expected to attain an average level of skill). As I understand it, it's not impossible for a pilot to progress further just unlikely. Generally speaking, if you want improvement beyond 2-3* it takes training, either using seminars or at HQ if appropriate facilities have been constructed on a terraformable planet. Have not tried the latter yet though so can't comment on how effective HQ pilot training is, how long it takes, etc. Have been getting sufficient high level captains for my destroyers by seminar training high morale fighter pilots.

Meme Turtle
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Re: State of X4

Post by Meme Turtle » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:36

zazie wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:06
GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 7. Sep 21, 21:20
I find fighter pilots mostly do fine learning on the job. I do lose a few every now & then, but fighters are cheap to replace & the survivors generally get to around 2-3* relatively quickly.
What do you mean by "relatively quickly"? Has pilot-leveling been improved since 4.0?

I have stopped playing X4 after 3.10 - for one reason: lack of pilot-leveling. In my two games, ~14 IG-days the first, ~30 IG-days the second, none (=0) of my pilots ever got to 4 star (only exception: pilot from the HQ-plot, but I got him with 4 stars already). Pure Vanilla.
Just to make my point clear: In both games I wiped out the Xenon, using a bunch of about 25 Nemesis Vanguards for fighting Xenon fleets OOS (up to 3 Ks) and - in later game - 12 to 20 Oddysseus for fighting large Xenon fleet with multiple Is and/or stations. I "trained" my pilots from the beginning (as they are numbered I always know which ones to pick) with Kha'ak or other 'disturbancies' of my trading fleet, I make them collect wares after those fights, they land a lot, they travel a lot, the best/oldest have hundreds of kills - but no one ever got 4 stars.

And no: Seminars are not the solution. Giving them 'seminars' is an insult to the idea of "getting reputation and skill through piloting in fights".
Egosoft has designed the AI level system such that you can't get 5 start pilots(they are supposed to be very rare) but you also need those to mitigate AI unresponsiveness and dumbness. People's been complaining about bad AI, which, to a huge extent is related to arbitrary delays and range calculations based on the skill level, yet here we still are.

Egosoft, perhaps, it's the time to stop fighting your playerbase and redesign AI progression system?

zazie
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Re: State of X4

Post by zazie » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 14:27

Thanks for replies - so within that perspective nothing has changed and I will not go back to X4.
Meme Turtle wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 11:36
Egosoft, perhaps, it's the time to stop fighting your playerbase and redesign AI progression system?
Special thanks to that - I could not agree more.

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:15

Playing around with co-ordinate attack, and it does bring some semblance of order to the formation assault, when it works. Just now had an Asgard friendly fire a Syn out of existence though. And yes 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, so Artificial Stupidity by design.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

jlehtone
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Re: State of X4

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:47

A2G wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:15
And yes 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, so Artificial Stupidity by design.
I did lose Asgard twice. 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, but my fleet has only one 5* -- me -- so it was Genuine. :P :oops:
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GCU Grey Area
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Re: State of X4

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 21:41

A2G wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:15
Playing around with co-ordinate attack, and it does bring some semblance of order to the formation assault, when it works. Just now had an Asgard friendly fire a Syn out of existence though. And yes 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, so Artificial Stupidity by design.
Sounds like Coordinate still needs a bit of work before I'll trust it with my fleet. Only tried it once so far, shortly after it was introduced. It decided the optimal strategy was to launch all the unarmed M freighters full of missile parts that were aboard my carrier towards the enemy station. Not entirely sure what they were expected to do when they got there - countermanded the order as soon as I saw what was going on & haven't touched it since. Seems like I'll be waiting a bit longer & sticking with my manually organised firing lines for now.

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 22:59

jlehtone wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:47
A2G wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:15
And yes 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, so Artificial Stupidity by design.
I did lose Asgard twice. 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, but my fleet has only one 5* -- me -- so it was Genuine. :P :oops:
When Asgard decides to pop a fighter with its Main Battery, misses, and one shots the friendly destroyer, the fighter is zooming by, perhaps Ego should prevent Asgard using the main battery when any friendlies are in front of it.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 23:01

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 21:41
A2G wrote:
Thu, 9. Sep 21, 19:15
Playing around with co-ordinate attack, and it does bring some semblance of order to the formation assault, when it works. Just now had an Asgard friendly fire a Syn out of existence though. And yes 5* Idiot in the Captain Chair, so Artificial Stupidity by design.
Sounds like Coordinate still needs a bit of work before I'll trust it with my fleet. Only tried it once so far, shortly after it was introduced. It decided the optimal strategy was to launch all the unarmed M freighters full of missile parts that were aboard my carrier towards the enemy station. Not entirely sure what they were expected to do when they got there - countermanded the order as soon as I saw what was going on & haven't touched it since. Seems like I'll be waiting a bit longer & sticking with my manually organised firing lines for now.
Yeah it's still idiotic with carriers, but can form an organised Destroyer assault.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Thu, 9. Sep 21, 23:03

Does the AI have rally points for fleet assembly? It doesn't look like it, i constantly watch Argon send solo Destroyers to fight an Asgard. What is the logic behind that? Surely Ai should have assemblies when an Enemy outmatches them.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Warnoise
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Re: State of X4

Post by Warnoise » Fri, 10. Sep 21, 10:52

I didnt even bother buying the Terran dlc and I am not planning to buy anything else from egosoft.

I don't feel the passion they had back in X3.

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Tue, 14. Sep 21, 00:43

I have a huge Complex whose end product is ships, lots of ships. It is the end point of the Xeconomy. It's big, though there are bigger!! 40,000 workers returns around 40M/Ph. I sectioned off most of my hull part production to a complex in the neighbouring sector, because X frame rate optimisation workarounds. It pumps out over 20K p/h with a further 10 at the main facility. The sum of hull parts logistically feeds around where it should be, though i do have a slight bottleneck in advanced elecs.

To the point: 5* Manager lots and lots of traders at its disposal, everything works fine, in moving the HPs, until i let it attempt to sell off some of my overflows. nah 5* idiot can't compute that, and sends Incarcatuas to sell off 20 plasma conductors at a time whilst my HP stock runs to zero. I know there is a workaround with manually setting up a loop hauler, but it is a workaround for awful Ai that shits itself and can't prioritise if you give it one by product to sell. I have gone back to setting my overflows for sale to all but my property. But that is astonishingly bad AI.

A prioritise Purchase over sale command could work.
Spoiler
Show
The Yaki as an agent of Chaos are just about my favorite faction in the game. They spawn out of my shipyard causing havoc and being a proxy for the Xenon, whilst being an economy stimulant, plus You get to AFk at their base knowing that an Asgard isn't likely to come blow it up, with too many friendly Xenon as your bodygaurd. I'm all for replacing earthlings with computers.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Treycore
Posts: 134
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Re: State of X4

Post by Treycore » Tue, 14. Sep 21, 02:25

A2G wrote:
Tue, 14. Sep 21, 00:43
I have a huge Complex whose end product is ships, lots of ships. It is the end point of the Xeconomy. It's big, though there are bigger!! 40,000 workers returns around 40M/Ph. I sectioned off most of my hull part production to a complex in the neighbouring sector, because X frame rate optimisation workarounds. It pumps out over 20K p/h with a further 10 at the main facility. The sum of hull parts logistically feeds around where it should be, though i do have a slight bottleneck in advanced elecs.

To the point: 5* Manager lots and lots of traders at its disposal, everything works fine, in moving the HPs, until i let it attempt to sell off some of my overflows. nah 5* idiot can't compute that, and sends Incarcatuas to sell off 20 plasma conductors at a time whilst my HP stock runs to zero. I know there is a workaround with manually setting up a loop hauler, but it is a workaround for awful Ai that shits itself and can't prioritise if you give it one by product to sell. I have gone back to setting my overflows for sale to all but my property. But that is astonishingly bad AI.

A prioritise Purchase over sale command could work.
Spoiler
Show
The Yaki as an agent of Chaos are just about my favorite faction in the game. They spawn out of my shipyard causing havoc and being a proxy for the Xenon, whilst being an economy stimulant, plus You get to AFk at their base knowing that an Asgard isn't likely to come blow it up, with too many friendly Xenon as your bodygaurd. I'm all for replacing earthlings with computers.
I just set up a trade station for overflow goods, purchase only from myself and sell to anyone, and leave my main factories to be only only buy/sell to myself… If I need to import items from empires then I set up a secondary trade station that handles imports only

A2G
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Re: State of X4

Post by A2G » Tue, 14. Sep 21, 03:03

Treycore wrote:
Tue, 14. Sep 21, 02:25
A2G wrote:
Tue, 14. Sep 21, 00:43
I have a huge Complex whose end product is ships, lots of ships. It is the end point of the Xeconomy. It's big, though there are bigger!! 40,000 workers returns around 40M/Ph. I sectioned off most of my hull part production to a complex in the neighbouring sector, because X frame rate optimisation workarounds. It pumps out over 20K p/h with a further 10 at the main facility. The sum of hull parts logistically feeds around where it should be, though i do have a slight bottleneck in advanced elecs.

To the point: 5* Manager lots and lots of traders at its disposal, everything works fine, in moving the HPs, until i let it attempt to sell off some of my overflows. nah 5* idiot can't compute that, and sends Incarcatuas to sell off 20 plasma conductors at a time whilst my HP stock runs to zero. I know there is a workaround with manually setting up a loop hauler, but it is a workaround for awful Ai that shits itself and can't prioritise if you give it one by product to sell. I have gone back to setting my overflows for sale to all but my property. But that is astonishingly bad AI.

A prioritise Purchase over sale command could work.
Spoiler
Show
The Yaki as an agent of Chaos are just about my favorite faction in the game. They spawn out of my shipyard causing havoc and being a proxy for the Xenon, whilst being an economy stimulant, plus You get to AFk at their base knowing that an Asgard isn't likely to come blow it up, with too many friendly Xenon as your bodygaurd. I'm all for replacing earthlings with computers.
I just set up a trade station for overflow goods, purchase only from myself and sell to anyone, and leave my main factories to be only only buy/sell to myself… If I need to import items from empires then I set up a secondary trade station that handles imports only
That's an interesting solution, whole sale stations for the manufacturing network. thanks.
Our philosophy conquers our past and future problems. Our present problems conquer our philosophy.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-
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Re: State of X4

Post by -=SiR KiLLaLoT=- » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 13:13

A2G wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 23:02
Bought the game on release, as it's an X game, but outside of the PHQ missions, and general messing around, i didn't sink much time in, as in my opinion it needed more time in the oven. Not much of a problem, as it was expected. Fired up my save recently, and the purpose of this post is to say, you are knocking it out of the park Egososft. X4 is grand and beautiful. As one of the cockpit hardliners, Bridges are superb, though i would like to see more official rooms per ship ;) There are many additions I would like to see, but overall the experience on offer is top notch, and not available in any other title.

To make a request, so this post serves a point rather than fandom. I would like to see a more user friendly fleet command UI, and ideally attached to a console on a Bridge.

Much thanks.
Sorry if I haven't read all the answers, but I wanted to get back to the interface question.

Some time ago, as a joke, I sent a couple of screenshots in the Egosoft Discord to show how some menus could be revised to make things easier.

Screen1
Screen2

The first image compares the current map screen to a screen of the EDSY site (the one for designing ships on Elite Dangerous).
This shows how X4's menus could be redesigned with a "Buttons" style rather than a "Drop Down" or "Expand" style.
Imagine having one, at most two ship info screens and, instead of selecting the behaviors or commands in the queue via an additional drop-down menu,
you would select them via buttons that change color. This would dramatically increase QOL.

While the second screen was a simple reinterpretation of the positioning for some items in the ship information menu.
In this case the idea was dictated by the most frequent operations I used during long gameplay. It can be seen how simple green lines can give more vision to things.

And anyway I am aware that redesigning a GUI for X4 would require development for at least a full patch or two.
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My X4 Steam screenshots.

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