Hokkaido Gameplay technical issues.

[humility925]

I was playing as Terran and I want to use L Miner pure terran only, but problem is that Hokkaido cost 20 million credit, and it's had only one L shield, I keep losing those L miner to Khaak or Xenon (not destroyer/battleship, just few fighter similar to Khaak number) but I had no issues with L Crane, Crane is only cost 10 million credit and had 3 L shield, Crane is almost way better than Hokkaido, beside of look of ship.

Now I couldn't use Hokkaido because it's do not job like Crane do and what it's cost lot more than Crane by double cost even! This was whole reason why I want L to replace M to ensure not to lost few enemies fighter and no more keep replace and rename all the time. It's felt useless to use Hokkaido and I don't see any point of using Hokkaido upgrade from bolo, it's still losing to Khaak too often, while Crane never happen, and way cheaper. I love look of Hokkaido but can't use it at all and no choice but forced to use Crane even thought I played as Terran because Crane do wonderful job and cheaper than Hokkaido. (Job, I mean not to lost to few fighter like Khaak or Xenon)

Would it's possible for Egosoft buff Hokkaido 1 L Shield to 3 L Shield like Crane to ensure it's not lost to khaak just like Crane and make that money worth it even? I felt Hokkaido is underbalanced for what it cost.

Thank you.

Noted Edit, I forgot to add that: Hokkaido had lowest speed of all L Miner and One L Shield while other L may had one Shield but able to outrun Khaak with something 200 to 400ms at least and other L slower had more shield but not slower than Hokkaido.
Hokkaido need a serious buff, please! Thank you!

[Imperial Good]

The cost comes way down once you can build them yourself (parts cost). Until then I recommend sticking to M miners.

Khaak can only spawn in Asteroid Belt. So the much better Saturn 2 mining area is completely safe from Khaak and Xenon. Focus your Terran industry there and even with the terrible Terran mining ships you will still end up rolling in credits quite quickly.

My suggestion for a Terran only playthrough is to focus on Sol first. The trade stations in Sol have a lot of demand for Terran wares so you can easily make hundreds of millions of credits per hour from Sol alone. With exception of Asteroid Belt, Sol is generally a very safe system due to how policed it is with high tier ships.

After you have your Sol economy up and running and can build your own ships, then you can expand into commonwealth wares and trade. Once you can build your own ships, losing even L miners quickly becomes a trivial cost to your massive economy.

[humility925]

This is gameplay balance issues, Whole point of L is ensure not to lost to few Khaak, to avoid tracking down and rename and replaced all the time when you had large miner fleet over 100 like I did. I expect L miner not to lost ship to few fighter, Crane doing good job but I look at Stat of Hokkaido was so bad and worse Miner L

Yes M is better but player would get sick of losing M to Khaak here and there, try to track down where and who belong to station to replace loss, rename, all that over 100 miner again and again so go on. It's help gameplay improved by buff L miner like Hokkaido. I wasn't asking overpower, I was asking reasonable to buff to make Hokkaido worth a cost, something should little little bit better than crane since Crane is 10 million cheaper, and speed similar, had higher hull number, higher number crew, had 3 shield that can handle it few enemies in OOS while Hokkaido couldn't do job as L Miner upgrade from M, whole reason is L Miner is not to lost few fighter like Khaak, that happen to me often lot (since I was played Terran, build pure terran ship out of my own shipyard, I was shocked Hokkaido lost to few fighter, that can't be right, I am petty sure I did max out everything, I had no issues with Crane at all, then I look at stats more detail Hokkaido vs Crane, then I look deeper in https://roguey.co.uk/x4/ships/ and disocoved Hokkaido had almost every stat is bad, and highest cost as well, that is not very reasonable balance gameplay and Hokkaido need to buff to improve gameplay like not to lost to few fighter to avoid tracking down and rename all the time when large number of fleets.

This is clearly Hokkaido should get buff to improve gameplay for what it worth it, even you could product out of shipyard. but from player role playing and all that replace and rename over again and again because Hokkaido is weak so then player end up not to use Hokkaido but Crane all the time because Crane able to handle it small threat and never lost to it while Hokkaido do, just to avoid tense to track down, replace and rename so many time.

I wasn't said to nerfed Crane, I was asking to buff Hokkaido, this was very reasonable to ask of Egosoft to buff because my feedback of experience and expectation of L Miner's Role. Hokkaido got so bad to other faction's L Miner, Other ship had more shield yet slow speed (but Hokkaido had slowest speed (worst) and one L Shield (worst), it's no wonder it's losing to few fighter like Khaak and Xenon) while other L Miner had one shield but able to go 400 M/S outran Khaak, reaching station to handle Khaak.

What did Hokkaido got? bad, speed, shield together? I felt this is not right and not balanced at all. based of terran philosophy, Hokkaido should had 3 L shield similar to Crane, even so Crane still had couple better than Hokkaido, Crane can even use 3 Terran Shield mk3 even more stronger stay alive, but Hokkaido don't had any survivability for high cost and competition with all other faction's L Miner?

What make player always had to choice other factions L miner that do good job survivability due larger number of shield or very fast speed yet Hokkaido do not had any good survivability, hull even low, cargo is even low as well? what gave? Hokkaido had low speed, low shield, low hull, low cargo, even low crew, then it's highest cost to buy even so, what gave? That is not very reasonable gameplay balance here.

It's insane not to buff Hokkaido, it's not had lot of benefits to had Hokkaido!

Edit: I already knew about Oort Cloud and Saturn sector, I still had M there, but for anywhere, I need L so I don't keep replace and rename all the time, but I felt it's not right to use Crane all the time when playing as Terran, I would like to use Hokkaido but can't because it's was not do good job survivability due it's got bad stats almost everything!

If person can't understand what is wrong with Hokkaido, I think my mind go crazy and mad! I don't know what more I need to said after proof here feedback.

[Alan Phipps]

Agreed, this is a ship gameplay and balance suggestion and not for Tech Sp. Over we go to the gameplay forum.

[GCU Grey Area]

I just see this as part of how the Terran faction as a whole is balanced. Clearly the bulk of the Terran R&D budget went on their capital class warships, while their miners (& freighters) were a distinctly secondary consideration. They're adequate (particularly when operating within safe Terran sectors), but comparatively expensive & there are better ships out there made by other factions. Absolutely fine with that myself. Would not want any faction to have the best ships in every category. Finding ways of coping with the weaker ships offered by a particular faction is all part of the game when playing a single faction game (as almost all of my games are).

[taztaz502]

Just get them for free by doing the faction missions.

[humility925]

Whole point is Hokkaido should able to survivability few threat, not lost to few threat, I lost hokkaido to Khaak even in asteroid belt, I don't need hokkaido at all in safe sector like Oort Cloud and Saturn because M Bolo is all need even then, when one got free Hokkaido, they would sell off then brought Crane every time even one playing as terran.

This game isn't PvP online since on bring up for whole faction balance but even it's PvP online, Hokkaido still need buff even in PvP online.

Whole point of Hokkaido is L miner upgrade from M to ensure it's should be survivability from few fighter but failed again and again in my game, Hokkaido should not lost to few fighter, it's large ship, no one would design/buy if it real life like that.

Please stop excuses by said whole factions, that is not helping with improve gameplay in general, it's not justifiable, I was talking specific ship that don't do good job at role as L Miner due all kind of bad stats that can't handle few threat fighter like other L Miner where low shield but high speed to outran, or heavy shield yet slow but both path can handle threat, but Hokkaido had bad speed, bad shield, is whole reason why I lost to few tiny fighter time to time again in my game.

Hokkaido is useless for role and job by staying survivability while mining, might well M bolo do job, but to avoid replace and rename all over again, upgrade to L, but Hokkaido still losing to few fighter, that is where need buff to keep it up survivability.

[mrwuggles]

Whole point is Hokkaido should able to survivability few threat, not lost to few threat, I lost hokkaido to Khaak even in asteroid belt, I don't need hokkaido at all in safe sector like Oort Cloud and Saturn because M Bolo is all need even then, when one got free Hokkaido, they would sell off then brought Crane every time even one playing as terran.

This game isn't PvP online since on bring up for whole faction balance but even it's PvP online, Hokkaido still need buff even in PvP online.

Whole point of Hokkaido is L miner upgrade from M to ensure it's should be survivability from few fighter but failed again and again in my game, Hokkaido should not lost to few fighter, it's large ship, no one would design/buy if it real life like that.

Please stop excuses by said whole factions, that is not helping with improve gameplay in general, it's not justifiable, I was talking specific ship that don't do good job at role as L Miner due all kind of bad stats that can't handle few threat fighter like other L Miner where low shield but high speed to outran, or heavy shield yet slow but both path can handle threat, but Hokkaido had bad speed, bad shield, is whole reason why I lost to few tiny fighter time to time again in my game.

Hokkaido is useless for role and job by staying survivability while mining, might well M bolo do job, but to avoid replace and rename all over again, upgrade to L, but Hokkaido still losing to few fighter, that is where need buff to keep it up survivability.

The point of the Hokkaido is to be the Terrans miner,.it isn't supposed to fulfill a condition that you desire its ment to be balanced asymmetrical against the other factions, terran miners are almost immune to khaak attack except in the asteroid belt, which a quick hop over to ant space and that's over.

Their balanced against the needs of their faction and how they would interact in space. Their needs to be holes, there needs to be some ****** ships otherwise factions would be overpowered or worse uniform and uninteresting.

Like I said terran never leave their space, so their design needs are different then the argon, as they operate in different areas and lore wise and gameay wise they don't actually need that protection, there are no threats, but move out of terran space and the dynamic changes and this also explains why the other races spend more money to protect their ships as they do have to deal with both khaak and xenon incursions.

You being annoyed with loosing ships is supposed to happen, because you haven't chosen the correct tool for the job, or spent the money necessary to protect these assets and shore up your weaknesses, escort your ships, a couple katana and your golden untill sca brings a destroyer and even then the katanas might do just fine.

Attrition is necessary and it's a part of managing a large empire, get more organized or choose ships that fulfill your needs, don't expect a single faction to be able to do this, you have to work around their weaknesses if you choose a mono race fleet and this actually makes things a lot more interesting.

[GCU Grey Area]

Hokkaido is useless for role...

That is overstating it. While I agree there are definitely much better miners available, it is not useless. It was certainly good enough as a miner in my Terran-only game. Had a couple of hundred of them, all working for mining outposts in Commonwealth space, where they most definitely came into contact with Kha'ak ships. Here's a map of where they worked: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zjdb2wygl29p ... 1.jpg?dl=0.

Over the course of a game lasting 21 days (during which those Hokkaidos provided all of the raw materials needed to do all of the terraforming missions) I lost precisely one of them. That solitary loss was to a Xenon I while it was crossing Ianamus Zura IV (doubt even if it had 3 shields it would have helped much in that situation). Have no idea why yours are losing to Kha'ak.

In case it's useful, this is the loadout I gave them: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gn4np3ksw5oys ... 1.jpg?dl=0
By the way, in case your curious about the speed, they were modded with Polisher chassis & Reaver engines to improve travel speed (+50% or so). It's standard kit for all of my L miners, even the much speedier Rorquals I'm using in my current Boron-only game. Faster miners means I need to buy fewer of them. Doubt that made a difference against the Kha'ak though, even a Queen's Guard heavy fighter should be fast enough to keep.

[Pesanur]

Khaak can only spawn in Asteroid Belt. So the much better Saturn 2 mining area is completely safe from Khaak and Xenon.

And small correction, Khaak's spawn in Asteroid belt and in Gaian Prophecy.

[Nanook]

...
Like I said terran never leave their space...

Wrong. I capture a lot of Hokkaido's in Nopileo's Fortune, far from Terran space. Both TER and PIO versions. Also in Second Contact, all of HOP space, as well as PAR. And the ones I capture don't seem to have problems mining in Kha'ak areas. Haven't lost one yet.

[mrwuggles]

...
Like I said terran never leave their space...

Wrong. I capture a lot of Hokkaido's in Nopileo's Fortune, far from Terran space. Both TER and PIO versions. Also in Second Contact, all of HOP space, as well as PAR. And the ones I capture don't seem to have problems mining in Kha'ak areas. Haven't lost one yet.

Akhem, My miners never leave terran space, and if the lore is to be followed neither do theirs, their isolationists,.the ai unfortunately does not know this, the ai doesn't know a whole lotta things.

My post was ment to illustrate why the design decisions were made by the devs, why their a good thing for variety and to provide some help to the op, it's not ment to be perfectly accurate just to show that the ships were designed in this manner to suit both the lore and how they fit into the current dynamic as.far as the player is concerned, the ai agian is not very intelligent, it can't possibly be so it uses it's tool poorly, because all the races use the same system,.it's why zya keeps sending ships to their doo.when they can go around and likely why u found pio stuff out where it probably shouldn't be.

[Nanook]

...
Like I said terran never leave their space...

Wrong. I capture a lot of Hokkaido's in Nopileo's Fortune, far from Terran space. Both TER and PIO versions. Also in Second Contact, all of HOP space, as well as PAR. And the ones I capture don't seem to have problems mining in Kha'ak areas. Haven't lost one yet.

Akhem, My miners never leave terran space, and if the lore is to be followed neither do theirs, their isolationists...

That's not strictly true anymore. The Terrans send out large interdiction fleets throughout the Commonwealth. So there's no reason their independent miners won't try to find better mining places. Once the door opened to the Commonwealth, the Terrans stopped being isolationists. Their traders often make forays into Commonwealth space, too. If the Terrans were true isolationists, they'd have fleets and defense platforms at their gates to keep their civilian ships in.

[Panos]

I was playing as Terran and I want to use L Miner pure terran only, but problem is that Hokkaido cost 20 million credit, and it's had only one L shield, I keep losing those L miner to Khaak or Xenon (not destroyer/battleship, just few fighter similar to Khaak number) but I had no issues with L Crane, Crane is only cost 10 million credit and had 3 L shield, Crane is almost way better than Hokkaido, beside of look of ship.

Join the Terran war guild on the TER vs XEN war. Every second mission round, one of them will give you as bonus reward a modded Hokkaido, with 2500 Nividium in it too!!!!!

[Raevyan]

Well you don’t have to pay 20m for a Hokkaido. You can just board them for almost free and upgrade if needed. The used ship market is much cheaper than buying new and they are readily available.

[Imperial Good]

I operate hundreds of Hokkaido and never lost a single one to Khaak. Khaak generally leave the gas variant alone, and the solid variant usually clusters enough that lone Khaak cannot destroy it.

By the time you can afford to spam Hokkaido, you can afford to bulldoze Khaak hives and outposts. Doing so will drastically reduce the amount of Khaak that spawn on top of your solid miners, to the point that even M miners are at a very low risk.

If you want to be 100% sure to not lose miners to Khaak, use the "flee and drop laser tower" response. The laser towers really give Khaak a hard time and pretty much guarantee even low tier M miners like the Bolo can escape.

[humility925]

I did operate hundred of Hokkaido as well, and do lost too often, meanwhile very rare I lost Crane (only because Crane lost to Xenon destroyer) but to Khaak/Xenon fighter, never lost a singe one, Crane just keep going even under 5 or 6 m6 Khaak along few fighter in eighteen billion, it's been attack quite lot.)
Meanwhile I do lost lot of Hokkaido (whole reason I want hokkaido is because IT's L miner so I don't lost to common enemies like Khaak, nothing big fleet like that, roleplaying Terran pure only terran ship, and Hokkaido look awesome, but sadly my case, I do lost to few fighter while I had no issues with Crane at all)

Each faction had a specific something better than other faction, but Hokkraido do not had any specific better than other L miner at all, nothing, I mean nothing! Only thing close is Hokkraido had 3 place of turret, first place is spilt had number most number of turret (Crane is second place of turrent), along max speed that can outran common threat like Khaak)

Commonwealth can use Terran equipment, Terran had something to offer to commonwealth to use it to make even more stronger but what commonwealth do offer to Terran side? Not much, just argon flak or plasma turret maybe? It's still meh, because it's not need, it's very situation while shield do need, and always good to had, only spilt combat engine Mk4 do help Terran S and M, but that is about it.

Commonwealth ship can get even more better using Terran Shield, while Terran Ship don't get lot better from commonwealth other than spilt combat engine MK4, Argon flak/plasma is not must had, it's just more of situation, rarely.

Back to L Miner, what do Hokkaido can offer better than other Faction L miner? because I don't see anything, Spilt L miner Wyvern had best speed and turret number (turret is meh for miner, nice to had, but not must had) Teladi L Miner Crane had most cargo, most hull, most number of crew (more crew meaning faster mining?) and most number of Shield (3 main shield). Magnetar is somewhere middle ground, jack of all, master of none. Chthonios is little more faster, less cargo, while Boron had stronger speed, shield, hull, cargo than most L Miner.

Hokkaido is not even jack of all, master of none, it's handicap, well below of jack of all.

I don't know if one able to tell a difference easy map seed and hard map seed, I do noticed this huge difference when playing hard map seed and able to spot on flaw of designed. (Hard Map is where lot of xenon and khaak overwhelming while easy map, where Xenon and Khaak don't do much in player's map)

Even Hokkaido get one more L Shield, it's still not on top but it's helped dealing with hard map, maybe, I had not test that since Egosoft did not had any buff or look at it yet, gave 2 more L Shield, then Horkkraido do had something to offer (I guess it's tie with Crane, but Crane still better than Horkkraido due turret, hull, cargo, crew so go on)

Whole reason why L Miner replace M Miner is to surviving common threat (meaning few fighter of Khaak and Xenon (not fleet or destroyer). Hokkaido don't do just justice upgrade Bolo to Hokkaido when Terran Player growing expand outside of sol system (I still lost hokkaido in asteroid belt that still part of sol system number of time due to Khaak, this is why I bring up issues after already look at and examine whole thing careful, that L miner should not lost to even Khaak but it's did happen, and what is point of playing pure terran that only limited to Terran ship, upgrade to L from M (lot of lost M to Khaak much is push me to upgrade to L miner, only it's not work at all even max out everything) That's wake up call for me.

Some might not see it because they might play easy map mode or something, or never had lot of attacked from Khaak number of time/ along endless wave of Xenon, never put test of Hokkaido, I studyed Crane can handle it 6 M Khaak, 5 to 7 S fighter, while happy going mining all day long without any support, but Hokkaido can't handle that.

[THE_TrashMan]

I just see this as part of how the Terran faction as a whole is balanced. Clearly the bulk of the Terran R&D budget went on their capital class warships, while their miners (& freighters) were a distinctly secondary consideration. They're adequate (particularly when operating within safe Terran sectors), but comparatively expensive & there are better ships out there made by other factions. Absolutely fine with that myself. Would not want any faction to have the best ships in every category. Finding ways of coping with the weaker ships offered by a particular faction is all part of the game when playing a single faction game (as almost all of my games are).

This those not excuse abysmal stats.
And given the reconstruction effort, you'd think there would be big investment in economy and civilian ships, if not by the government, then by various companies.
The Hokaido doesn't need to be the best, it just needs to not suck. It's stats are far too terrible, no matter how you look at it. At least give it something else to compensate.
More storage space?

[chew-ie]

Some might not see it because they might play easy map mode or something, or never had lot of attacked from Khaak number of time/ along endless wave of Xenon, never put test of Hokkaido, I studyed Crane can handle it 6 M Khaak, 5 to 7 S fighter, while happy going mining all day long without any support, but Hokkaido can't handle that.

No need to insinuate others of playing a different X. Hokkaido is one of my favourite miners and as others stated I too never lost one to Kha'ak - and my ships are getting swarmed like those of everyone else: if you leave Kha'ak unchecked, the threat increases.

My Hokkaidos are outfitted with the best TER shields and have both defense drones as well as laser towers (both variants). Since 6.0 the latter are deployed automaticly. They also have M pulse towers set to attack all (= don't wait for being hit)

As soon as I get notified about a Kha'ak thread I add it to my bucket list to check the reporting ship's sector and maybe send a destroyer squad to pulverize the Kha'ak station. While not doing this ASAP this might also help of me never loosing miners - as I don't let the Kha'ak intensity reach "Armageddon level".

RE Xenon - those are no thread to my miners. As they are constantly dealing with me personally or my blockade fleets - they really have no resources left to even think about my miners

---

Everything else about balancing and which miner is better - I'd say there have to be differences and everyone has different needs. I'd e.g. never use TEL miners because I don't like their looks (exception: if I need to haul a lot of ore with repeat orders from my mining bases to production facilities). That's also the reason why I didn't use the PAR captial ships from the release version - they were just too ugly to look at. (and I tend to look at my ships doing their thing - more so with 6.0 and the live stream feature, so looks are important =) ). That's a IMHO, everyone can have a different opinion on that.

[GCU Grey Area]

This those not excuse abysmal stats.
And given the reconstruction effort, you'd think there would be big investment in economy and civilian ships, if not by the government, then by various companies.
The Hokaido doesn't need to be the best, it just needs to not suck. It's stats are far too terrible, no matter how you look at it. At least give it something else to compensate.
More storage space?

'Abysmal' & 'terrible' is rather overstating it. They're just a bit mediocre, however still entirely capable of fulfilling the roles for which they're intended & it's not as though they don't have some advantages. They're better armed than most of their counterparts & are among the most manoeuvrable miners. TER engines are also quite good for rapid acceleration while in travel mode. Very fond of how they look too, one of the best looking miners in the game as far as I'm concerned.