No quest markers?

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Bud_Viking
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun, 30. Mar 25, 05:49

No quest markers?

Post by Bud_Viking »

I am house sitting for a friend out of the country who offered me the use of his game rig and Steam account. I am trying X4, never having played any of the previous games. I want to love what is clearly a beautiful game, with tons of potential but it is driving me insane with never being able to find where I am trying to go.

First, I am definitely not a rookie gamer. I have been gaming since my first PC was a 486 SX in the early 90's, when I had to upgrade my four 1/4 MB ram sticks to 4 MB to play the first X-Wing Fighter. I just looked up my play time on Steam and it's over 17k hours. I have played every genre there is from the most simple to the steepest learning curve. But this game is driving me crazy. I knew it was a deeply complex game and was ready to take it slow and learn it. I watched several beginner guide videos and started with a "Young Guns" campaign. I followed the advice of firstly taking my starting ship and doing the highway loop to open up the map, then took the mission to join the expedition to research the inactive travel gates. It has taken most of an entire Saturday just to figure out where each step of the mission expects me to go, and often googling it returns no useful information.

So, I finished the mission to the gates, laid the nav bouys and was given a free ship upgrade by the aquatic people. Then I get a mission to meet Bosa Ta for a talk. That was at least once that there was an actual map market saying where he was. He grants me an entire space station (Heretic's End) that is bizarrely populated solely by him and one other guy, a merchant that stands at a counter running a store in an empty station...weird but ok. Bosa then tells me that to do research I need to see his guy (Rylan Kerah) for some nanites to start the standard tech tree research. But there is no idication whatsoever of where Rylan is!. I googled it and nothing. I have never been stumped by a game before where googling "where is...." did not turn up some hint. I have dropped the quest then re-accepted it to make sure I hadn't missed something in the initial dialogue. I have scanned the map for an hour, zooming in on every sector to see if there was some marker that only appeared when you were zoomed in on the locale. Nothing, nada.

I heard the game could to tough for a rookie. Then I found it hilarious that a level 1 space jockey does a little recon and drops some bouys and they toss me a free ship and entire, weirldy unpolpulated, space station. But what the hell is with a standard "go see this guy" mission with zero indication of where? Not even a "he was last seen at..." "He usually hangs out near..." I've lost contact with him in ...sector".

I want to love this game, I really do. It seems like it's right in my wheelhouse and I am up for a challenge. I learned real orbital mechanics just to play Kerbal Space Program. I would be happy to give the devs my hard earned cash for a game I could explore and play for many, many hours. But I'm not willing to dump the rest of my weekend into searching an entire galaxy for one random guy in what is the second questline for a new player.

Please tell me I am missing something obvious, that I'm the dummy and banging my head on the wall for no reason. I'll happily admit that in this case I'm the moron and push through. But if this beginning experience, trying it for free on a friend's account, is what to expect from the entire game I cannot see myself willing to pay for it once my buddy returns. I put it on my Steam wish list and will maybe try it again when it's $10.

I'm hoping someone will say, silly man, you just need to go into such and such menu and activate such and such setting. Tell me what I'm missing.
vvvvvvvv
Posts: 1337
Joined: Tue, 28. Nov 23, 15:38
x4

Re: No quest markers?

Post by vvvvvvvv »

Bud_Viking wrote: Sun, 30. Mar 25, 06:50 I heard the game could to tough for a rookie. Then I found it hilarious that a level 1 space jockey does a little recon and drops some bouys and they toss me a free ship and entire, weirldy unpolpulated, space station. But what the hell is with a standard "go see this guy" mission with zero indication of where? Not even a "he was last seen at..." "He usually hangs out near..." I've lost contact with him in ...sector".

...

Tell me what I'm missing.
* You need to ensure the mission is active in mission manager. Most provide guidance with direction.
* You can comm nearby ships and ask directions towards mission objective. Keep trying until you get one that responds.

This game has been developed by a small studio, and as result has some rough spots in it. The world is different with each playthrough, so "last seen at" wouldn't work well.

Interestingly I did this mission some time ago and I did not encounter this problem.
User avatar
MageKingS70
Posts: 181
Joined: Sat, 4. Sep 04, 05:41
x4

Re: No quest markers?

Post by MageKingS70 »

If you look at the bottom-left HUD window (the one that shows your current goal), does it say "Find way to" and a sector name? If so, that means the next sector you need to go to is through a gate/accelerator that you haven't found yet. You can either do long-range scans and look for unknown objects, or you can comm a nearby friendly ship and ask for directions.

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