I finally saw a bit of warring: and it was slightly awesome - screenshots and some superficial feedback

[Kadatherion]

So, since the talk in the hood right now seems to be all about the warring not happening much at all, which in turn saturates the economy (which is happening to most people), I wish to share a couple screens of a battle that I finally saw taking place in Faulty Logic between the Paranids and an actual real Xenon fleet: yay!

I arrive in Faulty Logic: hey, look at this Paranid blockade! No wonder no Xenon is able to get through...

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But oh dear, apparently it's not because they don't try to... actual action?!

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Let's go get 'em, three eyed friends!

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I'll be damned, it's a real little fleet, they are taking it seriously

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BTW, did you know my turrets work?

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Their turrets not so much after I blew them up, but they did give me a little run

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BOOM BYATCH!

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The aftermath: the Paranids did take some losses, but fairly minor ones

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All in all some feedback: at glance, while finally seeing the Xenons trying something more organized that most of us have seen up until now was definitely satisfying, the Paranids probably had way too much superiority, although that might have been intended to avoid the Xenons getting into their core sectors too easily. The battle felt a bit too short, missile spam from the Paranid capships made short work of the two Ks, but on the other hand I'm happy to say the AI in dogfight had no issues at taking down the enemy fighters in a timely manner, another thing that we've seen not working well many times. All this still in the main build 1.21, mind me.

One thing that really bothers me - it bothered me the whole game but now it became more evident than ever - the battle was pretty much completely silent, except for the sounds of MY main guns and the Ks turrets hitting me. No pew pew coming from the Paranids big gun, no BOOM from the missiles feasting on the Xenon hulls, no BOOM from the ship explosions... ok, that's how it would work in real space, we know, but it's a compromise we always do in sci-fi for the rule of cool unless it's an artsy film, and this is a videogame, we need cool. We need a bit more bang, Egosoft, the weapon effects are already a bit underwhelming, them being almost silent too puts the lid on the coffin.

Anyway, while there might be a larger balance issue in the war mechanics, when they actually trigger they seem to have the chance of being pretty pretty cool. And when you delve into rebalancing and fine tuning combat (especially when targeting and hitting consistently gets better for the AI), please think about the possibility of increasing the survivability of cap ships, either by increasing their hull or toning down a bit missile spam. While in my case this was also because the Xenons were clearly outgunned, destroyers going down in less than a minute are a bit too much. But, as I happen to say often the deeper I go into X4, while there might be a lot of things not working as intended or unfinished right now, what is in and works shows great potential. The foundations of a solid game are all here, just needs a lot of polishing and love (and variety, way more ship/weapon/equipment variety ) in time.