X4: Cradle of Humanity (Release Date March 16, 2021, 6pm CET; Livestream at 5pm CET)

[jlehtone]

Great news, and the Terran Stations look outstanding (cant wait to blow them all up).

If this were multiplayer, then we would already prepare to coordinate our attacks.
Now it is just a race; who gets them all first.

[dtpsprt]

:X4: Cradle of Humanity - The next chapter of X4
X4: Cradle of Humanity is the second expansion for X4: Foundations and will bring the X series back to Earth. It significantly increases the size of the game universe with new sectors, and welcomes two Terran factions along with their economy, ships, weapons and stations. New game-starts bring players closer to the identity and political stance of the Terran factions, and offer alternative perspectives on events in the history of X4: Foundations.

Make sure you add X4: Cradle of Humanity to your wishlist today, and get ready to explore on March 16, 2021!

OK... so two new factions... and new sectors... meaning more ships/factories/stations... meaning more workload for the CPU... meaning that this "endgame" mechanic of "Terraforming" becomes an even more faraway possibility unless players decide to pay some £500 in upgrading their system (or even way more for those that are near the minimum requirements) to play a game of £90 (or less if in discount week or prepaid bundle) and this with no guarantee that it will be enough...

[DatSync]

OK... so two new factions... and new sectors... meaning more ships/factories/stations... meaning more workload for the CPU... meaning that this "endgame" mechanic of "Terraforming" becomes an even more faraway possibility unless players decide to pay some £500 in upgrading their system (or even way more for those that are near the minimum requirements) to play a game of £90 (or less if in discount week or prepaid bundle) and this with no guarantee that it will be enough...

I know this is a forum but sometimes its also good to google a bit about hardware before complaining.

There are very good performing cpu that cost less than 500£ a 5600x completely destroy most of the high end cpu this year in gaming performance and yes it does have very good single core performance too that is good for X4.

[Mycu]

IMPORTANT
If you look carefully on the first picture, you will see how will Boron Construction Vechicle looks like.

-------
Anyway - can't wait for the end of March (March 16 plus aprox. two weeks for mods update to 4.0) to start playing.

[mr.WHO]

OK... so two new factions... and new sectors... meaning more ships/factories/stations... meaning more workload for the CPU... meaning that this "endgame" mechanic of "Terraforming" becomes an even more faraway possibility unless players decide to pay some £500 in upgrading their system (or even way more for those that are near the minimum requirements) to play a game of £90 (or less if in discount week or prepaid bundle) and this with no guarantee that it will be enough...

Nonsence! I have mid-tier laptop with X4 and SV, my game is 200+ hours continued ever from 1.0.
I have about 20 mega stations, huge shipyard, 10 carrier fleets with dozen destroyers and 100+ fighters each - there is an impact, but it's much smaller than anything I saw in X3 and in X3 I wasn't even able to get to huge emprie with huge fleets as game universe decomposed performance on itself.

X4 late game performance is best of the series and I don't feel the need to restart my game, so I'm looknig forward to universe expansion.

[Raevyan]

Well I wish Egosoft the best of luck and hope that the DLC will be in a better state than split DLC.

[Crekkan]

Super looking forward to this. I still hope that the Python and Viper from the Split expansion is completed some day, but this expansion does appear to be really complete and I am eagerly awaiting release day!

I do have a concern though with how the galaxy map will look. I really hope we don't have 9 separate large tiles for the Sol system instead of a Grand Exchange-like layout for it, it'll look really odd otherwise. It'll worsen the false impression of a large universe (i.e. Tharka's Ravine, Hewa's Twin, etc.). Hoping the devs revamp the map tiling in regards to the Accelerator Gate systems at some point or at least release an official Galaxy Editor in the future so players can make changes themselves.

Still, I just wanna return to Earth! Good job again Egosoft!

[Axeface]

I do have a concern though with how the galaxy map will look. I really hope we don't have 9 separate large tiles for the Sol system instead of a Grand Exchange-like layout for it, it'll look really odd otherwise. It'll worsen the false impression of a large universe (i.e. Tharka's Ravine, Hewa's Twin, etc.). Hoping the devs revamp the map tiling in regards to the Accelerator Gate systems at some point or at least release an official Galaxy Editor in the future so players can make changes themselves.

I have that concern too, I raised it a while back I think. But I dont think its a issue of Sol being over-represented but of the core sectors of other races being under-represented (was a problem for me in x3 too). For example Ianamus Zura is the Teladi home sector with their homeworld, but nothing about it sets it apart from other sectors - a special and larger layout, special stations, special fleets, etc. Argon prime is just 1 sector. If Sol gets special attention other race home systems should get it too.
I suppose a case could be made for Sol being special because the terrans are so technologically advanced, and one of the older space faring races (I think?), at least that could be used as an excuse for it.
If you are looking at the setup of the other systems in the game, Sol should be 1 large cluster like grand exchange right? (Terrans might have other systems).

Looking forward to the dlc in any case and its not a huge issue for me, just a niggling annoyance since x3.

[surferx]

IMPORTANT
If you look carefully on the first picture, you will see how will Boron Construction Vechicle looks like.

I will laugh so hard if egosoft suddenly decided to make that one different for borons

Well they have another month +5 days to redesign it if they wanted to. Anyway, thanks ES for finally delivering this very anticipated expansion. So do I start out as Terran? or another race and discover the Terran system?

[Axeface]

Well they have another month +5 days to redesign it if they wanted to. Anyway, thanks ES for finally delivering this very anticipated expansion. So do I start out as Terran? or another race and discover the Terran system?

There will be terran starts if you want to start fresh, and otherwise gates that are already present in the game but disabled will fire up and connect the terran system/systems.

[dtpsprt]

I have that concern too, I raised it a while back I think. But I dont think its a issue of Sol being over-represented but of the core sectors of other races being under-represented (was a problem for me in x3 too). For example Ianamus Zura is the Teladi home sector with their homeworld, but nothing about it sets it apart from other sectors - a special and larger layout, special stations, special fleets, etc. Argon prime is just 1 sector. If Sol gets special attention other race home systems should get it too.
I suppose a case could be made for Sol being special because the terrans are so technologically advanced, and one of the older space faring races (I think?), at least that could be used as an excuse for it.
If you are looking at the setup of the other systems in the game, Sol should be 1 large cluster like grand exchange right? (Terrans might have other systems).

Looking forward to the dlc in any case and its not a huge issue for me, just a niggling annoyance since x3.

Lorewise Terrans are definitely not among the older space faring races, or else H.P. Gunne's Fleet would have been recognised as Terrans (and not named Argons) as they led the Terraformers through the Earth Gate.
I don't think that the case would be for Sol to be one big hexagon (mathematically speaking it can be filled by 6 or multiples). Besides I doubt that even a full stretched out Hex can contain all their monstrous (not to mention hideous) stations and ships...

[Ketraar]

Lorewise Terrans are definitely not among the older space faring races, or else H.P. Gunne's Fleet would have been recognised as Terrans (and not named Argons) as they led the Terraformers through the Earth Gate.

Well see they are. Terrans build own gates, created the Terraformer who later came to bite them in the bastu. Nathan R. Gunne's Fleet was not recognised as Terran because there was no one to recognise them after they flew through the gate. See there was no one really there in the "early days" of the gate network and the Argon would want to keep the existence and location of Earth a secret, for safety. The origin of the Argon name comes from Gunne, as in R. Gunne. Just to compare, Terrans wiped the floor with the Kha'ak in the Battle of Heretics End, a battle only won because of them, as the Kha'ak had no match even with combined forced of the Community of Planets.

For more details I suggest the X Encyclopaedia.

MFG

Ketraar

[dtpsprt]

Lorewise Terrans are definitely not among the older space faring races, or else H.P. Gunne's Fleet would have been recognised as Terrans (and not named Argons) as they led the Terraformers through the Earth Gate.

Well see they are. Terrans build own gates, created the Terraformer who later came to bite them in the bastu. Nathan R. Gunne's Fleet was not recognised as Terran because there was no one to recognise them after they flew through the gate. See there was no one really there in the "early days" of the gate network and the Argon would want to keep the existence and location of Earth a secret, for safety. The origin of the Argon name comes from Gunne, as in R. Gunne. Just to compare, Terrans wiped the floor with the Kha'ak in the Battle of Heretics End, a battle only won because of them, as the Kha'ak had no match even with combined forced of the Community of Planets.

For more details I suggest the X Encyclopaedia.

MFG

Ketraar

So... there was a gate in Earth that nobody knew where it lead? Just next to Boron and Paranid's space (Brennan's Triumph)? A bit hard to believe... Then there is the instance of the Boron, the oldest of them all and in (secret) contact, or holders of the files of the Ancients... Hey!!! Now that I think of it, this is the reason for delaying the Boron for so long... being the oldest race they make harder a bargain on their franchise than the Teladi(!!!) poor Bernd....

[Teladi CEO]

Lorewise Terrans are definitely not among the older space faring races, or else H.P. Gunne's Fleet would have been recognised as Terrans (and not named Argons) as they led the Terraformers through the Earth Gate.

Well see they are. Terrans build own gates, created the Terraformer who later came to bite them in the bastu. Nathan R. Gunne's Fleet was not recognised as Terran because there was no one to recognise them after they flew through the gate. See there was no one really there in the "early days" of the gate network and the Argon would want to keep the existence and location of Earth a secret, for safety. The origin of the Argon name comes from Gunne, as in R. Gunne. Just to compare, Terrans wiped the floor with the Kha'ak in the Battle of Heretics End, a battle only won because of them, as the Kha'ak had no match even with combined forced of the Community of Planets.

For more details I suggest the X Encyclopaedia.

MFG

Ketraar

So... there was a gate in Earth that nobody knew where it lead? Just next to Boron and Paranid's space (Brennan's Triumph)? A bit hard to believe... Then there is the instance of the Boron, the oldest of them all and in (secret) contact, or holders of the files of the Ancients... Hey!!! Now that I think of it, this is the reason for delaying the Boron for so long... being the oldest race they make harder a bargain on their franchise than the Teladi(!!!) poor Bernd....

Lore why the Argon completely destroyed the gate, it also was a major Xenon sector and functioned as its core.

[Wehrwolf_10]

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/stea ... 1613119278

Apparently, a Tokyo-class carrier. Is there a small hangar ahead? How many s-landing zones can there be and where is the bridge?

[Axeface]

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/stea ... 1613119278

Apparently, a Tokyo-class carrier. Is there a small hangar ahead? How many s-landing zones can there be and where is the bridge?

Where did ya find that? And its very similar to x3 design but looks be be a completely new model, looks cool.

[Wehrwolf_10]

Where did ya find that? And its very similar to x3 design but looks be be a completely new model, looks cool.

Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/1288 ... _Humanity/

[Axeface]

Oh nice, new screens. Im a big fan of the Osaka (assuming its that and not the Syn), its a shame its terran and i'll just have to blow em up rather than use them
Also, havent seen an SPP on a terran station yet, I wonder if they use them at all. Maybe theyve just gone full nuclear/anti-matter.

[Teladi CEO]

Oh nice, new screens. Im a big fan of the Osaka (assuming its that and not the Syn), its a shame its terran and i'll just have to blow em up rather than use them
Also, havent seen an SPP on a terran station yet, I wonder if they use them at all. Maybe theyve just gone full nuclear/anti-matter.

SPOIlER ALERT!

Spoiler

Show

While we still don’t know the exact details, it seems like the Terrans will be at least morally neutral.

The Tokyo looks amazing, on the mid right (on the ring) is is there an m ship docked to it or is it just another aspect of the ship?

[mr.WHO]

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/stea ... 1613119278

Apparently, a Tokyo-class carrier. Is there a small hangar ahead? How many s-landing zones can there be and where is the bridge?

While I'm 99% sure it's a Carrier, there is 1% chance that this might be Auxilary Ship instead.

As a Carrier I absolutely hate the design:
- it is the most structurally unsound design in entire X4, the thing looks fragile and could break any moment.
- very bad turret placement (only on the nose and on the engine), lots of coverage gaps.
- The M-size dock internal storage goes DIRECTLY into engine room! Where is the space for the engine?
- I'm afraid the protrusion on the saucer right side is the bridge, which is the most stupid Star Destroyer syndrome cranked to 11 - the thing looks like fall of at first shot.
- the hangar in the front seems very narrow and not much of launch capacity.

After Raptor, I expected more from Terran Carrier - this is below vanilla Carrier quality.

Fortunately Osaka is a beauty (I wasn't a fan of X3 Osaka, but definetly X4 one is great).