[CONTEST] X4: Station Design Contest Round #4 | "Grounded" Faction Headquarters

[Tomonor]

X4: Station Design Contest
Note: this contest also runs on the Construction Community forum, on the X4 Subreddit, on our Discord, and on various Chinese platforms.

Round #4: "Grounded" Faction Headquarters
Theme: Choose a faction existing within X4: Foundations and design a good looking capital building for them!

Limitations:

• A single faction must be selected as the basis for the design.
• Only modules specific to the chosen faction may be used. For example, selecting the Terran faction limits the build to Terran modules only.
• Major factions from both the base game and any DLCs are eligible.
• Mandatory module: at least 1× Administrative Center belonging to the chosen faction.
• Generic modules may be used (e.g. observatory, penthouse, gambling den, etc.).
• Modules from X4: Timelines are not permitted.
• Don't include the Player Headquarters Asteroid module.
• Module clippig should be avoided is possible.
• Unrelated modules (such as production or storage) may be included; however, this station is intended to represent a generic faction headquarters, where visual design takes priority over functionality (e.g. a self-sustaining shipyard).

Dates:

• Contest begins on February 11, 2026
• Submission period ends on 12:00 CET, February 28, 2026
• Winners will be announced on March 5, 2026

Prizes:

• 1st Place: 10x Mellow Mocha Paintmods, 10x Lava Lamp Paintmods, 10x Construction Zone Paintmods
• 2nd Place: 5x Mellow Mocha Paintmods, 5x Lava Lamp Paintmods, 5x Construction Zone Paintmods
• 3rd Place: 3x Mellow Mocha Paintmods, 3x Lava Lamp Paintmods, 3x Construction Zone Paintmods
• Participation reward: 1x Construction Zone Paintmod

Calling all Architects!
The X4 Station Design Contest is back, and we want YOU to design epic space stations!
What's in it for you? Apart from the awesome prizes, your design could be featured on our social media channels, and there’s even a chance we might take inspiration from it for future game content!

About this contest
This contest takes place across several community platforms and runs over multiple rounds.
Each round includes a three-week submission period, during which you’ll need to submit screenshots of your station along with its construction plan, followed by a one-week evaluation period.
Winners are announced just before the start of the next round, and prizes are sent out via private message.

This contest takes place on:

• The Egosoft Forum’s X4: Foundations subforum
  The Egosoft Forum's Construction Community
• The X4 Steam Forum
• The Egosoft Discord's #contests channel
• The r/X4Foundations subreddit
• By email, using the contest@egosoft.com address

Contest categories
When a round starts, we will give a basic idea of what we’d like to see from the participants.
There will be two main categories specified that the participants must follow:

• Creative Station: station plans in this category should, simply put, look good. You don't have to worry about functionality - let creativity guide your designs. Note that module clipping in this category is always allowed.
• Grounded Station: station plans in this category should be more realistic - think of them as stations you’d want to see the AI build. While aesthetic appeal and creativity is still important here, other important factors may come into play, including:
  • Size - defines the amount of modules to be used and/or the plot's size
  • Faction - defines what faction-specific modules to be used
  • Type - defines what type of station it must be
  • Connection - defines if the different station modules must be connected together by their connection points.
  • Clipping - defines if module clipping is allowed
  • Usage of generic modules - defines if participants can include generic modules, such as pavilions, penthouses, observatories, sensor arrays, and welfare modules.
  • Other criteria - defines other requirements, such as usage of DLC modules, usage of interfaction modules, etc.)
    
    Example:
    Design a Large Argon Solar Power Plant.
    • Use base game Argon modules only.
    • Do not use Argon modules from X4: Tides of Avarice and X4: Timelines.[/size]
    • The modules must be connected.
    • Module clipping is not allowed.
    • Plot size is 10x10x10.
    • Feel free to utilise generic modules.
    • Mandatory modules: at least 20x Universal Energy Cell Production modules, at least 1x Pier, at least 1x Universal Dock.
    • The design must not contain the Headquarters module.

🛠 How to participate

1. Read the requirements carefully and design your submission accordingly.
2. Export your construction plan into a file.
3. Take three screenshots of your submission: one form the top, one from the side, and one from an arbitrary angle.
4. Present these files, along with your Egosoft account's name in the contest thread. Use the Attachments forum feature to share these files (Guide).

• Alternatively, you can also send your submission to the contest@egosoft.com address.

How to export, find, and upload your stations’ construction plans file:

1. While using the in-game station editor, find the “Export construction plan” button on the top of the screen, and press it.
2. Enter your EGOSOFT account name into the text field, and press “Export Plan”.
3. Exit/minimize (alt-tab) the game and navigate to the following directory:

   Code: Select all

   Documents\Egosoft\X4\<Your Steam ID>\constructionplan

4. Find the xml file with your EGOSOFT account name and attach it to your post.

How to take and upload screenshots:

1. When piloting a ship, target your station and press F3, or right-click on your station and select “External View”.
2. Angle the camera with the numpad keys (4, 8, 6, 2), as they function as arrow keys for the camera.
3. Find the Top angle, the Front angle, and an “attractive” angle of your station.
4. Take a screenshot using the Alt+PrtScr key combination. Each time you take a screenshot, you must leave/minimize the game, open an image editing software (such as Paint/Paint3D), and paste your screenshot from the clipboard (hotkey: CTRL+V).
5. Alternatively, you can use third party softwares that can take screenshots, such as the NVIDIA GeForce Experience app, which directly saves the screenshots into files.
6. Save the screenshots to a folder where you can easily find them.
7. Attach the screenshots to your post using the Attachments forum feature.
8. Select the “Place inline” button next to your uploaded screenshots.

Rules
Apart from what was already said, there are further rules we want to address:

• By participating, you consent that your station design may be used in-game and for marketing purposes by Egosoft.
• Participants must adhere to the participation criterias for a valid entry.
• Participants must only present one submission per contest.
• All DLC prizes are provided exclusively as Steam codes. As such, they are redeemable only through the Steam platform and cannot be activated on any other service.

Tips and Tricks

• We strongly recommend using the Station Design Simulator gamemode, because it features all the possible blueprints unlocked, providing you with an advantage right away.
• Another advantage to the Station Design Simulator is that you can build your construction plans instantly by pressing the “Force Construction” button.
• If you're new to building stations in X4, we recommend playing the Station Building tutorial first.
• Have a vision - a complex that's spread out thin, a hunk of machinery packed densely, or an aesthetic shape/form? It will work as long your design is in harmony.
• Modules can be placed in a 3D place - try building vertically too!
• Modules can be rotated - if you want your design to look unique, try turning and rotating the modules!

Disclaimer
This community contest is organized by Egosoft GmbH for owners of X4: Foundations. Certain editions or rounds of the contest may require specific DLCs for technical reasons. Participation is voluntary and open to players aged 16 or older (or with parental consent). No purchase beyond the base game or relevant DLC ownership is necessary. Personal data will be used only for the purpose of contacting winners.


FAQ:

• There are two Station Design Contests on the forum, one in the X4: Foundations forum, and the other in the Construction Community forum. What gives?
  -There are certain limitations the general X4: Foundations forum has over the Construction Community forum. For instance, in the Construction Community forum, you can easily add attachments to the posts, which in turn makes the submission posting process a lot easier. Thus, the contest on the forum runs on two separate threads.
• Do I need to post in both threads?
  -No, choose the thread where you’re the most comfortable in participating and stick with it.
• Can I submit my older designs?
  -Yes, feel free to. Just remember that the station plan must adhere to the rules (currently free-for-all in the first round), and that you can only post one entry.
  (Additional questions may arise as the community brings them up.)

[Endlle]

Ok is this how it was soppused to look like? MY first time competing, i usualy don't build shipyards and wharfs together so this took like 5m just testing if its ok?
My bad forgot the screenshots!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/lphsmmyz ... or2ut&dl=0

[tudormese]

This is the type of Teladi capital I'd like to see, a city in space!

X4_02.11,23.23.38(127).png

X4_02.11,23.23.50(317).png

X4_02.11,23.26.11(692).png

Teladi HQ.xml

[ComfyCo]

My take on Atreus Headquarters in X4

[c0d3warrior]

Here is a Paranid Design that was one of my earlier trade port designs. I went for cost efficiency and atheistic simplicity. Showing off that Holy 3 Dimensionality

link to plan:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/GWFR1EPKG8#oXMkd7H0jSpR

[adeine]

Notes:

- Faction chosen: Xenon (they could use some love )

- Some generic Argon modules were used (in line with vanilla Xenon stations); no explicit Administrative Centre as Xenon don't have one, but the station will obviously count for sector ownership. As per the rules I've included an alternate version since the main build includes some span connectors, which are locked behind Timelines (though I don't think generic connectors have any reason to be?). The 'no TL' version replaces these with 3x vertical connectors (exact same dimensions) and is identical otherwise.

- The station was built with module clipping disabled, all modules are 'valid' connections as per the game

Lore:

Khar's Abyss / The Silent Forge

Beyond the far reaches of the mapped trade corridors, where even Boron explorers grow hesitant, lies a sector unmarked on most civilian charts. At first glance, one would be forgiven to mistake it for a remote Argon mining outpost; metal structures glinting through the red dwarf's muted nebular glow and drifting asteroid fields, disturbed only by the wake of engines in the stillness of space.

Yet for those foolish enough to press on, this stillness would be the first sign of something altogether more sinister: Radio silence. No idle chatter of mining vessels requesting clearance, or even pirates trying to swagger their way into a finder's fee. Sensors reporting no navigational beacons or guidance pings from any vessels or stations.

Suspended like a wound in space awaits a core Xenon computational node.

Upon closer approach, it resembles no structure built by organic hands. Neither symmetrical in the comforting way of Argon shipyards, nor elegantly curved like Paranid temples of industry. Instead, what emerges through the haze is a sprawling lattice of blackened superstructure: angular and recursive, as if grown rather than assembled. Conduits radiate outward like metallic roots, anchoring into nothingness.

Across its surface, faint pulses of light travel in rhythmic waves; data streams made visible by ionised exhaust and shield harmonics. They ripple from node to node, converging in a central grid of computational mass so vast that long-range scans return only static.

It is from within this core that new Xenon fleets are born. K class destroyers slide from mooring clamps with glacial patience. Swarms of fighters spill outward in precise geometric dispersal patterns with no fanfare. No chatter on subspace frequencies. Only the steady emission of encrypted machine-band transmissions, as emotionless as the vacuum that carries them.

Recovered logs from a Split reconnaissance wing (see 'Military Incident Report, Family Rhy – Classified Annex') describe the unsettling phenomenon of synchronisation: every vessel in proximity to the station adjusted vector and velocity simultaneously when a distant patrol entered the sector, as though the fleet were not made up of many ships but one mind adjusting a single limb. Yet what truly stands out from these logs are not descriptions of its firepower, complement of drones or defensive fleets, formidable as they may be. It is the stillness. The sense that if one were to drift close enough, engines cold, shields lowered, one might hear nothing at all. Only the quiet arithmetic of extinction.

It is by virtue of these brave Split that the Silent Forge of Khar's Abyss gained its name. And yet, to call it a forge is an oversimplification. It is a computational heart; a node of distributed intelligence older than most modern polities of the Community of Planets. The Xenon do not garrison it for pride, nor for symbolic dominance. They maintain it because it is necessary. It calculates. It predicts. It iterates.

Some scholars have suggested that these remote installations serve a purpose beyond self replication. Their positioning often aligns with gravitational anomalies and dormant gate structures (cf. 'Gate Network Analysis, Late Terraformer Period'). It is conceivable they are engaged in long-term stellar engineering computations... or preparations for something yet unseen.

Screenshots:


Top


Front


Side


Arbitrary

Full album

Plans:

[Ormac]

Paranid HQ

A Faction HQ for either Paranid Faction

Includes a cenralised Wide Area Sensor Array and some small container storage intended for food and medical supplies for the sustainance of personel

View Top
View Side
View

[Tomonor]

Thank you for participating, everyone!
The submission phase is now closed. The winners will be announced the following days.

[Tomonor]

Hello everyone,
The winners of this Station Design Contest round have been chosen!


This round, it turned out that two participants got the same amount of votes for the second place. So, we flipped a coin and let that decide...
Just kidding. This time, we are announcing TWO Second Place winners!

1st Place: Scavento from the EGOSOFT Discord


2nd Place A: CiCa from the EGOSOFT Discord


2nd Place B: Stooper88 from the EGOSOFT Forum


3rd Place: FuniFungi by E-MAIL



Congratulations to the winners, and thank you for taking time for creating these awesome construction plans!
The prizes will be sent out to your accounts shortly.

Stay tuned for the next round!