X4 Foundations Poll #1: How far did you get by now?

[Alci]

1) remote trading is a must. UI is too convenient to not use it. Station managers are not able to run traders at all, so every station input/output needs to be done manually anyway. Map + orders list make it viable way (however competent manager or at least just assigning ship to "buy/sell specific commodity" - meaning they will load full cargo and deliver it where ever they can.. - is really needed to make it good)

2) I like it. Barebone, but not bad. Reasearch was however way underwhelming. Higher tiers should take longer and they certainly should have required few inventory materials. Every and all research done within one day (and I never use SETA), there were no choices at all, I just got everything immediatelly.

4) I like ventures, bugged a lot, but it's nice. The network part however seems broken. Online part, like inventory, should be verified against the server, as all ventures and rewards. Getting any and all rewards by editing save kinda devalues the whole idea of "online" and makes me wonder why is this even online, let alone denying any and all mods. The way how it works it would work the same even offline/with mods (I prefer online version.) The "no mods" however.. will become a big problem eventually for me.

5) I like them. Hoped they are random, that I will eventually find 28 of them. But they seem to be set in specific places and without any way of tracking which one I miss and where to look.. I won't find ALL of them. And at that point I stopped looking for any. Only found 7 or 8, obviously the easy one in core sectors If there is one per sector, any way to see which one is missing would encourage the looking for them in "narrowed" space

7) hacking consoles has ZERO feedback, nothing happens, I can use all decryptors without even noticing I've already used 7 of them. Mission asking for hacking doesn't check. After an hour of futile loading/hacking everything I gave up completely. Nothing ever mentioned in patches so I consider it still not operational at all.

9) boarded "friendly" ship (no enemy L ships available). But I couldn't get my 30 survived marines back. Reassigning them one by one the way it's done.. they serve on mining ship now. Won't try again.

10) joined, tried few, all missions were bugged (reported) but some were completable somehow. I like missions in general. But I choose only some and I see rewards. Faction chain missions.. they only reveal the annoying steps I would never take later.. and I don't see rewards so when I do a single step that takes time as 5 normal missions and get 30k credits rewards.. and very little reward (if any, because of bug-failed mission breaks the chain) at the end.. I stopped doing them and rather do normal missions. Chains could have unique rewards (better rarity mods comes to mind)

[Stars_InTheirEyes]

I've lost count of the number of corvettes, transports and bombers I've captured.
I was saving the credits to buy a capital, but I've lost interest in doing that now I've realised a fighter is more powerful.

[LameFox]

I haven't built any other stations, because when I bought a fancy construction ship and told it to look for build orders, all it did was wander around without achieving anything. Otherwise I was hoping to prop up the economy a bit because I am friendly with most factions and my conship can fly past their enemies with impunity.

[ADMNtek]

• [4]cant i have mods installed

• [6]i would never how rude

• [7]also very rude also not a scummy pirate so no

• [10]not yet

[morbideth]

I've found a half dozen or so data vaults. I just stopped opening them after the first two. They are not worth the hassle. Certain not using joystick throttle and no ability to use backspace to come to a stop when in a spacesuit.

[SirNukes]

Nowhere

Same here; I've been spending my X4 time out of game, optimistically setting up my modding framework while watching patches roll out. Unfortunately: "You must specify an option when voting", so we can't increment the vote total.

[Cisor]

230 hours in, very little SETA, 1.0 original game save.

- I've got a megastation PHQ earning me 20+ million per hour
- have roughly 30 ships, of which I flown around about half
- have personally explored most shown areas of sectors and have satellites at most stations
- have opened 13 data vaults and found about 5 more
- have 3 four star employees from total of 1024
- tried ventures and captured a venture trader
- tried killing khaak and xenon stations
- fixed the economy by supplementing with product
- largely given up on Station traders except for those required by upkeep missions - my autotraders and NPC traders manage
- have been involved in a large scale battle with a small fleet but that was early in the game - only see the occasional lone K now
- I've not mined crystals, but may do just for achievement
- I avoid being a NPC pilot passenger, the experience is too frustrating
- I've got 260 million credits but need nothing atm
- my galaxy is safe and I find there's very little I need to do now.

For me, the X series end game was, and is, the vital task of building an empire so one can buy/build fleets to subdue hostile enemy sectors, adequately patrol friendly space, and enforce selective policing; all the while juggling alliances and, to be honest, doing much blatent skulduggery and mischief to each other in the vastness of outer space.
The journey to peace, in a consistantly hostile space.

While X4 is undoubtedly the best base to have an X-series end game in so far, unfortunately the builds to date have not delivered a consistent level of danger. Even the sectors adjacent to enemy sectors are peaceful and suffer only the occasional lone enemy incursion. My game has always been at peace.

[weller009]

lol, I havent done any of these yet.

[KillaALF70]

… hack panels on stations and steal goods?

I did not vote for that, although I have done it for a mission I had. Well, the hacking part, at least, and there were containers floating around afterwards. Unfortunately, the mission did not complete and I had to abandon it (Tried reloading several times, hacking the panel multiple times, but nada) . Am I supposed to pick those containers up to complete these missions?

[csaba]

I've done most of these the first week, only the war sub/double agent being the last few days as I just wanted to tick of the achievements on Steam.


I spend my time building stations for aesthetics now as the higher functions of the game don't work well enough to keep me bothered. (broken wing behavior, broken patrol command, broken exploration, broken boarding orders, unkillable build storages, infinite kha'ak spawns on their stations, weak capital ships, generally wonky AI from player owned combat ships)

[ApoxNM]

I have been busy trying to establish a drug empire, however black markets seem a bit broken (especially missions) and my ships NEVER flee from police even tough it's set in global orders, they always drop the cargo!

[Botschafter Von Den Glück]

I have something important to say! I am not urgent, but really helpful to read. You guys are really doing great!

In the short: So you need an extended strategical reason. to become greater.
1. Poll:
I solved the most aspects of the poll, and the following: I dont see a reason why I need to emp a station fir example. (I can, but maybe for firepower, but I do not need it for principle)
I love the data treasures (had hoped those missions were deeper, but its okay, I love them to use my space suite!) but I do not dedicatedly look for them, but I will later, as a closing task if everything is finished /im tired of empire building/ my character has grown old and wants to revisit the universe after retireing from business . I like the idea though pretty much.

2.
I like and love the economy and all parts of the game. What I wish greedy, is more difficulty, and more reason to build stations. Of course you support your 'faction', or more wildly, usually a faction.
Those NEED goods. But the need of things is very strong, but you only need a very small amount of time to earn money, to buy even buy the strongest XL ships in higher number.
At start you are slow, but you get up really fast in ~100-200 hours, if you are very slow, if you know to play X games you will be really rich after comparable short amount of time. But whats the point? You can conquer the Xenon? the Khaak? the Argons? The Paranids? this is quite good, if they would give you a (continuous) challenge, that is not a blind respawn to old state like in X3. They can fix it over time, but not amply.
You want to build up all of that for a reason, to use the money afterwards into something rewarding in a continuous way for (up to) large scale and long amount of time where there is a reason to play. I LOVE the game.
But Many people I have read so far, or what I feel, even if it doesnt apply for everybody, I think after setting up the first station, maybe a bit more, you get into a idle-state of game pace, where the player gets the impression, that he is ready for everything to happen: but there is nothing to do, except to gain even more money with the plentiful wonderful missions, but they seem to have an inflating use (so you cannot afford to care for them, if you know to make the millions elsewhere, as you are not silly.) The Offers are many, I would wish I could do more, but I already have much to manage once I got the empire-level, 'fleets', which I theoretically can do quite quickly, once up on the money.
Also for other reasons, you need some goal, far and long, and difficult to reach (mile stones on the way seem easy to get), and its beautful to watch your trade ships docking and undocking from your station using the big opening and closing of the internal-docking doors.

But you take a cup of coffee, think over it some minutes... Im done. I know, really conquering some sectors is really a lot of work, but it seems like a side task, and the data tresors also seem like a side task, that are good, I enjoy them a lot, but you cannot fully only do that task, occassionally they are welcome.

So away from plots and one-time-gains, you need some continuous reasoning behind immense empire building, even if its only a single big task, to build up the economy to far larger levels, even more fleets, and more counterfire by the game, that keeps your defense stations hot, gives you some time pressure, and do things against a central threat, that is not just a 'collect cash then steamroll whatever you are'. I dont want to modify my game, but I want some 'difficulty', even only optional time pressure, that I can accept, even once I were a less extensive player and want a 'clean' start; but there comes the time, where you want to criple up something:
My HOP are cleaning the PAR Sector with very ease, except for the stations, and it seems like a self-running progress, even if you need to help to crack the hard targets (e.g. the stations). Maybe because of the missing drive components, PAR did not resist, even if they kept having many ships, really.

So this is how far I got.
I am a very patient player and can play forever in this state. But normal players do not get that far, if they are not connected to the game as 'we' are. Its not about holding your hand, but about ANYTHING to archieve. And not for a single requirement 'all paranids did left the universe thanks to your powerful help YES / NO', even that would already be a good thing, we have, but I need a reason to make a economy race with my empire, with some challenge on large scale: Why build maybe 5 Stations up! WHY do all the mining and fed x facilities? Is there a reason to build 10 shipyards later? or support those that exist?
So the speed up of economy needs to have a reason for you, as you are doing large amounts of money, already with the first stations. So you need an extended strategical reason. to become greater.

If I dont get, I might need to mod me one.

[DarkSideMaster1]

After 50 hours I am back to X3-AP.

Why? In X4 no goals.

In X3 I build my own fleet M2 and go to war with Xenons ^). Iti is might! It is power!

In X4 fleet from Odessey? It is funny They are so harmless As Xenons

[dougeye]

followed plot mission and said, is that it? because even in that short time i could see the money rolling in, game needs difficulty settings so people can choose their flavour.

[Mavo Pi]

I am about 120 hours in without use of seta. Have got 7 stations and about 90 ships About ten of them are fight ships including a captured behemoth. My net worth is at 170 Million but money from my stations is coming in fast now(mostly refined metals and silicon wafers) and I expect to break 1 billion by end of next week. I found 4 data vaults so far and unlocked the same number of timeline entries. I also sent a few ships on ventures from my player hq.

[Tristavius]

70 hours in my 1.0 game which became quite screwed up, net worth was about 150M I believe.
20 hours in my 1.32 game, net worth pushing 200M.

Lacking the hacking/EMP stuff right now, as frankly this far in I still have no idea what it's all about or why. Could be a good one for a more 'official' explanation.

Also the ventures as I only play offline and kinda just don't see the point anyway really.

Big tick to all the rest.

[X-Series]

I'm 247 hours into the game, 339 ships, 8 stations and net worth 3.3b.

[Botschafter Von Den Glück]

Im impressed. But see.

Interesting enough, with an RTS concept on top of that, and optional multiplayer (for those not afraid to clunch versus childish players doing clashes the easy way) faction conflicts could bring the game up to a very topmost position. (Yes, knowing that is not X so far; )

What I REALLY THOUGHT in the beginning (AND I DO NOT STOP TO BELIEVE THAT NEVER STOPAT): The DATA vaults were the KEY to the STORY in the game: After some vaults, the first data treasure gives you the initial boot for the task, + the HQ, and THEN you unfold the STORY about the game, ENTER different time lines, like chapters, and WITH the chapters, the universe opens (activates more gates) step by step, resulting in a increasing experience, with more conflicts and ALSO Triggering with the chapters: Escalating the difficulty/Developement of the X Universe, like the Seals of the diablo: With each opened lock, you increase the dangerous level of the universe, turning into a increased desaster for your economy, that you need then to protect/bring your faction healthy through the 'wind',

BUT: The X-Universe isnt that a battle game. Conflict yes, but not war. Otherwise, you could get into wars, as they also existed in the past (boron battle, like the bord computer said in former games when explaining all the weapons and so on).

And this in a fortune case, knowing how this is to develope^ (much, but not too much with a good approach for a game), getting this dynamically with reputation/your infringuements into the conflict with your own participation, OR Also triggering/driven by the faction leaders, in this case, turning more into a space desaster role play game.

But X hasnt written story, instead it has simulated story. so then fitting into THAT trade fight build think. but still it results into strategy with the one or other direction of the 4 goals (not spoken out, but as a result, and a strategy that also works gameplaywise)

Maybe I have to program it myself...

Edit: That being said, I am NOT disappointed or discouraged by the state of the game. Its really fun! You are succesful Ego!

[had]

I tried once to hack the station so that it threw out the goods.
But I didn’t quite understand how to pick them up. On a small ship, you will not take much, and the big ship station will destroy.
Maybe I should have also turned off the turrets, but it seems that the turret terminal will not spawn anywhere.

[ChillAsIce]

Well, I have been trying to play as the peaceful trader and station builder. I've haven't been trying to get on the bad side of any of the major factions. In fact, I've been trying to get on their good sides so I can nab blueprints for my stations. Since one of the patches came with new blueprints to buy, I'm even more inclined to stay on everyone's good side.

That said, I have engaged in combat. Darn pirates have threatened and attacked my trading ships. I have bested them and managed to capture a few ships. I also have fought the Xenon and Kha'ak since there is no penalty for doing so. Not big ships, only the small ships that show up in territories I have been doing business in.

I have jumped into my space suit to scan stations and nabbed some blueprints in the process. Not because I like being in my space suit. I want 100% scans of stations and you can only do that in your space suit. I also can't do repair missions without out my space suit. If given the option to do so, I would rather stay in my ship to do station scans and repair missions.

I don't do EMP attack on stations as I don't want to start any trouble. Same with hacking. I try to stay legal. I haven't found any data vaults. I have little interest in exploration at this time.