question regarding x4 overall and future updates , changes

[Halpog]

hi all

as a long time player of X3, TC, and AP , i got some questipons i realy need to ask, and hope to get some kind of infos,statement from official side.

with x3 ( inc TC,AP ) our ships could use a jump drive. and jump to the propper sector.
wich that they did not got any kind of "cut, or lets say limit" in there distance they could jump ... they jumped into a sector and flew to the stations to do there jobs.

is there any plans to get this in x4 too ?
iam asking because iam missing this a lot. it was a big and massive impact on trafing, and keeping a station running . it also had a lot of "style and "magic" in the universe ..

said the above stuff. leds me to my next point.

compared to x3 , x4 sectors and stations "basicaly" are the same. just new names new design, BUT
why does it feel so empty, homeless, and boring to fly arround in x4 ?
in x3 i think secotors had much more life, more space and universe feeling.the map was larger with much more sectors.
when i look at the x4 map i can see ah argon there, teladi there split is over there ....and all got 3 to 5 secotrs and thats it .

x3 had a much better feeling regarding space, universe, life, action. and unexplored magic. it was fun to fly arround and searchng for stations.
why is x4 so different from that feeling ?
what is missing ?
whats the differenz ?
will there be more secotrs ? free sectors ? more space between races ? will there be somekind of rework of the "jump gate connections" since we have a lot of inactive ones ?
will we be able to create our owen gates like in x3 ? with our owen choice of destinations ?

iam also missing true pirates....
yes we have some pirate factions.. but lets be honest...only 2 of them can be calles little pirates, while the others arent even acting like ones ...
PGS is litterarely for 70% stealing wares from stations, the rest they attack here and there some ships...
buckaneers 100% they kill every satelite that comes across this faction.they also destory here and there some ships.
noone of them is stealing ships via boarding , or stealing docked ships from stations .buckaneers are only involved in the paranid plot.
PGS only in the hatikva plot
and fallen families.. is well forgotten ^^
anyway. iam missing true pirates

x4 is a damn great game. i love to play it , but compared to x3 its " empty" ...ther are no civilians ( only arround stations )
x4 definatly needs some more sectors , a rework of xenons ( because they are the oinly factions that truly wars another and overtake sectors by spamming defense stations into 1 sector )
zyath gets overrruned by 2 sides with xenon ....xenons basicaly just need 2 or 3 ships to kill a whole sector.
no faction realy goes against them .

one of the major problems in x4 is time .....
when u start a new game. it needs toooo much time to build a station, earn money to buy the blueprints, and get a propper shipyard running. untill this is done, xenone already killed a lot of sectors.
iam not saying its to hard, because it is not. the fine line of hard and rewarding and frustrating is well done.
but in every game i start i see after 1 day or 2 days already xenon invading zyath , hatikva and antigone.while we still progressing through our starting stations, spending days waiting for modules to be build. along side the wares . and tiull we fginaly have a propper station with a running economy for our start, 1 faction is done already.there is no chance for a player in the forst 2 days to get a propper fleet together to stop the xenon spreading.
yes all needs time, but it is to much. an L trader that runs from paranid space till saturn needs mroe than 30 minsutes in real time. building a station with prod modules ( just 1 each ) needs almost 1 day.
the balance between time in game, time in real time, and progress in game is to far off. and unbalanced.a xenon invasion needs 45 minutes to kill a whole sector. while we sit and wait 4 hours for an XL ship to be finished.
sometimes we wait for days because the ressources are mssing on AI stations, and wont get refilled.
for example. in my save there is an xenon I and k ( 2 ships ) going from argoon to hatikvat, to teladi space doen till first paranide sector .. argone prime gone. hatikva gone, teladi sectors gone....all done by 2 xenon ships...
teladis cant even defend themself with there ships and weapons.having teladis based on lasers , who mostly can be used to light up space, but nothing more is the end of the teladi race^^
when a fleet in 1 secotr is gone, its gone there is no rebuilding of that fleet.
its also not a good idea to limit a race to there owen ships. why teladis should not use splitt sips or paranid ships ?weapons equippment yes ok, but ships ?

as i say, a lot of stuff is killing the " feeling" in x4 and could be handled better, but still x4 so far is one of the best games ive seen in the past 20 years after x3 and AC odyssey

[jlehtone]

... jump drive ...
is there any plans to get this in x4 too ?

The plan is very clear: never

... but, you can jump your PHQ.

why is x4 so different from that feeling ?

It is a different game?

On quick count I got 117 sectors (with all DLC's). Some say that the game becomes unwieldy with all the action in all those sectors.

iam also missing true pirates....
noone of them is stealing ships via boarding , or stealing docked ships from stations

Has any of the X-games had "true pirates"? Has the NPC ever boarded anything?

Oh, the X4 Yaki supposedly can claim abandoned ships.

[Ormac]

one of the major problems in x4 is time .....
when u start a new game. it needs toooo much time to build a station, earn money to buy the blueprints, and get a propper shipyard running. untill this is done, xenone already killed a lot of sectors.
iam not saying its to hard, because it is not. the fine line of hard and rewarding and frustrating is well done.
but in every game i start i see after 1 day or 2 days already xenon invading zyath , hatikva and antigone.while we still progressing through our starting stations, spending days waiting for modules to be build. along side the wares . and tiull we fginaly have a propper station with a running economy for our start, 1 faction is done already.there is no chance for a player in the forst 2 days to get a propper fleet together to stop the xenon spreading.
yes all needs time, but it is to much. an L trader that runs from paranid space till saturn needs mroe than 30 minsutes in real time. building a station with prod modules ( just 1 each ) needs almost 1 day.
the balance between time in game, time in real time, and progress in game is to far off. and unbalanced.a xenon invasion needs 45 minutes to kill a whole sector. while we sit and wait 4 hours for an XL ship to be finished.
sometimes we wait for days because the ressources are mssing on AI stations, and wont get refilled.
for example. in my save there is an xenon I and k ( 2 ships ) going from argoon to hatikvat, to teladi space doen till first paranide sector .. argone prime gone. hatikva gone, teladi sectors gone....all done by 2 xenon ships...
teladis cant even defend themself with there ships and weapons.having teladis based on lasers , who mostly can be used to light up space, but nothing more is the end of the teladi race^^
when a fleet in 1 secotr is gone, its gone there is no rebuilding of that fleet.
its also not a good idea to limit a race to there owen ships. why teladis should not use splitt sips or paranid ships ?weapons equippment yes ok, but ships ?

as i say, a lot of stuff is killing the " feeling" in x4 and could be handled better, but still x4 so far is one of the best games ive seen in the past 20 years after x3 and AC odyssey

I've not had a problem with the rate of timely game progression in X4. Granted once 6.00 is released Zyarth will have a stronger starting economy to repel/resist the Xenon so the Northern Xenon Stronghold may not be so dominating.

In my current game while the Xenon are making an intial raiding foray into Hatikvahs Choice I've not seen them position thier Defence Platorm in the usual place. Xenon are skirmishing in the Southern Void but might be suffering losses from HOP on the other side. I've just bought a Colossus and it did not take me 4 hours to wait for construction. The Teladi are strong enough and smart enough to hold Ianamus Zura. Current Game/Simulation duration is 5 days (120 hours)

Sector size or sation density feels similar to X3 GE I and GE II feel highly indusrialised with GE IV feeling to allow for player growth and establishment. I would like some more border regions or network spurs that are recently claimed or unclaimed and under developed. Currently every sector has a reason to be connected and action occuring which I believe is Egosofts intention (you explore a sector and you find something to do)

[As25]

Idk which game you're playing OP. The jump drive was a mistake. I could set up a Nostrop Oil complex in Terran space where there are 0 buyers because it doesn't matter anyway. My hauler can get from Neptune to Seiswell in 1 jump, and then to Grand Exchange in another. One of my factories is getting attacked and I have nothing to defend it nearby? Doesn't matter I can make an entire fleet instantly appear there.

Pirates in X3 don't steal cargo or ships at all. In X4 they scan your cargo and promp you to release it. If you comply, they leave you alone, and if you're not carrying cargo they don't attack you at all. They also disguise themselves, posing as a another npc before attacking. X3 pirates were Xenons with another name, just causing random rampage whereever they went.

In X3 a destroyer was 60-90 m the ship alone. Then like 30 m to equip. X4 destroyers cost like 10-15 m and you can actually equip them without jumping all over the galaxy to get 2 PPC at a time, cause that's all a equipment dock could had in X3. You needed 24 PPC to equip your M2, yet the ED only had 2 lol. Try to buy destroyers in bulk in X3. It's a pain in the ass. Factories produced 1, just 1, PPC every 5 hours.

A lot of what you're saying is wrong.

[Toshis8]

Probably jump drive gave an unfair advantage against npc factions. You could concentrate all your power in one spot and then instantly jump it around anywhere to fight off any attack at any moment.

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

one of the major problems in x4 is time .....
when u start a new game. it needs toooo much time to build a station, earn money to buy the blueprints, and get a propper shipyard running. untill this is done, xenone already killed a lot of sectors.
iam not saying its to hard, because it is not. the fine line of hard and rewarding and frustrating is well done.
but in every game i start i see after 1 day or 2 days already xenon invading zyath , hatikva and antigone.while we still progressing through our starting stations, spending days waiting for modules to be build. along side the wares . and tiull we fginaly have a propper station with a running economy for our start, 1 faction is done already.there is no chance for a player in the forst 2 days to get a propper fleet together to stop the xenon spreading.
yes all needs time, but it is to much. an L trader that runs from paranid space till saturn needs mroe than 30 minsutes in real time. building a station with prod modules ( just 1 each ) needs almost 1 day.
the balance between time in game, time in real time, and progress in game is to far off. and unbalanced.a xenon invasion needs 45 minutes to kill a whole sector. while we sit and wait 4 hours for an XL ship to be finished.
sometimes we wait for days because the ressources are mssing on AI stations, and wont get refilled.
for example. in my save there is an xenon I and k ( 2 ships ) going from argoon to hatikvat, to teladi space doen till first paranide sector .. argone prime gone. hatikva gone, teladi sectors gone....all done by 2 xenon ships...
teladis cant even defend themself with there ships and weapons.having teladis based on lasers , who mostly can be used to light up space, but nothing more is the end of the teladi race^^
when a fleet in 1 secotr is gone, its gone there is no rebuilding of that fleet.
its also not a good idea to limit a race to there owen ships. why teladis should not use splitt sips or paranid ships ?weapons equippment yes ok, but ships ?

as i say, a lot of stuff is killing the " feeling" in x4 and could be handled better, but still x4 so far is one of the best games ive seen in the past 20 years after x3 and AC odyssey

Evidently there are many things you don't know, X4 has countless ways to stop the Xenon. It seems that you only take into account "active" methods.

The nice thing about X4 is that you learn the various ways of playing it by playing it several times, unlike X3 where you would have played one big game and the next one would have been the same.

[flywlyx]

Probably jump drive gave an unfair advantage against npc factions. You could concentrate all your power in one spot and then instantly jump it around anywhere to fight off any attack at any moment.

AI factions should have jump drive too.

AI is not smart enough to intercept players' fleet anyway.

X4 AI doesn't have any tactical ability, players' advantage is so huge that jump drive is actually disadvantage since AI's behavior is less predictable with it.

[Nanook]

...
when i look at the x4 map i can see ah argon there, teladi there split is over there ....and all got 3 to 5 secotrs and thats it ....

Um, you might want to do a recount, or maybe explore the game a bit more. Argon start out with seven sectors, Split start out with eight, and the Teladi, well they start out with thirteen. Only three factions start with five or fewer. If the Xenon are overrunning your universe in such a short time, you might want to try another game start that will give you a different seed number (they're random with each start).

[TheDeliveryMan]

I am glad the Jump Drive is gone!

while we still progressing through our starting stations, spending days waiting for modules to be build. along side the wares . and tiull we fginaly have a propper station with a running economy for our start, 1 faction is done already.

Instead of waiting for construction materials you could take care of the logistics yourself. That way you will learn where the bottleneck is and it will also get the job done faster.

A bare bones Solar Power Plant costs costs about 1M credits. If it is built in a good location like Bright Promise with 200% sunlight and near the highway ring it can make 300k to 400k credits per hour.

A bare bones Scrap Recycling facility costs about 10M credits, blueprints included. This turns wrecks into basic construction materials. Add more Solar Panels and Recyclers to increase the production capacity. Then you can set up freighters with repeat orders to supply your other construction sites with materials.

[jlehtone]

while we still progressing through our starting stations, spending days waiting for modules to be build. along side the wares . and tiull we fginaly have a propper station with a running economy for our start, 1 faction is done already.

Instead of waiting for construction materials you could take care of the logistics yourself. That way you will learn where the bottleneck is and it will also get the job done faster.

The first stations that I did build (all "Build a Station" missions for NPC) I did give the build storage credits and NPC did some bring materials. It was very clear that NPC Traders are very bad at bringing everything.

That is, after all the First Rule of NPC economy in X Universe: NPC logistics sucks
Why? So that player can make a living.

If I tell my freighters to deliver materials to build storage, then I know that (A) all will be coming and (B) I get better offers than what the NPC ships demand. Cheaper and faster. Therefore, I have stopped giving any credits to build sites many stations ago.


I did mention "Build a Station" missions. The first station for myself I made some 800 hours after start. Not even a "proper station", just a station. Was a faction already "done" by then? Yes: the Xenon and Terran -- both in very bad shape -- but only because I had beaten both to smithereens. My mistake. Nurturing Xenon back to life is not trivial.