[RESTARTED!] X-TRA POLLS Round #15 | Which is your favourite gamestart?

[Tomonor]

Greetings, Members of the X-Community!

We sincerely apologize for the oversight in our recent poll. Unfortunately, due to an honest mistake, one of the gamestart options was unintentionally omitted, and as a result, we had to restart the poll. If you’ve already voted, we kindly ask that you cast your vote again. Thank you for your understanding! We've also enabled the option to edit your vote after voting.

The last poll has concluded and we've received valuable data on what controllers do you use to play X4 with.
Thank you for voting, especially if you took the time to voice your opinion and provide us with feedback!

The next poll is: “Which is your favourite gamstart?”
Notes: We are interested in which gamestart is favourite. X4 offers a good number of gamestarts, but there's certainly one that stands out for you.



How does the Poll work?
Every two weeks, we’ll be rolling out polls in the forum where you can weigh in on crucial aspects of our games. Your votes will play a key role in helping us gather valuable insights to shape the future of our games!

But hold on, there’s more! Beyond just data collection, we’re keen on fostering discussions and hearing your thoughts. Alongside each poll, there’s a dedicated discussion thread going on where you can share your insights, ideas, and feedback related to the poll topic. It’s not only a great way to engage with fellow gamers but also an opportunity for us to gather additional valuable input.

However, it’s important to note that while we value your input, the results of the polls won’t necessarily guarantee implementation or consideration.
These polls are primarily for fun and data gathering.

So, get ready to have your voice heard in The X-tra Polls! Let’s shape our beloved X-Universe together!



Previous Polls:
Poll #14: Which controllers do you use to play X4: Foundations?
Poll #13: Which game started your journey into the X-Universe?
Poll #12: What are your LEAST FAVOURITE activities in the game?
Poll #11: Which main weapons do you prefer to use on your player ship(s)?
Poll #10: What are your favourite methods for gaining quick money?
Poll #9: In what way do you modify X4: Foundations?
Poll #8: Which factions do you usually consider your adversary?
Poll #7: Do you leave your game running when you're Away From Keyboard?
Poll #6: Have you played multiple gamestarts?
Poll #5: What type of ship do you primarily use?
Poll #4: Which is your favourite race of the playable races?
Poll #3: How long have you been playing your current savegame?
Poll #2: Which phase do you enjoy the most in X4: Foundations?
Poll #1: In your opinion, which X4: Foundations expansion was the most worthwhile?

[jlehtone]

I did start X4 with game version 3.10. There were less starts back then.
I did enter X Universe via X2. "Prepare a Disco!"
Untested Explorer had a Disco. Hence that. (I also assumed Disco to be weaker than Elite ...)

I have no (re)started since. I would not call my choice a "favourite", just the only one that I did use.

[Alan Phipps]

I play vanilla, restart after each DLC is fully stable, and play from an appropriate DLC gamestart for a long time. My favourite start was the Project Genesis start with the CoH DLC, but it only beat the classic original Young Gun start by a whisker.

[GCU Grey Area]

Have played 9 gamestarts to date. My favourite of those (by a significant margin) was Spear of the Patriarch.

It wins my vote due to the ludicrously unfair geopolitical situation Zyarth are in right from the start, surrounded by enemies & overextended in FRF territory. Provided a highly enjoyable challenge; defending the borders, supporting the economy & helping ZYA to recapture lost territory. Thoroughly enjoyed doing all of that, along with commiting innumerable crimes & atrocities to both Argon factions, including (but not limited to) stealing dozens of their capital ships, helping the Xenon to take control of Hatikvah's & systematically purging every single ARG station in Silent Witness, Guiding Star & 11th Hour. Had a wonderful time playing as a genocidal Split maniac.

Map looked like this in the end, with ZYA controlling more territory than any other faction. Really must revisit that start, now there are Borons in the game to mercilessly persecute too...

[Duncaroos]

Something about Terran Cadet start and the big battle you have defending the Xenon really got me going, even the first time you go into Savage Spur and "meet" that....thing....and starts a mystery you have to solve. 10/10

[LameFox]

I played nearly all of the human ones, but ultimately settled on creating my own characters. Usually in a budgeted start.

This is partly because I just like coming up with them on my own—I always prefer games that let me create a character—and partly to avoid some things that bother me in the game. For example, I like to have TRI so I can set up more conflict, but the Prometheus blueprint is locked behind a different route. That annoys me: I don't want to sacrifice a more engaging universe over one blueprint... so I will just start with the blueprint. Then also I like to befriend FAF for their default ship skin (and so they quit bugging me), but they only have generic pirate missions and no other way to generate rep. By the time I get that to +27 I never want to see another mission again, so in subsequent games I just begin with the rep.

[Ormac]

As you ran out of options on your poll and forgot the Dedicated Warrior from 1.0 I've gone as other.

I found it peacefully positioned with easy access to mineable resources and you can choose how you react to HOP or ARG.
Even with BUC muscling in it's still a nice beginner start.

I've used the Accomplished Scientest a few times justto not bother with geting the PHQ and ignoring the early explore phase.

and I've played a Project Genesis of course.

[birdtable]

Where is the Dedicated Warrior ..... Not going to vote "other" .... Poor Show for not including it.

[Tomonor]

As you ran out of options on your poll and forgot the Dedicated Warrior from 1.0 I've gone as other.

I found it peacefully positioned with easy access to mineable resources and you can choose how you react to HOP or ARG.
Even with BUC muscling in it's still a nice beginner start.

I've used the Accomplished Scientest a few times justto not bother with geting the PHQ and ignoring the early explore phase.

and I've played a Project Genesis of course.

Where is the Dedicated Warrior ..... Not going to vote "other" .... Poor Show for not including it.

You are completely right, this was a huge error on my end. I've added The Dedicated Warrior's option, but unfortunately, I had to restart the poll because of this.
If you've already voted, I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused and kindly ask you to vote again.

[RainerPrem]

I won't participate in this poll, since I only started X4 only 3 times. The first time was the day it came out, and I don't remember which game start I used. So I basically have only used 2 game starts, and no idea how good the others are.

I suspect that not many X4 players did enough new starts to be able to vote in good conscience.

[Nanook]

I voted Creative Custom, although that's a bit misleading. I archive all my starts and saves, and according to my records, I have 70+ game starts, and many of those are standard starts. I tend to play a standard start for a while, and then when I see something I'd like to be different, I'll set up that start in CC and play that a while. I've started and played every game start, including the last two Boron starts, at least once before CC'ing it.

Did I mention that I have over 10,000 hours in X4 according to Steam? And another couple thou. in GOG? I retired in 2018 just before X4 came out**, and so have lots of time to play.

**Coincidence, honest.

[LameFox]

I won't participate in this poll, since I only started X4 only 3 times. The first time was the day it came out, and I don't remember which game start I used. So I basically have only used 2 game starts, and no idea how good the others are.

I suspect that not many X4 players did enough new starts to be able to vote in good conscience.

According to previous polls, more people prefer early and mid game than late, and most responded their current save was sub 500 hrs (100-500 got 34% and 10-100 got 28%). So I suspect those of us who restart a lot aren't all that uncommon.

[jlehtone]

... I basically have only used 2 game starts, and no idea how good the others are.

I suspect that not many X4 players did enough new starts to be able to vote in good conscience.

Isn't this a survey on opinions, rather than a "vote"? Did you like the two starts?

Good Laboratory Practice requires triplicates. Play every start seriously at least three times, with current game version and all DLC combinations. Is that what "eligible to vote" requires?


We steal and kill in the game. With good conscience. One poll here or there, and we still sleep like a baby. (If X-gamers would sleep.)

[surferx]

Did I mention that I have over 10,000 hours in X4 according to Steam? And another couple thou. in GOG? I retired in 2018 just before X4 came out**, and so have lots of time to play.

**Coincidence, honest.

I'm retired now, this past year so I can relate. I'm 130 hrs away from 10,000 hrs. BTW, in all those hrs I've never used SETA. I just want to experience the passage of time naturally.

[Thomas2052]

Budgeted start.

Argon Prime in a Disco.

It's how I remember starting x2.

Regards

[alt3rn1ty]

I have never used mods so far (still waiting Ventures, and need vanilla for beta testing updates), and I have only restarted 3 times, mainly just for bug hunting purposes when participating in betas.
I mention this because if the game was completely bug free since it first went public I would still be on the same playthrough I started with .. I am a bit unusual in that I can literally play this game for many years even after everything is achieved, because getting to the stage where you have a lot of money and achieved as much peace throughout the X'verse is where I start to really enjoy the game.

So for each of the 3 restarts, I did do different game starts, but the one I most like now is Custom Budgeted.

Cant see me using any other game start if I started again. The main thing that drives me towards Custom is the Pirate factions, SCA is solveable late game with Terraforming and I make that a late game priority, but there are others which are a PITA. FAF in particular, hard to find due to cloaking, and in my games mostly run a Rattlesnake slowly picking off my traders, and the rep decrease with them seems to be insurmountable so they always become a problem. There is sort of a cheat, the FRF Shipyard produces FAF Rattlesnakes, so if you park a large cheap ship in each of the FRF Shipyard docks and fire the captain of these ships, FRF cant produce any more FAF Rattlesnakes, so you hunt down the remaining FAF and no more get produced .. But this feels a bit cheaty to me and restricts FRF production of their own ships too.
Custom Budgeted you can just set their rep and get rid of the problem.

I do like the stories / role playing aspect of the tailored game starts, so I very much miss that aspect when doing custom, but needs outweigh preference here, and pirate factions are just too much of a threat to my late game ambition of a peaceful universe - The lack of economy due to no wars is also a constant, but I cant see a way to get around that without starting more wars, which would defeat my objectives.

I also love dog fighting in the game, and missions with a moderate sized enemy and a few escorts to be challenging my dogfighting .. But wars and fleets in this game (depending on how busy a sector is) tend to start introducing bad frame rates, and another thing I like is for the game to run smoothly while I'm dogfighting. More war activity = less immersive game for me because it ruins the fluid feel of flying.

I have gone a little off topic here, but I feel its all relevant to my choice of game start, and how the game feels in late game which is my nirvana.

One day I will mod the game, but only after I get bored with Ventures if/when it is released, and Egosoft have stopped doing updates which need beta testing.

One question I have: These polls are data Egosoft are gathering which will help steer the course of X5 (I presume anyway as we know Bernd has an X5 folder on his hard drive). So, X4 originally released Nov 2018 its been out for 6 years (plus however many years development prior to that), and its still not quite done yet. X5 is going to be at least equally long in development plus DLCs, so were looking at 2030-2034 ish before its nearly finished?. Aren't the devs going to be too old by then?.

I'm an early 60s child, and at this time still have not got a machine which will run X4 as smooth as I want it to (limited to Laptops for various reasons), I'm hoping in the next year to get a very decent Laptop, probably with an AMD X3D CPU .. And that will do me for X4 entertainment until I'm pushing up the daisy's, cant see me getting involved in X5 as I will never be able to afford a machine on my pension that could eventually run it well enough for my tastes. So I will be bowing out of the eternal cycle of desiring a machine good enough to run Egosofts latest game.

[adeine]

I think Terran Cadet is probably the best start in terms of immersion and gameplay, but I voted Project Genesis because of the player character.

I usually start with the Terran Cadet storyline anyway which is fairly straightforward from the PIO start.

[LordIII3]

I tried a few gamestart, mostly the more guided ones and enjoyed all.
But I have to say, that the guided boron rushes you a bit and leaves you a bit less time to explore the new sectors.

And I have a Suggestion: please give the Options in the custom Game start to pick an owned Intro narrative (from which in you Could then modify the game)
Eg. Like Play terran cadet but then change your ship, or add a Station that you we're "assigned" to run and optimize.

And one Thing that I am a little sad about is, that there are no really advanced gamestarts
Like Argon Admiral: where you would start in and with a half full Carrier and have Special Argon Military related Task Chain

Or Teladi adminastrive: where you would start with a very poorly developed sectors under your Control and are tasked to build Up the Teladi wealth through developing your sector and delivering big ammounts of wares to a Teladi Trading Station via Quest

[Alan Phipps]

@ LordIII3: You can edit your posts to add stuff rather than keep posting again. Also note that this is an opinion poll thread where you vote and explain once; suggestions would be best in a separate new thread of your own.

[grapedog]

Have played 9 gamestarts to date. My favourite of those (by a significant margin) was Spear of the Patriarch.

It wins my vote due to the ludicrously unfair geopolitical situation Zyarth are in right from the start, surrounded by enemies & overextended in FRF territory. Provided a highly enjoyable challenge; defending the borders, supporting the economy & helping ZYA to recapture lost territory. Thoroughly enjoyed doing all of that, along with commiting innumerable crimes & atrocities to both Argon factions, including (but not limited to) stealing dozens of their capital ships, helping the Xenon to take control of Hatikvah's & systematically purging every single ARG station in Silent Witness, Guiding Star & 11th Hour. Had a wonderful time playing as a genocidal Split maniac.

Map looked like this in the end, with ZYA controlling more territory than any other faction. Really must revisit that start, now there are Borons in the game to mercilessly persecute too...

Same...

My ZYA game, and the Xenon were pretty friggin vicious.

I had one destroyer finally, and I had to move it from gate to gate to help defend Zhin... wretched skies was lost, the north was lost, the Argon were pushing in from the east.

That was such a fun game! And by far my most memorable game...

2nd best start for me is the budgeted custom, i like that one too. able to skip a little bit of the super early grind and get into the meat as little sooner.