Skill and training Feedback

[g04tn4d0]

I can appreciate what EgoSoft is trying to do. It's just a bit too grindy, IMO. Also, another source of frustration I think comes from the fact that I've been playing their games since X2 and I'm quite used to being able to have autotraders helping to bring in money early-game. Now that's suddenly well beyond my reach. Although I just discovered "Distribute Wares" and that's been kind of helpful.

[dtpsprt]

I can appreciate what EgoSoft is trying to do. It's just a bit too grindy, IMO. Also, another source of frustration I think comes from the fact that I've been playing their games since X2 and I'm quite used to being able to have autotraders helping to bring in money early-game. Now that's suddenly well beyond my reach. Although I just discovered "Distribute Wares" and that's been kind of helpful.

Two problems with "Distribute Wares":
1. The pilot will buy the ware at the first port and start selling indiscriminately of profit or loss. It's a good way to boost the economies of the factions but it can very well be a loss for you.
2. The "experience" roll is based on "empty cargo holds". The Ware Distributor will load it's hold to the tilts but it will not unload it at the first port of call... therefore no experience roll.. same goes with trading if the hold is not filled completely when buying and emptied at the port of call...

[zazie]

... and hopefully your L-Distributor will never load up Nostrop Oil as it might last dozens of hours to get rid of it, 25 here, 12 there, 17 elsewhere ...

[Berhg]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

Yes

[Berhg]

A positive thing about super slow star leveling is that high skill pilots become much more interesting and individualistic. I like that it works out like that, but I still want quicker access to the auto trade and mine commands.

How about reducing pilot star requirements? Distribute Wares at 1, Auto Trade at 2, the advanced mining at 1 and 2 as well.

Problem is that if they lowered the requirement you wouldnt feel like that about high star pilots anymore?
Im fine with autotrade being endgame like it is now because its very good, but we absolutely need lower alternatives. I suggested one and devs said they are doing something similar, basically pick a station > pick a ware > pick a target station. And I think the progression from 2+ stars needs to be faster (but still slow enough to be rewarding).

I wouldnt even mind if autotrade got moved to 4 stars if trading crews (edit: captains) actually could level past 2 stars, and if there were lower star behaviour alternatives that were fun.

I do think autotrade should be the last step in trading.

Back when you first posted this reply to my post I had a knee jerk reaction to say, "well, I'd still feel that way about high star pilots." And its true. I mean, don't pilots improve with higher stars in ways apart from access to new commands?

But really, I like your ideas for more options at different star levels. It is good!

[mr.WHO]

Base on what I experience and what I hear in this videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jhMsfni4Lc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSsAAtj0Zz0

It looks like low morale skill is the major cause of general AI retardation.

[tomchk]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

Yes

How would you feel about this change, if they are convinced and able to do it?

Instead of the long process for map trading now, you just select your trade ship and then (for the many trades where you just want to fill or empty, to the extent possible) middle-click or shift-click on the desired ware shown as usual on the map, and your trade ship is filled or emptied with that ware at that station depending on whether you picked sold wares or bought wares.

[Gregorovitch]

My pilot school is not doing so well

My six students have been at it hammer and tongs delivering their 150 ecell loads around GE for six hours now. I've checked on them fairly regularly and I've never seen them not running a delivery. But not a sausage in terms of a level up. Not even a sliver of sausage. Zilch.

In the same time by contrast my fighter swarm has been hard at it at the Hewa's Twin/Company Regard gate and pretty much all of them (of those that haven't just been bought) have got at least 1/3*, almost all of those that were in the swarm six hours ago have got 2/3* and four out of the original 30 have got a full star making them *gasp* my first THREE STAR PILOTS!!!!

Interestingly three out of these four superstars are flying Asp Raiders toting neutron gatlings. The original swarm of 30 had ten each Asp, Perseus, and Eclipse. The other remaining superstar flies an Eclipse. The Perseus seems the weakest one from a levelling up point of view. I've added a bunch of Pulsars and Balaurs since but they haven't really had the time to compete yet. In terms of level ups (at the moment) it looks like Asp > Eclipse > Perseus (assuming default top of the range weapons per race)

I'm thinking it may be the gun. Those neutron gatlings spray ordinance everywhere and my guess is these Asps are mostly hitting their targets with at least some of it most of the time. I think the others tend to completely miss a lot more even if they do more damage (and probably kill more) when they do manage to hit. So how would this translate into faster level ups I wonder?

[Berhg]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

Yes

How would you feel about this change, if they are convinced and able to do it?

Instead of the long process for map trading now, you just select your trade ship and then (for the many trades where you just want to fill or empty, to the extent possible) middle-click or shift-click on the desired ware shown as usual on the map, and your trade ship is filled or emptied with that ware at that station depending on whether you picked sold wares or bought wares.

You mean context sensitive command shortcuts? Sounds excellent!

[Andrey12y]

Take a look who i caught

https://imgur.com/D2qY61O

Also can someone say, how much skill does the pilot need to use defence drones? My Osprey 3star pilot does not use them at all

[tomchk]

Yes

How would you feel about this change, if they are convinced and able to do it?

Instead of the long process for map trading now, you just select your trade ship and then (for the many trades where you just want to fill or empty, to the extent possible) middle-click or shift-click on the desired ware shown as usual on the map, and your trade ship is filled or emptied with that ware at that station depending on whether you picked sold wares or bought wares.

You mean context sensitive command shortcuts? Sounds excellent!

Hopefully they agree and can do it. Manual trades would be so much faster for all those trades where you just want to fill or empty your ship!

[Berhg]

I believe we should be able to hire a ship captain of a selectable pilot level between 1 and 3 stars in the ship purchase screen.

Failing that, I believe it reasonable to have a minimum pilot level of 1 star for M ships and 2 stars for new L and XL ships automatically.

Having to go through the process of firing, re-hiring, transferring, and seminar-ing up the captain of every goddam ****** L and XL ship I buy now I'm at end game is ****** annoying as ****.

Pardon my French.

[Berhg]

I have found a fun and positive aspect to the current skill system in morale. I find it interesting how morale affects the other skills and it makes the decision for who to give advanced seminars to much more interesting. For instance, I'll check on my captain's skill ratings and often pilot will have moved not a bit or maybe just one pip, but morale will be higher than before by a whole star. It is to the high morale captains I'll favor the seminars to. Makes me feel more like a manager and boss reviewing my personnel and issuing promotions.

As a fun aside, I enjoy assigning ranks to my pilots and using the ranks in my naming schemes. For my combat pilots anything less than 2 stars is a JG. 2 stars is LT, 3 is CDR, 4 is CPT. I give ADMs to whichever CPTs gets stuck with the big carrier battlegroups.

For my non-combat pilots anything less than 2 stars is a PO. 2 stars is a WO. 3 stars is a CWO and 4 is a MCW. Alas, I have no CWO's or MCW's in my entire 10 billion credit organisation because all the high value seminars I get from doing exciting and worthwhile things like personally delivering fine food to schmucks in the schticks, and shooting stationary mines that were only minding their own business... all of them go to my combat pilots.

[Gregorovitch]

Pilot Academy update:

[reminder: 6 students flying scout ships trading ecells for station in GE, full loads of 150 ecells 95%+ of the time]

11hrs in now - no level up in pilot skill. Not one. But all have got at least 1/3* morale boost and some have a full morale star.improvement.

I shall leave this going to find out the truth on how long a trader takes to level up under optimal circumstances. But it doesn't look good, does it. We're now looking at a minimum of 33hrs 2*->3*. And counting.

[Lord Dakier]

The simple fact is, by the time you have access to a decent number of 3* you no longer have need for auto traders because your stations will be making the money.

XP gain needs buffing.

[Berhg]

Would be nice to have access to auto trade to help universe economy.

[grapedog]

Pilot Academy update:

[reminder: 6 students flying scout ships trading ecells for station in GE, full loads of 150 ecells 95%+ of the time]

11hrs in now - no level up in pilot skill. Not one. But all have got at least 1/3* morale boost and some have a full morale star.improvement.

I shall leave this going to find out the truth on how long a trader takes to level up under optimal circumstances. But it doesn't look good, does it. We're now looking at a minimum of 33hrs 2*->3*. And counting.

Is that optimal though? in 15 hours my fighter pilots usually get from whatever they were bought at, 0-1.5 stars on average, to at least 2 stars, and working on 3 stars in piloting. All of my 5 star pilots except for a very few, have come from combat. Some of my auto-traders/miners, that I've had doing auto-trading and mining for hundreds of hours(they were started in 1.0 when you could have 1 star auto traders with very limited gate jumps) are still not at 4 or 5 stars. Most are in the 3.5 star range.... so I really don't think auto mining and auto trading is the optimal path for leveling pilots. Anecdotally for me, combat is by far the best leveling mechanism... especially in smaller fighters. Almost all of my 5 star pilots(and I have probably 50-60, with LOTS more in the 4+ range) were from S fighters, attached to fleets, blockading Xenon gates.

[Gregorovitch]

Is that optimal though? in 15 hours my fighter pilots usually get from whatever they were bought at, 0-1.5 stars on average, to at least 2 stars, and working on 3 stars in piloting. All of my 5 star pilots except for a very few, have come from combat.

Yes, I am doing this experiment from a purely civilian perspective, something I was hoping would work from the beginning of the game before you have a significant combat fleet if any. Alongside this I have also gone out of my way to keep my main fleet in combat as much as I can over the same period and they have been leveling up nicely. There is no question that pilots level up in combat many times faster than trading. Possibly more than 10x as fast.

[grapedog]

Is that optimal though? in 15 hours my fighter pilots usually get from whatever they were bought at, 0-1.5 stars on average, to at least 2 stars, and working on 3 stars in piloting. All of my 5 star pilots except for a very few, have come from combat.

Yes, I am doing this experiment from a purely civilian perspective, something I was hoping would work from the beginning of the game before you have a significant combat fleet if any. Alongside this I have also gone out of my way to keep my main fleet in combat as much as I can over the same period and they have been leveling up nicely. There is no question that pilots level up in combat many times faster than trading. Possibly more than 10x as fast.

ah, an experiment, i gotcha now. that's sad that it's lead to such disappointing results. though judging from my own fleet or miners and traders, i can't say i'm surprised. i think my current save is at the 700hr+ mark, and most of my automated captains have 4 and 5 star crews, but most of the captains are sitting at like 3 stars or MAYBE 4...

clearly it's something that needs to be addressed.

[IdlePit]

Is that optimal though? in 15 hours my fighter pilots usually get from whatever they were bought at, 0-1.5 stars on average, to at least 2 stars, and working on 3 stars in piloting. All of my 5 star pilots except for a very few, have come from combat.

Yes, I am doing this experiment from a purely civilian perspective, something I was hoping would work from the beginning of the game before you have a significant combat fleet if any. Alongside this I have also gone out of my way to keep my main fleet in combat as much as I can over the same period and they have been leveling up nicely. There is no question that pilots level up in combat many times faster than trading. Possibly more than 10x as fast.

ah, an experiment, i gotcha now. that's sad that it's lead to such disappointing results. though judging from my own fleet or miners and traders, i can't say i'm surprised. i think my current save is at the 700hr+ mark, and most of my automated captains have 4 and 5 star crews, but most of the captains are sitting at like 3 stars or MAYBE 4...

clearly it's something that needs to be addressed.

Imagine how new comers to X4 or the X series as a whole feel about this though, for one most of them probably dont know this forum exists nevermind can be bothered to post about thier experience.

I am a new comer to X4 but have played X games for over a decade and thousands of hours i can say my first impressions were not great, i can see this game has potential its just lacking in content compared to X3 but hopefully that will be addressed through patches and dlc (that's why ive stuck with it so far) but the main thing that is making me want to shelve this game for another year is my pilots not gaining exp it is extremely frustrating to see xenon rampage the universe and be almost unable to help since i cant really help to supply npc war efforts very efficiently even though i have more than enough money and ships available it is competent pilots to fly said ships that is stopping me from providing the materials the npc's need to defend themselves (other than sitting on the map manually trading resources constantly).

Even if i build stations my own traders assigned to the station do very little selling (they just sit there searching for trades) while npc ship come to buy the resources produced but then those npc ships end up dead half the time before they get to deliver the goods or sit trying to escape or fight a xenon N which means while im making money its not really helping the npc factions much and i know hardly any resources are getting through to shipyards and wharfs because i literally have to manaully trade most of the resources to the wharf/shipyard for every ship i build or it sits there for half an hour not building

Ive seen people saying xenon are to strong imo this is not true the player can kill them very easily the problem is in my opinion bottlenecks in resources or resources actually getting to where they are needed (partially due to lack of player traders) thats stopping npc defending themselves early to mid game, i find i am unable to do many mission or plots because im constantly back and forth stopping xenon destroying wharfs,shipyards and equipment docks. i had to abandon a patrol earlier because xenon almost destoryed FRF equipment dock it literally had 3 modules left when id destoryed the 3 k's attacking it, im currently manually supplying build materials and gaurding the station while it repairs and building a defense platform to hopefully protect it in future but it is getting boring babysitting npc factions.