X4 - Just a faked economy?

[Tadas]

I think economy stalling out is pointing to direction that it is real, I think the way it is supposed to work - stations create resources that are ultimately used to build ships. When resources build up, factions start warring more intesly, creating raiding parties against each other and xenon, pirates, so ships are being destroyed requiring new resources. However right now faction wars and xenon spawn rates are way undertuned making economy stall out because of resource build up.

[DancingPengiun]

Best solution is to delete the word sim. Sim is too subjective over a wide range of audiences.

[Gideon_Prime]

I'm not sure about the original topic regarding the code being proven wrong or whatever, but I can say that at about the 40-50 hour mark, I realized that my game's economy was grinding to a complete halt. I hadn't seen a single pirate/xenon ship since about hour 20-25 and none of the factions were at war. Since no one was at war, no ships were being lost. And since ships seem to be the sum of all the game's resource funneling, there was no demand in the economy.

So, I assume there is some sort of artificial "limit" that the factions use to determine how many ships/stations they need, and once they reach that limit no additional demand is created unless the player intervenes or losses occur. Furthermore, the Xenon ships seem to be made of tissue paper and utilize peashooters as weaponry. They were wiped out entirely in my play through or never truly thrived. When I visited the Xenon systems, they were completely barren; just one destroyer and a handful of random defense platforms. This adds to the problem, since Xenon pose absolutely no threat to the NPC factions, much less the player once you get a fleet formed.

[Jashashunter]

Seems like they need to make everyone more aggressive. Not enough WAR for the economy to actually function. Everything gets built but nothing seems to get destroyed, or not enough gets destroyed to make a difference.

[Gideon_Prime]

Seems like they need to make everyone more aggressive. Not enough WAR for the economy to actually function. Everything gets built but nothing seems to get destroyed, or not enough gets destroyed to make a difference.

This appears to be a reoccurring theme across many players' posts -- that there is no war in their game. It may very well be a large contributing factor to the overall problem with balancing the universal economy.

[Tadas]

So, I assume there is some sort of artificial "limit" that the factions use to determine how many ships/stations they need, and once they reach that limit no additional demand is created unless the player intervenes or losses occur. Furthermore, the Xenon ships seem to be made of tissue paper and utilize peashooters as weaponry. They were wiped out entirely in my play through or never truly thrived. When I visited the Xenon systems, they were completely barren; just one destroyer and a handful of random defense platforms. This adds to the problem, since Xenon pose absolutely no threat to the NPC factions, much less the player once you get a fleet formed.

I think limit is needed because of 2 reasons - pcs have only so much computing power and second it probably should be tied to your combat rank, so you start out combat slowly in your own ship and over time build up to huge fleet battles and not just thrown into something overwhelming.

I think it's more about spawn rates than xenon relative strength. I assume that out of sector combat is simplified numbers game. I think it's about spawn rates because even xenon sectors that are 3 sectors away from factions are barren.

[Gideon_Prime]

So, I assume there is some sort of artificial "limit" that the factions use to determine how many ships/stations they need, and once they reach that limit no additional demand is created unless the player intervenes or losses occur. Furthermore, the Xenon ships seem to be made of tissue paper and utilize peashooters as weaponry. They were wiped out entirely in my play through or never truly thrived. When I visited the Xenon systems, they were completely barren; just one destroyer and a handful of random defense platforms. This adds to the problem, since Xenon pose absolutely no threat to the NPC factions, much less the player once you get a fleet formed.

I think limit is needed because of 2 reasons - pcs have only so much computing power and second it probably should be tied to your combat rank, so you start out combat slowly in your own ship and over time build up to huge fleet battles and not just thrown into something overwhelming.

I think it's more about spawn rates than xenon relative strength. I assume that out of sector combat is simplified numbers game. I think it's about spawn rates because even xenon sectors that are 3 sectors away from factions are barren.

I wasn't implying that a limit wasn't needed, because it certainly is for many reasons -- some of which you touched on. However, it is one of the contributing factors to the current game economy becoming stale very, very quickly. That and supply being over saturated even early game. I remember purchasing my first freighter relatively early (around 5-6 hours in), and realizing that there was almost no demand for most products. Even things like Energy Cells, which are one of the most basic (thus most used) resources, were not in demand except for maybe 1 or 2 stations having buy orders for a one or two hundred.

It is a complex issue with many contributing factors, and a limit is certainly needed to keep things from spiraling out of control in an entirely different direction.

[Tadas]

Another way to increase consumption would be to increase resource requirements to build ships/stations. You would still need war, but less.

[Gideon_Prime]

Another way to increase consumption would be to increase resource requirements to build ships/stations. You would still need war, but less.

I'm also wondering if Xenon build ships like the other factions do, rather than just spawning them in. That might also explain why they quickly die out and never seem to come back. Since their systems are isolated and the player cannot contribute (via trading, manufacturing, or mining), they cannot provide adequate supplies to create more ships on their own. That would be a rather major oversight, though, might be the case. I know I've seen Xenon mining ships floating about ...

[Assailer]

Ohh dear. Just play the darn game to find out it's not static, LOL.

Stop looking at exes/scripts, you will just ruin your and others experience by coming here with uncertain and most likely false assumptions.

[Karlfeldt]

Another way to increase consumption would be to increase resource requirements to build ships/stations. You would still need war, but less.

I'm also wondering if Xenon build ships like the other factions do, rather than just spawning them in. That might also explain why they quickly die out and never seem to come back. Since their systems are isolated and the player cannot contribute (via trading, manufacturing, or mining), they cannot provide adequate supplies to create more ships on their own. That would be a rather major oversight, though, might be the case. I know I've seen Xenon mining ships floating about ...

Xeno do need to construct their ship in their shipyard.
The fact is clear, the Xeno is too weak at the begining of the game and it didn't require too much ships for AI faction to push them back to stone age.

I've been fly to the Xeno Shipyard and nearby sectors and all i see is S ships and only a few factory. The fact that we can't see a xeno or pirates ship is because once they're out of their own sector, they will be destroyed in no time.
Or the Xeno's game script just found they're too weak (most of them are S ships) to attack.

The solution is simple, let the AI faction fighting each other or help Xeno to grow faster.

I really hope someone can SETA for 200 hours to confirm Xeno will grow stronger and have the ability to fight with the AI factions

[Karlfeldt]

I'm not sure about the original topic regarding the code being proven wrong or whatever, but I can say that at about the 40-50 hour mark, I realized that my game's economy was grinding to a complete halt. I hadn't seen a single pirate/xenon ship since about hour 20-25 and none of the factions were at war. Since no one was at war, no ships were being lost. And since ships seem to be the sum of all the game's resource funneling, there was no demand in the economy.

So, I assume there is some sort of artificial "limit" that the factions use to determine how many ships/stations they need, and once they reach that limit no additional demand is created unless the player intervenes or losses occur. Furthermore, the Xenon ships seem to be made of tissue paper and utilize peashooters as weaponry. They were wiped out entirely in my play through or never truly thrived. When I visited the Xenon systems, they were completely barren; just one destroyer and a handful of random defense platforms. This adds to the problem, since Xenon pose absolutely no threat to the NPC factions, much less the player once you get a fleet formed.

It is confirmed that there's a quota for the AI faction to build how many ships.

That's why now for a lot of people's universe, the AI shipyard is full storage and stop building anything.

The problem is not the quota, the quota is fine and necessary. The problem is AI faction seldom lose a ship.

[Lymark]

I'm also wondering if Xenon build ships like the other factions do, rather than just spawning them in. That might also explain why they quickly die out and never seem to come back. Since their systems are isolated and the player cannot contribute (via trading, manufacturing, or mining), they cannot provide adequate supplies to create more ships on their own. That would be a rather major oversight, though, might be the case. I know I've seen Xenon mining ships floating about ...

I've received pop-up messages saying that construction of Xenon station were built in their sectors, so If they could afford making buildings, I assume they should able to build ships If quota allowed.

The problem is not the quota, the quota is fine and necessary. The problem is AI faction seldom lose a ship.

I wonder If someone could come up with a cheesy script that deletes capital ships automatically when the quota is met. It's not gonna solve the war problem, but it will at least get the supply and demand going before a real 'fix' appears.

[Liath]

I think another reason that this lack of enemies appears to be the case is due to the lack of racial flavor and unique loadouts per race.
Xenon had some of the strongest ships in the game in prior X games. So 1 Xenon K/J was worth 1>2 of the other race's similar-class ship.
The Xenon in X:R were seriously tough ships.
With X4, and the limited racial flavor, its likely that the Xenon ships are just getting their butts handed to them and since they can't churn out ships like the other races, they're basically already dead before any real war starts, through attrition.

[VariousArtist]

Is it possible that theres no "invasion"(or larger scale attack-) mechanics implemented? It doesnt seem that theres any attacks from enemies, besides some rare occurances with mostly single ships.
No wonder that they get handed over their butts when they only come with single ships without being "serious" here or there...?!?

[Lyth]

Seems like they need to make everyone more aggressive. Not enough WAR for the economy to actually function. Everything gets built but nothing seems to get destroyed, or not enough gets destroyed to make a difference.

This appears to be a reoccurring theme across many players' posts -- that there is no war in their game. It may very well be a large contributing factor to the overall problem with balancing the universal economy.

I do have some action in my galaxy, regular xenon raids, lots of criminals, had a K' wing attack and heard plenty of other fights over comms but have had no joy in finding what will escalate the missions and frequency of these.

The X games have never been overly dangerous places unless you went into Hostile sectors or accepted missions at top ranks. Losing the odd UT was always the biggest risk as I recall not counting the K invasions of X3:TC. (I miss those.) I don't have an issue with this, not everyone wants a dangerous universe.

Piracy seems like a great way to make it more hostile and joining a war effort the most constructive, I am playing the game well and having fun with it, not even close to finishing any kind of tests on how to stimulate aggression by the factions but am in agreement, I don't know for a fact that ship building is the top of the chain but it does look that way which simply requires more faction fighting to require more ships and create more trade opportunities.

I am guessing that their is some trigger involved, at a certain point of resources a faction will aggressively attack another, the problem is if that is a number the starting factions cannot reach because they need more time to build more stations or I am just being wishful.

[Karlfeldt]

Seems like they need to make everyone more aggressive. Not enough WAR for the economy to actually function. Everything gets built but nothing seems to get destroyed, or not enough gets destroyed to make a difference.

This appears to be a reoccurring theme across many players' posts -- that there is no war in their game. It may very well be a large contributing factor to the overall problem with balancing the universal economy.

I do have some action in my galaxy, regular xenon raids, lots of criminals, had a K' wing attack and heard plenty of other fights over comms but have had no joy in finding what will escalate the missions and frequency of these.

The X games have never been overly dangerous places unless you went into Hostile sectors or accepted missions at top ranks. Losing the odd UT was always the biggest risk as I recall not counting the K invasions of X3:TC. (I miss those.) I don't have an issue with this, not everyone wants a dangerous universe.

Piracy seems like a great way to make it more hostile and joining a war effort the most constructive, I am playing the game well and having fun with it, not even close to finishing any kind of tests on how to stimulate aggression by the factions but am in agreement, I don't know for a fact that ship building is the top of the chain but it does look that way which simply requires more faction fighting to require more ships and create more trade opportunities.

I am guessing that their is some trigger involved, at a certain point of resources a faction will aggressively attack another, the problem is if that is a number the starting factions cannot reach because they need more time to build more stations or I am just being wishful.

I agreed with the last part. Maybe Egosoft just turn it off to avoid too many bugs when launching the game in first week. It 'll come later.

Also, I wanna know if you think your universe is acting well, check your map and tell if there's much demand (Buy orders) for the final products like Turret Components or Shield Components,etc?

[Lyth]

Turret components are still at half but shields are almost full at the places I have visible, is going down but no major demand for them. (Supply>Demand)

I am loathe to take any great meaning from that though, the game is still functioning with most of the initially created capital ships and the items might only be purchased once a week or a few from a number of stations or even only being purchased from a sector/station I cannot see, I'd rather see what total sales look like over a week or have an actual count of ships built.

- Yes, my universe is fine, it is growing and I can see things happening but very slowly.

[SteveMill]

Seems like they need to make everyone more aggressive. Not enough WAR for the economy to actually function. Everything gets built but nothing seems to get destroyed, or not enough gets destroyed to make a difference.

This appears to be a reoccurring theme across many players' posts -- that there is no war in their game. It may very well be a large contributing factor to the overall problem with balancing the universal economy.

I do have some action in my galaxy, regular xenon raids, lots of criminals, had a K' wing attack and heard plenty of other fights over comms but have had no joy in finding what will escalate the missions and frequency of these.

The X games have never been overly dangerous places unless you went into Hostile sectors or accepted missions at top ranks. Losing the odd UT was always the biggest risk as I recall not counting the K invasions of X3:TC. (I miss those.) I don't have an issue with this, not everyone wants a dangerous universe.

Piracy seems like a great way to make it more hostile and joining a war effort the most constructive, I am playing the game well and having fun with it, not even close to finishing any kind of tests on how to stimulate aggression by the factions but am in agreement, I don't know for a fact that ship building is the top of the chain but it does look that way which simply requires more faction fighting to require more ships and create more trade opportunities.

I am guessing that their is some trigger involved, at a certain point of resources a faction will aggressively attack another, the problem is if that is a number the starting factions cannot reach because they need more time to build more stations or I am just being wishful.

The X ganes have never been overly dangerous places? Huh?

In the various X3 games Ore Belt was a near permanent battle zone with massive khaak incursions. And I fought hours long battles against terran attacks on regular sectors.

Any sector at near any time could have station defence missions because a swarm of pirates were attacking it.

I get why ES have drastically simplified and shrunk the game. They were really hard to get into. I am having fun with X4 and it will get better but this narrowing has come at great cost in terms of dynamic content. Twenty hours in and I’ve had maybe 4 real combat situations? None of which my starter ship couldn’t easily handle. Obviously stomping on criminals around stations isn’t combat.

Real X combat was running for your life from a pirate wing, Wasp missiles rolling and curving all around you and your rear missile defebce turrets blasted away.

X4 has does some new things well but in no way at all does it compare to previous games in the series on the combat action front.

I’m not sure that losing most of that aspect of X gameplay in return for a deeper dive into economic minutiae and delivering mission through endless scouring of hull sections is a price worth paying.

Like I said, I’m having fun in X4 and hope it is a great success. It’s going to get better. It has it’s charm and I appreciate the new map interface but I do miss the old white knuckle combat gameplay.

[hobblygobbly]

Lol he can't provide evidence because he didn't do it, you can't decompile the binary files and reveal source code in such a fashion when it's a systems language, it would take you a very long time to reverse engineer it, tools like IDA would provide almost complete rubbish - none if it is readable and deducible code. It is simply addresses, there isn't even variable names or classes, when you decompile C/C++/Rust/etc output, it simply doesn't output the source.