So I bought Elite: Dangerous

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

This doesn't change the point: that such core content once was in X games at launch, now it's not anymore and will come via DLC.

True but irrelevant and moot.

X4 is part of a continuance of the X-Universe story board after the gate network was shutdown and has started to reconnect and stabilise. The gate shutdown event in the game lore (which happened after the events of X3:AP) means all bets are off wrt what is included in the base game.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Ship Pathing
X4: Poor, at times horrendous with Ai controlled ship orders being defied by looping back to attack an enemy that is not within any reasonable threat range to that ship (otherwise following the global default actions for attacked) rather than do the order, asked of it
X3: Has no such issues ships do not loop around to attack something which is not within range nor does it actively defy a direct order to engage a target.

X3/X2 both had pathing issues and X4 is little different - However, what you are referring to seems to be less about pathing issues and more about enemy targeting logic - even X2/X3 was not perfect in that regard.

Fleet Control
X4: uhh just going to skip this one as X4 really does not have any as every order applies to the fleet leader unable to set individual wing orders,
X3: Limited but possible to set orders for wings separate from the commander of the fleet.

WRT X4 - false, the nature of the command and control in X4 is by far superior to X2/X3 BUT arguably X2/X3 did have better implementation of command AI. X4 will probably get there eventually, but Egosoft have made the job harder for themselves by being too "eager beaver" with their release strategy.

I like X4 but I feel its not as polished as X3:AP with or without mods there are some choices here which simply infuriate me performance being one,

Probably the key reason X4 feels not as polished is that it is evidently (technologically speaking) an evolution of the engine that was rewritten with X-Rebirth while X3:AP was merely a "polishing the chrome" product wrt a much older game engine that had clearly reached the end of it's useful life. Performance wise, X4 is not that bad on balance - sure there are some things that could still do with improvement (such as game engine performance around large complexes) but X3 was not invulnerable to comparable performance issues.

IME/IMO X2 probably had the best frame rate management solution of X2/X3/X-R/X4.

secondly stepping backwards from a game (cough Rebirth) which literally made the internet break with hatred from the fans of the series, go figure.. A few improvements here and there. I am not going to count flying every ship available as that to me is part of the X Universe core experience you take that aspect away and there are better options for space eco simulators.

X4 does have the feeling of being a rush job - from the incomplete in-game encyclopedia, to inventory items that seem to lack purpose outside of credits, to other issues.

To me: the X-Universe games are as much about the lore as they are about the space-flight and empire-building combination of gameplay. Arguably, X-Rebirth was faithful to these aspects but as per pre-release warnings (which many of the detractors ignored) we were never going to be able to fly more than just the Albion skunk and X4 addresses that point as well as addressing much of the complaints about X-Rebirth. In some ways X4 feels like a step down from X-Rebirth, but in many more ways it feels more polished (gameplay wise) too.

This thread however started out by trying to compare X4 with Elite Dangerous - the two are not really comparable since they have different focus points.

[Socratatus]

I haven`t bothered reading all those pages, but I have recently tried Elite again and a couple more things bother me about it.

Elite:
1. Lack of a feeling of people... This is especially noticable in VR. You land at a station, where are all the people? You land, look at the hanger and not a sign of a person.
2.Lack of real control. What i mean is everything you do to your ship is controlled by Firaxis. Anything you stick on your ship has to be from Firaxis- No Posters made and stuck on by you. Even the naming convention is heavily controlled. And I`m talking even in Solo SP mode.
3.When you look at skins to buy for your new ship and you want to buy some cosmetics, you realise you have to pay with REAL money! A big no, no for me. Really takes me out of the game to be taken to the Credit card screen.

X4:
1.In contrast X4 feels a lot more `free`- you stick what you want on the side of your ship, name it and out you go into the big beyond. You don`t feel controlled by a `always online` leash like a dog.
3.And you get people. I have looked up at huge ships parked to see a person moving in the cockpit. Nice.
4.You aren`t taken to a Credit card screen when you buy stuff.

5.X4 with Vr would be even better, but for now Track Ir will do.


Sure Elite feels more polished (they`ve had the time) and it`s nice with Voice Astra (Alix with X4 ), but it really isn`t the fun it should be for all the above reasons. I find myself going back and waiting for X4 to be fixed even without VR.