Skill and training Feedback

[GCU Grey Area]

And ironically, when I could have maybe used the money from autotraders, I didn't have them, and now I don't need them and can't be bothered with doing mission chains for seminars. Two star station traders and station miners work perfectly well, and my stations are printing credits.

I think perhaps that might be the point. Auto-traders still have mid-late game strategic uses (e.g. logistical support for NPC allies), but can no longer be used as early game exponential spam (as virtually every youtube guide I've ever seen recommended) purely to amass vast wealth without building anything.

[dtpsprt]

I think perhaps that might be the point. Auto-traders still have mid-late game strategic uses (e.g. logistical support for NPC allies), but can no longer be used as early game exponential spam (as virtually every youtube guide I've ever seen recommended) purely to amass vast wealth without building anything.

And WHY should I build anything more than what's required? (PHQ). Is it a sandbox (of sorts) or not? What about those who enjoy trading and trading fleets? Should they have them AFTER they have 5-6 stations in full swing? Don't think so.
The system is purely and outright broken and needs to be changed (not fixed, it can't be fixed with RNG levelling up)...

[GCU Grey Area]

What about those who enjoy trading and trading fleets? Should they have them AFTER they have 5-6 stations in full swing?

I thoroughly enjoy trading. It's one of my favourite aspects of the game. Aside from PHQ (no production modules) only got one station at the moment. My trade fleet (currently 4 Split Monitors) still provides the bulk of my income.

[zakaluka]

And WHY should I build anything more than what's required? (PHQ).

Context. You don't have to at all. He's saying that there are still late game uses for independent autotraders, despite the existence of stations.

Some others above have objected that autotrade might as well be removed from the game because of how stations work. It's a bit of a false dilemma.

[grapedog]

after a while, auto traders and miners provide such a minor amount of income... at this point I only use them to move goods around, which in turn keeps my goods moving around... and keeping NPC stations stocked with raw resources, for the same purpose, to help my own stations. Auto traders and miners are just the grease between the wheels once you reach the mid game... their income becomes inconsequential.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Wow ! This tread has a nervous system now, It may soon be the new species in the game !

Skill and training., has evolved into a doomed race. !

Early game ! You buy a trading ship, but the pilot is useless. Just when you need one ( early game )

Middle game ! You buy a trading ship, the pilot is still useless.. However ! And this is the bit I can not fathom ! Put that useless pilot under the command of a station manager who has 4/5 stars. And that very same useless pilot gos off like a professional. Sectors abound ! All over the show !!

A ( 000.5 ) Star imbecile captain is a superman all of a sudden !



Sorry this game is awesome, the thought and planning, the play throughs, the office must be electric with pride and puffed out chests, all parading around in the knowledge they have once again got it right !

Err !

Think again !

Solution !

X3 worked well, your new trading ships were ill equiped, your captain a novice. Yet the ship still traded locally. After quite some time he/she levelled up and got better, you upgraded the ship. After quite a long time and many many trades the captain could go all over the place.

So why in Galactic Glue have ES made such a hash of this new useless method.

Talk about reinventing the wheel.

[IdlePit]

I still don't have any pilots better than 2 2/3 stars though and even my 5 star engineers with 5 stars morale cant be used as 3 star pilots even when given seminars to give them 2 star piloting, its pretty r******* that i cant automate a simple thing like trading.

I started the game 3-4 days ago (old x series fan but first time playing x4).I have a raptor, multiple destroyers, almost 100 ships total, still have over 100mil credits available, 1 day 20 hours game time, time saved using seta 24 seconds......, +20 rep with everyone(except a few like MIN), net worth 218,517,046 with total value of trades 549,111,432 all without any auto traders or stations (i refuse to build in protest of the atrocities that have been happening to the pilot workforce throughout the universe until egosoft stop discriminating against the pilots )

I can burn entire sectors but i cant hire a decent pilot, cant even train some either since they appear to be gaining no exp......

Its a single player game i should be allowed to play as i want that's the key factor that brought me to x games over a decade ago, and i dont want to wander the universe looking for boring missions to patrol a sector for a 3 star seminar and even if i did how am i supposed to get 4 and 5 star pilots ?

I honestly don't understand why egosoft don't emulate X3:TC/AP(probably their best games to date) in a few things like pilots gaining exp etc theres a reason most of us that played X3 still say they are the best games, X4 station building and economy is nice but as a whole still doesn't even come close to X3 imho.....

[Berhg]

Its depressing that the 40ish or so miners and distributors I set up in the first 24 hours of my vanilla game have all -----ALL----- remained under 3 stars piloting in hour 250. I hate that.

[grapedog]

I stopped using trading/DW and stuff like that for leveling pilots... i just sit my pilots in a fighter, and task a group of them with watching a Xenon gate, and they get 3 piloting stars pretty fast. I've probably got at least 50 pilots who have 5 piloting stars, three or four times that amount who have 4+ piloting stars... and I can't even count how many are above 3+ starts, probably in the 5-7 hundreds range.

Combat is the quickest way BY FAR, for leveling the pilot skills. Company Regard, Holy Visions, and Litany of Fury are 3 very nice spots to level the hell out of your pilots. That's the best training school in the game, and it works pretty well.

[Berhg]

I stopped using trading/DW and stuff like that for leveling pilots... i just sit my pilots in a fighter, and task a group of them with watching a Xenon gate, and they get 3 piloting stars pretty fast. I've probably got at least 50 pilots who have 5 piloting stars, three or four times that amount who have 4+ piloting stars... and I can't even count how many are above 3+ starts, probably in the 5-7 hundreds range.

Combat is the quickest way BY FAR, for leveling the pilot skills. Company Regard, Holy Visions, and Litany of Fury are 3 very nice spots to level the hell out of your pilots. That's the best training school in the game, and it works pretty well.

Thats nice but I'd rather be able to level my traders by trading, my miners by mining, and my combat pilots by fighting.

[grapedog]

I stopped using trading/DW and stuff like that for leveling pilots... i just sit my pilots in a fighter, and task a group of them with watching a Xenon gate, and they get 3 piloting stars pretty fast. I've probably got at least 50 pilots who have 5 piloting stars, three or four times that amount who have 4+ piloting stars... and I can't even count how many are above 3+ starts, probably in the 5-7 hundreds range.

Combat is the quickest way BY FAR, for leveling the pilot skills. Company Regard, Holy Visions, and Litany of Fury are 3 very nice spots to level the hell out of your pilots. That's the best training school in the game, and it works pretty well.

Thats nice but I'd rather be able to level my traders by trading, my miners by mining, and my combat pilots by fighting.

That's nice, but leveling pilots is leveling pilots.

I agree the system is in a pretty bad spot at the moment, but there are ways, even if they are less than desirable.

[Berhg]

Are going to manually switch out that many combat pilots into mining and trading ships?

[grapedog]

Are going to manually switch out that many combat pilots into mining and trading ships?

I mean, I don't use many anyhow. I've never had more than 20 auto traders, and usually less, like 15. And then 10-15 each of gas and mineral auto miners. And that's mid game that I'll have that many. So moving around 20-40 pilots over the course of the first 50 hours isn't that big a deal actually. To me anyhow...

[Gregorovitch]

The system is purely and outright broken and needs to be changed (not fixed, it can't be fixed with RNG levelling up)...

TBH I don't think the level up mechanics themselves are an issue really, even the RNG element. On release folk didn't give a damn about it 'cos their pilots levelled up anyway whatever job they did. The issue is the massive nerf to the odds of passing level up rolls if they're trading or mining.

I stopped using trading/DW and stuff like that for leveling pilots... i just sit my pilots in a fighter, and task a group of them with watching a Xenon gate, and they get 3 piloting stars pretty fast. I've probably got at least 50 pilots who have 5 piloting stars, three or four times that amount who have 4+ piloting stars... and I can't even count how many are above 3+ starts, probably in the 5-7 hundreds range.

Combat is the quickest way BY FAR, for leveling the pilot skills. Company Regard, Holy Visions, and Litany of Fury are 3 very nice spots to level the hell out of your pilots. That's the best training school in the game, and it works pretty well.

I agree with this following my first serious gate camp lat night. I bought three destroyers and 30 fighters, seminared them all up to 2* and watched them engage Xenon for a couple three hours. Virtually all of the fighter pilots got 1/3* and a couple of them got 2/3* from that expedition alone. And thanks for the tips on where to hunt next btw

Thats nice but I'd rather be able to level my traders by trading, my miners by mining, and my combat pilots by fighting.

I tend to agree with that. Not least 'cos it's immersion breaking. I mean a pilot comes back pumped up from an exiting mission vs Xenon or whatever with his or her new stars and you're like "Hey, I got a nice new job for ya - MINING!". Yeah, right, that'd go down well.

[dreamer2008]

Thats nice but I'd rather be able to level my traders by trading, my miners by mining, and my combat pilots by fighting.

Wait, they don't level up doing these activities? It makes no sense if they don't. How can you get the miners to do advanced and expert automine if they don't level up from basic automining?

[Berhg]

Thats nice but I'd rather be able to level my traders by trading, my miners by mining, and my combat pilots by fighting.

Wait, they don't level up doing these activities? It makes no sense if they don't. How can you get the miners to do advanced and expert automine if they don't level up from basic automining?

You give them training seminars. You can buy them for up to 2 stars. After that you have to get higher level ones as random mission rewards.

[Gregorovitch]

Wait, they don't level up doing these activities? It makes no sense if they don't. How can you get the miners to do advanced and expert automine if they don't level up from basic automining?

They do but incredibly slowly. The way it works is that there are 15 steps from zero to hero. Every time a crew/pilot does their job they make a skill roll. If they pass it they get 1/3*. A the moment miners and traders are seriously hampered 'cos:

1. miners are apparently getting no rolls for actually mining, only from selling their loads
2. traders chances of a level up are apparently heavily influenced by the % of total cargo space a sale involves which in practice is usually significantly <100%

So adding these two factors to an already heavy nerf to their chances of rolling a level up means effectively it takes between 100-200 hours, maybe more, I would say to get a miner of DW trader from 2* -> 3* although a few will be lucky, win the lottery, and get there sooner than that. A manual trader will get there faster (because you can arrange for it to always deliver full loads) and the hypothesis for the best auto-cheese method to level up traders is to make a basic ecell station and use fast scout ships as traders since they are fast (max skill rolls per hour) and have tiny holds so always 100% load delivery (so no -ve modifiers on skill rolls). This looks like it might be the X4 version of a CLS based flight school we used to set up in X3 to train sector/universal trader pilots.

[dreamer2008]

1. miners are apparently getting no rolls for actually mining, only from selling their loads

That sounds like a bug... I hope, that will eventually get fixed.

You give them training seminars. You can buy them for up to 2 stars. After that you have to get higher level ones as random mission rewards.

It makes no sense for miners to level up only by giving them books, and not learn from their actual experience of actually mining. I just hope its just a bug that will get fixed in the future.

[Alan Phipps]

The devs have indeed stated that miners have an experience-gain bug that they are working on.

[dreamer2008]

The devs have indeed stated that miners have an experience-gain bug that they are working on.

Awesome that they work on fixing it, thanks for telling us.