Idiots

[builder680]

This game goes out of its way to perform every single command in the most idiotic way possible, in order to justify its IDIOTIC personnel skill "star" system. Just now, I sent a ship 100 km "up" off the ecliptic (a very urgent mission, because enemy reinforcements were coming soon) so it could repair its fleet (its own idiot sub-system) and instead of using its main engines, it, OF COURSE, is using its thrusters (W) to go "up" at 8 m/s while still travelling "east" or "right" using its main engines. I can see this because of the "travel dust" around the ship. I don't want to hear about pilot skill bullcrap, I don't want to hear about mods, this is script behavior, and this is IDIOCY. You need to get rid of your stupid-ass skill mechanic, Egosoft. Just give me decent commands that actually WORK.

[Beb07]

Fleet commands leave a lot to be desired, but l think that the basis for a good command system is in place, generally. There is some take on the executing of the scripts that generally fails, ships not responding, or responding late. L think as with X3, X4 is in evolution to become an even greater game...with the engines available at present, it could even look better - more immersive, but l don't know how many coders are working on X4, but give them time...

[dtpsprt]

+30 to that!!!!

[dougeye]

i would say there is defo some deliberate built in idiocy with lower skilled pilots. i am learning not to use less than 4 star in my l and xl military ships!

[dtpsprt]

i would say there is defo some deliberate built in idiocy with lower skilled pilots. i am learning not to use less than 4 star in my l and xl military ships!

The problem actually is not in the lesser skills of lesser pilots. The biggest problem is that pilot skills are not progressing whatsoever.
Given that in mid/late game one needs more than 20 pilots of high skills you see where this is going...
Granted, there is a "pilot school" in PHQ once the player reaches Terraforming state but have you seen the prerequisites for that? That leads the player into heavy industrialisation which is not everybody's cup of tea (to say the least), throwing the "Sandbox" out of the window...

[dougeye]

the best way i found to level pilots is carrier full of fighters on intercept and drop it next to a gate with xenon convoys. Grantted you'll proabbly need 8 destroyers as escorts to deal with K's and I's also but i ended up promoting 20 of the fighter pilots to autotraders. This was after id say maybe 6-10 hours on Seta.

I do agree that non military pilots do need a bit of a boost earning ranks through successful trading.

[dtpsprt]

the best way i found to level pilots is carrier full of fighters on intercept and drop it next to a gate with xenon convoys. Grantted you'll proabbly need 8 destroyers as escorts to deal with K's and I's also but i ended up promoting 20 of the fighter pilots to autotraders. This was after id say maybe 6-10 hours on Seta.

I do agree that non military pilots do need a bit of a boost earning ranks through successful trading.

6x6 = 36 = 3 game days at best
10x6 = 60 = 5 game days at (your) worst estimate
PLUS a big, fat chance not to have your almost 3* pilots killed in action...
PLUS replacing the, one way or another, killed fighters...
PLUS money for all of this...
PLUS Terran Intervention Corps not intervening...

= No solution whatsoever!!!

BTW what happened to the Universe during all these SETA hours?

[flywlyx]

Fleet commands leave a lot to be desired, but l think that the basis for a good command system is in place, generally. There is some take on the executing of the scripts that generally fails, ships not responding, or responding late. L think as with X3, X4 is in evolution to become an even greater game...with the engines available at present, it could even look better - more immersive, but l don't know how many coders are working on X4, but give them time...

There are more than 10 excellent 3D-RTS games out there and even more RPG/FPS games with a good companion/wingmen/fleet command system. And the X4 is not even close to any good game after 1998.
Imaging their "fly to" command is designed in a way to randomly put your ship in a circle that has the length of your ship as the radius.
The whole command system is just a lazy design.

[Beb07]

X4 - is combination of global economy, sector economy, and fps - so yea.. the basis of a system fleet commands is present, and does sort of work.. except in the heat of battle, when you are battling a K, and the other destroyers sort o f wander off.. or just won't join .. but they do eventually, and that is l think down to a glitch in the scripts that fleet commands are based on.. there is a lot going on at any one moment when playing X4 -

[iznogood]

i would say there is defo some deliberate built in idiocy with lower skilled pilots. i am learning not to use less than 4 star in my l and xl military ships!

The problem actually is not in the lesser skills of lesser pilots. The biggest problem is that pilot skills are not progressing whatsoever.
Given that in mid/late game one needs more than 20 pilots of high skills you see where this is going...
Granted, there is a "pilot school" in PHQ once the player reaches Terraforming state but have you seen the prerequisites for that? That leads the player into heavy industrialisation which is not everybody's cup of tea (to say the least), throwing the "Sandbox" out of the window...

There's is actually a nice mod for accelerating skills called "Faster Crew Leveling", i can warmly recommend it. I mean, does it really take 100.000 missions for a captain to figure out how to fly wares from a to b?

[Pesanur]

Pilot/captain leveling works outstanding in X Rebirth. Why Egosoft nerfed it in that way for X4 is beyond me.

[jlehtone]

I sent a ship 100 km "up" off the ecliptic and instead of using its main engines, it, OF COURSE, is using its thrusters (W) to go "up" at 8 m/s while still travelling "east" or "right" using its main engines.

While it is awesome that flight routines can use strafe (unlike X3 and before), that sounds way too 2D behaviour. Did you file a (putative) bug report or are you just happy to release steam?

[dtpsprt]

There's is actually a nice mod for accelerating skills called "Faster Crew Leveling", i can warmly recommend it. I mean, does it really take 100.000 missions for a captain to figure out how to fly wares from a to b?

I have long ago stopped playing vanilla for this and other reasons. That does not mean that vanilla should be like that and there are players that would prefer vanilla over moded game (me included) since the developers always have a better idea of how their game works and resources to test (hopefully). Best example is the mod that simplifies the dreaded leak hunt (why this should be part of the game is beyond me) which inadvertently turns off the current mission if you are close to a station and switch to scanner mode!!!

[mr.WHO]

Binding crew training to Terraforming is the most stupid move in a very long time.

By the time you unlock it, you're way beyong any bother with crew skill and can just say "F*ck it and throw legions on newbies in whatever direction you need".

Not to mention, you can mass dumb crew for training, but then you have to manually assing them one by one which make the whole feature reather useless.

Training should be binded to PHQ without terraforming, plus for those who don't like HQ, there should be NPC faction training facilities, just like in X3.


The whole system is rather major downgrade comparing to X3.

[surferx]

This game goes out of its way to perform every single command in the most idiotic way possible, in order to justify its IDIOTIC personnel skill "star" system. Just now, I sent a ship 100 km "up" off the ecliptic (a very urgent mission, because enemy reinforcements were coming soon) so it could repair its fleet (its own idiot sub-system) and instead of using its main engines, it, OF COURSE, is using its thrusters (W) to go "up" at 8 m/s while still travelling "east" or "right" using its main engines. I can see this because of the "travel dust" around the ship. I don't want to hear about pilot skill bullcrap, I don't want to hear about mods, this is script behavior, and this is IDIOCY. You need to get rid of your stupid-ass skill mechanic, Egosoft. Just give me decent commands that actually WORK.

So, you just walk up to a NPC on a station, or a dozen, and they're all 5-star pilots? NO THANKS!!!! Immersion killer, and a silly assumption. Basically, all you're asking is to make the game easier. It was designed that way to reward player progression.

[Nanook]

...

So, you just walk up to a NPC on a station, or a dozen, and they're all 5-star pilots? NO THANKS!!!! Immersion killer, and a silly assumption. Basically, all you're asking is to make the game easier. It was designed that way to reward player progression.

I think you need to go back and read the whole thread for content. No one, but no one, is asking for what you just said.

[dmk]

Just now, I sent a ship 100 km "up" off the ecliptic (a very urgent mission, because enemy reinforcements were coming soon) so it could repair its fleet (its own idiot sub-system) and instead of using its main engines, it, OF COURSE, is using its thrusters (W) to go "up" at 8 m/s

you just need to set station there (new plot) and transfer 1 battery from that ship to .... .... ... building store ... .... ,
it would fly very fast, travel to dock is working almost perfectly (for exception of exiting from gates), and even better that some enemies would attack station which would cost you only 1 battery(however you could cancel transfer and dock in time if you watching, or transfer it back), and has 15% health of first module.

[builder680]

I wasn't going to reply to the guy, but I'll give it a shot.

What I would like, if a skill system must exist, is for it to give a meaningful benefit(s) that stack over time. Maybe some little stuff similar to what ship mods do. What I do NOT want, is a "skill" system that locks basic commands from executing in a (questionably) adequate manner until five stars. If I'm an army commander, and I tell my tank crew to drive 10 km over that way, I don't expect the tank crew to jump out of the tank and try to flip the tank end over end until it gets to the destination. Similarly, I don't expect commands in this game to be executed that stupidly either. NO ONE is that stupid (I hope). So it's not "human" like anyway. I just see a lazy way of penalizing the player until they get to five stars, instead of giving the player small bonuses on their way to five stars. One way is deliberately handicapping, one is rewarding. IMO that's a better way to design a "skill" system.

But this has all been said before a million times. What we really need is a talented modder to rewrite all the basic scripts in this game to function properly so we can use those commands instead of the stock ones. Because the stock ones are terrible. There are some good ones already, but we need something that replaces stuff like "fly to," "attack," etc. Because the AI's behavior with these commands is (often) bad. A damaged fighter should break off mid "Attack" command for repairs if there's a chance to do so. "Fly to" should mean, point nose of ship at destination and travel drive until the point where decelerating will stop you on the spot intended. Et cetera. This is basic stuff.

[builder680]

Just now, I sent a ship 100 km "up" off the ecliptic (a very urgent mission, because enemy reinforcements were coming soon) so it could repair its fleet (its own idiot sub-system) and instead of using its main engines, it, OF COURSE, is using its thrusters (W) to go "up" at 8 m/s

you just need to set station there (new plot) and transfer 1 battery from that ship to .... .... ... building store ... .... ,
it would fly very fast, travel to dock is working almost perfectly (for exception of exiting from gates), and even better that some enemies would attack station which would cost you only 1 battery(however you could cancel transfer and dock in time if you watching, or transfer it back), and has 15% health of first module.

Lol... i know you're trying to help but not sure if you intended this to be humorous as a "solution" or not. Either way it got a chuckle.

[surferx]

...

So, you just walk up to a NPC on a station, or a dozen, and they're all 5-star pilots? NO THANKS!!!! Immersion killer, and a silly assumption. Basically, all you're asking is to make the game easier. It was designed that way to reward player progression.

I think you need to go back and read the whole thread for content. No one, but no one, is asking for what you just said.

Sorry for the mistake then.