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Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


ded posted:

There is an extension that does good autotrade, but its pretty cheaty since it gives the traders the ability to jump like you are playing x3 again.

edit : looks like enough people complained about it and he made the jumping optional.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/92

I've been using this with jumping off and know all trades set to false (so it only trades where I have satellites), and it still feels cheaty.

Like I regularly see transactions netting me 5 to 10 mil a pop. I set up 10 of these things and earned like 25m in an hour and a half.

As your captains level up, they do better trades as well, and i started all of mine with 4 star captains.

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ded
Oct 27, 2005

Kooler than Jesus

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

I've been using this with jumping off and know all trades set to false (so it only trades where I have satellites), and it still feels cheaty.

Like I regularly see transactions netting me 5 to 10 mil a pop. I set up 10 of these things and earned like 25m in an hour and a half.

As your captains level up, they do better trades as well, and i started all of mine with 4 star captains.

I haven't tried it yet myself. That does sound pretty drat high. With 5 star traders using the built in trading I've only seen up to 700k or so transactions. And thats with medium sized traders that are pimping claytronics.

Asproigerosis
Mar 13, 2013

insufferable
I feel like my whole galaxy economy is in toilet. Storages are full, nobody really producing stuff or demanding stuff.

Strigil
Oct 26, 2004

Asproigerosis posted:

I feel like my whole galaxy economy is in toilet. Storages are full, nobody really producing stuff or demanding stuff.

When I see that happening, I go into xenon sectors and try to draw them through the gates. After a bit of back and forth I can usually get one side or the other to start an invasion. Also works early game to get cash by picking up the loot. Faulty Logic seems to be an easy one to do this on.

Shalebridge Cradle
Apr 23, 2008


Strigil posted:

When I see that happening, I go into xenon sectors and try to draw them through the gates. After a bit of back and forth I can usually get one side or the other to start an invasion. Also works early game to get cash by picking up the loot. Faulty Logic seems to be an easy one to do this on.

I also found, while foolishly building a station there, hanging out around the gate that connects HOP to PAR spawns a lot of traffic that attack each other. Nothing quite like seeing 5+ destroyers and a few dozen fighters get demolished to get the ship yards moving.

REDjackeT
Sep 2, 2009

ded posted:

There is an extension that does good autotrade, but its pretty cheaty since it gives the traders the ability to jump like you are playing x3 again.

edit : looks like enough people complained about it and he made the jumping optional.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/92

There's another trade script, TaterTrader, that is trying to just make trading work better and seems to follow the rules with some extra options.

I've used it a little bit, seems ok. Might want to read the linked thread for option descriptions.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/151?tab=description

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Shalebridge Cradle posted:

I also found, while foolishly building a station there, hanging out around the gate that connects HOP to PAR spawns a lot of traffic that attack each other. Nothing quite like seeing 5+ destroyers and a few dozen fighters get demolished to get the ship yards moving.

I'm a bit afraid of my current game, there's currently 12 Xenon Destroyers sitting in a highway sector and I'm only at M class ships. They've been shooting anything that bothers to go near them for the last few hours but not coming to the highway.

Only mods are sector satellites because gently caress uncovering every station every game.

ded
Oct 27, 2005

Kooler than Jesus
I tried that trader script I linked and its uhh very obtuse. No way to know if the options you pick are actually set up because it doesn't tell you.

So for now I'd say do NOT use AutoTrader unless you don't mind having god mode traders.


REDjackeT posted:

There's another trade script, TaterTrader, that is trying to just make trading work better and seems to follow the rules with some extra options.

I've used it a little bit, seems ok. Might want to read the linked thread for option descriptions.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/151?tab=description



I'll give tatertrader a try.


edit : I really miss the old x3 trader extensions that would autorename the traders and go do its thing.

ded fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Dec 25, 2018

Yaoi Gagarin
Feb 20, 2014

How fun is this game going to be if I've never played an X game before? I like the idea of the game from what I've read, but how good is the execution?

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


ded posted:

I tried that trader script I linked and its uhh very obtuse. No way to know if the options you pick are actually set up because it doesn't tell you.

So for now I'd say do NOT use AutoTrader unless you don't mind having god mode traders.




I'll give tatertrader a try.


edit : I really miss the old x3 trader extensions that would autorename the traders and go do its thing.

It is definitely obtuse, but your options are saved and leave an entry in your log in the "upkeep" section. Also, when your trader completes a trade, he'll post the earnings and also a list of the options you've set.

You need to set options for each individual trader which is kind of a pain if you're doing a lot. Also, make sure you have trade all wares set to false otherwise your ships will definitely get into trouble with the law since they don't use highways, and so spend a lot of time at basic speed around gates and stations, easy places to get scanned.

TaterTrader, which I'm also using, seems like a more 'fair' version of an autotrader mod. I've set up 5 TaterTraders doing ship component runs (so, engine parts, hull parts, the various weap/shield/drone components) and they regularly pull in 300k~500k per transaction and keep the wharfs and shipyards stocked well.

I've yet to experiment with the pricing modifier for player stations, but setting it at something like 80% of list price should mean they favor your stations, and so act as station traders. You can also assign them to your station which I have yet to test, since my one and only station is still in construction.

Strigil posted:

When I see that happening, I go into xenon sectors and try to draw them through the gates. After a bit of back and forth I can usually get one side or the other to start an invasion. Also works early game to get cash by picking up the loot. Faulty Logic seems to be an easy one to do this on.

I've got the cheat script mod installed because it's pretty handy, so keeping in tradition with X3 anyway.

One thing I sometimes do is spawn 5 or so Xenon K's in a sector to get some action happening. Since i'm on the same save I was from release, I don't have any of the new glorious war benefits of 1.32 and onward, and so doing this helps to destroy ships and keep the economy running.

It's also pretty rad spawning in 5 or 10 k's, and then just watching them in seta for a while bumble about taking forever to kill things. But as soon as you go OOS, they absolutely wreck poo poo.

Sidestep
May 16, 2012

It's not great solution, but I have been using https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/167 to fix my dead end economy. It adds a drain script that checks periodically to see if the trade station storage is over 75% full and reduces all of the contents to under 75%. Does more with the Nvidium, I think drops it by a flat 30%.

So far, it seems to have gotten things moving and cycling again, but I need to keep an eye on it for a few more hours to see how effective it is at solving the issue.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Sidestep posted:

It's not great solution, but I have been using https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/167 to fix my dead end economy. It adds a drain script that checks periodically to see if the trade station storage is over 75% full and reduces all of the contents to under 75%. Does more with the Nvidium, I think drops it by a flat 30%.

So far, it seems to have gotten things moving and cycling again, but I need to keep an eye on it for a few more hours to see how effective it is at solving the issue.

X3 had secondary wares that weren't required for production but would be used if present. This was a pretty good sink.

Ultimate Shrek Fan
May 2, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
I’m trying that first autotrader mod and I set 20 mercury vanguards to auto trade and let it run for a couple hours. Went from 26 mil to -1.666 mil.

Ultimate Shrek Fan
May 2, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
double post

Meme Poker Party
Sep 1, 2006

by Azathoth

Ultimate Shrek Fan posted:

I’m trying that first autotrader mod and I set 20 mercury vanguards to auto trade and let it run for a couple hours. Went from 26 mil to -1.666 mil.

My profitssss...

Ultimate Shrek Fan
May 2, 2005

by FactsAreUseless

Chomp8645 posted:

My profitssss...

This, but unironically.

Shalebridge Cradle
Apr 23, 2008


pixaal posted:

I'm a bit afraid of my current game, there's currently 12 Xenon Destroyers sitting in a highway sector and I'm only at M class ships. They've been shooting anything that bothers to go near them for the last few hours but not coming to the highway.

Only mods are sector satellites because gently caress uncovering every station every game.

That seems a little extreme

But if you are flying an M class corvette you should be able to take out a K without to much danger. It just takes awhile. Park underneath it's belly and take out the two large turrets, the focus down the shield generators that are down there too. Now you can very safely plink it to death in a few minutes. Then repeat 11 times i guess

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

VostokProgram posted:

How fun is this game going to be if I've never played an X game before? I like the idea of the game from what I've read, but how good is the execution?

I think it's fairly well executed but if you're on the fence you might be better picking up a heavily discounted X3TC and seeing if you like it. If you do then it's still worth a play and X4 will probably be better by the time you get done with it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2820/

I would say that this is... probably the better complete game at the moment but X4 has some really significant fundamental and technical improvements at the expense of some of the things I really enjoyed about X3TC.

A lot of the improvements for X4 are a little underutilized because the map is a lot smaller in some ways and there aren't any plots and the game overall lacks the flavour of the X3 titles. But if you stuck a lot of the content from X3 into X4 then it would absolutely be the better game. The later X3 games are the product of years of iterative development while X4 is a bit barebones at the moment.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Dec 25, 2018

Hav
Dec 11, 2009

Fun Shoe

OwlFancier posted:

I think it's fairly well executed but if you're on the fence you might be better picking up a heavily discounted X3TC and seeing if you like it. If you do then it's still worth a play and X4 will probably be better by the time you get done with it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2820/

I would say that this is... probably the better complete game at the moment but X4 has some really significant fundamental and technical improvements at the expense of some of the things I really enjoyed about X3TC.

A lot of the improvements for X4 are a little underutilized because the map is a lot smaller in some ways and there aren't any plots and the game overall lacks the flavour of the X3 titles. But if you stuck a lot of the content from X3 into X4 then it would absolutely be the better game. The later X3 games are the product of years of iterative development while X4 is a bit barebones at the moment.

I have cognitive dissonance for the good advice and seeing your av.

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

pretense is my co-pilot

VostokProgram posted:

How fun is this game going to be if I've never played an X game before? I like the idea of the game from what I've read, but how good is the execution?

i have a couple friends who have tried x4 as their first X game and both enjoyed it. You have to have a tolerance for jank, sometimes extreme jank. And its light on direction even for a sandbox game.

X isn't a good space combat game (but its decent), and it's not really a good empire builder (but its decent). Combining the two plus the dynamic economy gives it something special.

The biggest problem is you're probably going to need to sink more than a couple hours into it to give it a fair try so Steam Refund Strategy won't really work.

The advantage of x4 over earlier titles is that mechanics and user interface are both much more advanced. Everything takes forever in x2 or x3 until you memorize menu paths. Graphics are better too although x4 has some give and take compared to the gorgeous X Rebirth.

TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Dec 25, 2018

Falcorum
Oct 21, 2010
Not needing to use SETA to travel anywhere is also a major point in favor of X4 in my view.

The_Hatt
Apr 29, 2005

bandaid.friend posted:

Nah you can't be a squid sadly, there's no Boron or Split ships in the game either

Looks like the patch fixes ships baddies eject from taking tons of damage from each shot? As the pulse laser fires in bursts, I've accidentally blown up every abandoned ship I've fought

I like Paranid ships but the capitals look a bit bare

Are they ever going to add the boron or split in? in x3 I almost exclusively piloted split ships, they were go fast and shooty.

Mustache Ride
Sep 11, 2001



My guess is those will be part of the expansions. Some of the characters and ship assets are in the archives, they're just not currently being used.

Leal
Oct 2, 2009
Haven't played since 1.2, have they fixed auto explore?

WebDO
Sep 25, 2009


X4 goons please help: no matter what I do I can't seem to find pilots with stars so I only have rank zero behaviors available. No matter which ones I try, pilot rank doesn't increase so I can, you know, use them. How do I get my pilots to not be poo poo?

Also confirming captured ships from visiting players seem to behave totally differently with sensors, even after going to upgrade/repair. Any word on a fix or workaround?

TjyvTompa
Jun 1, 2001

im gay

WebDO posted:

X4 goons please help: no matter what I do I can't seem to find pilots with stars so I only have rank zero behaviors available. No matter which ones I try, pilot rank doesn't increase so I can, you know, use them. How do I get my pilots to not be poo poo?

Also confirming captured ships from visiting players seem to behave totally differently with sensors, even after going to upgrade/repair. Any word on a fix or workaround?

You can rank them up by assigning them to mining ships and have them automine and then transfer them to a tradeship once they hit 3 stars. Its a really cumbersome process though. I assign them as traders to my stations and have them rank up that way but it is sloooooow we're talking +72 real life hours to gain a single star.

Autotraders really suck though so you are not missing much.

TjyvTompa fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Dec 25, 2018

Ultimate Shrek Fan
May 2, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Autotrader mod update. Deleted autotrader and installed tatertrader and went from negatives to seeing 5 mil due in trades. I’d recommend tater over autotrader.

WebDO
Sep 25, 2009


TjyvTompa posted:

You can rank them up by assigning them to mining ships and have them automine and then transfer them to a tradeship once they hit 3 stars. Its a really cumbersome process though. I assign them as traders to my stations and have them rank up that way but it is sloooooow we're talking +72 real life hours to gain a single star.

Autotraders really suck though so you are not missing much.

Automine requires 1 star, my pilots have zero :suicide:

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry
So is the game good enough at this time or should I wait until the first expansion?

Shalebridge Cradle
Apr 23, 2008


Pochoclo posted:

So is the game good enough at this time or should I wait until the first expansion?

It's not broken in any significant way, and is probably the smoothest launch I've ever seen for an egosoft game. All the major game systems work, some better than others. Building stations is such a massive improvement over the x3 system I feel like I got my money's worth just from that.

The galaxy feels a little, not empty exactly, but lifeless I guess. The Xenon will send ships into friendly sectors but never pose an actual threat. Also I've never actually seen a major faction take control of another's sector.

If you are looking for mount and blade in space you'll have to wait for mods, but if you want to build giant space industries then jump right in.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon

Leal posted:

Haven't played since 1.2, have they fixed auto explore?

Nope

Nef Arious
Oct 14, 2012

For whatever reason, when buying mining or trading ships, if you select the HIGH preset at the wharf and then downgrade the individual parts you will get higher-skill pilots/crew. Helps a lot with autotrading/mining. For autotrading, I usually just assign ships with less than 3 skill to a station, and the manager will have them autotrade. Once they hit skill 3 by working for a station I then remove them from working for the station and set them up as normal galaxy autotraders.

Nicodemus Dumps
Jan 9, 2006

Just chillin' in the sink

Nef Arious posted:

For whatever reason, when buying mining or trading ships, if you select the HIGH preset at the wharf and then downgrade the individual parts you will get higher-skill pilots/crew. Helps a lot with autotrading/mining. For autotrading, I usually just assign ships with less than 3 skill to a station, and the manager will have them autotrade. Once they hit skill 3 by working for a station I then remove them from working for the station and set them up as normal galaxy autotraders.

I'm not sure if this is confirmation bias or not because I never do that, I just pick all the parts starting from scratch and like half of my pilots spawn with 3 or 4 stars.

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

It's not broken in any significant way, and is probably the smoothest launch I've ever seen for an egosoft game. All the major game systems work, some better than others. Building stations is such a massive improvement over the x3 system I feel like I got my money's worth just from that.

The galaxy feels a little, not empty exactly, but lifeless I guess. The Xenon will send ships into friendly sectors but never pose an actual threat. Also I've never actually seen a major faction take control of another's sector.

If you are looking for mount and blade in space you'll have to wait for mods, but if you want to build giant space industries then jump right in.

Thanks.

How's space trucking? Have they made the initial grind any more palatable for trade-oriented people? I saw a lot of comments around saying there's a lot less grind this time around

Sidestep
May 16, 2012

Space trucking seems a lot easier to get started this time around. I spent an hour or two as a space cable repair guy. The fix data leak missions pay moderately well to get started. While doing those I made sure I had a good spread of satellites on the stations I flew by.

After that short ramp up I was able to get a modest freighter and start in on serious space trucking.

Incidentally, go to Argon Prime to get your first rig. Theres something wonky with hull parts/engine parts deliveries that will leave ships stranded in the building queue forever.

Shalebridge Cradle
Apr 23, 2008


Pochoclo posted:

Thanks.

How's space trucking? Have they made the initial grind any more palatable for trade-oriented people? I saw a lot of comments around saying there's a lot less grind this time around

You start with like 5 or 10k, but can get missions that pay 100K+ to drop a satellite or repair a data leak on a station. Getting the startup money to buy a freighter is very easy now. The trade interface is no question vastly superior to X3. You can turn on a trade overlay in the map and see the best deals in any station in view, that you have coverage of. That means you zoom level on the map affects what trade deals you see, so you can trade local or across the galaxy if you want. You can also filter by individual trade goods, which is probably the right way to do it. Travel drives and space highways make actually getting around much less painful than turning on SETA and slowing trucking at 120 m/s across the universe.

Section Z
Oct 1, 2008

Wait, this is the Moon.
How did I even get here?

Pillbug

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

You start with like 5 or 10k, but can get missions that pay 100K+ to drop a satellite or repair a data leak on a station. Getting the startup money to buy a freighter is very easy now. The trade interface is no question vastly superior to X3. You can turn on a trade overlay in the map and see the best deals in any station in view, that you have coverage of. That means you zoom level on the map affects what trade deals you see, so you can trade local or across the galaxy if you want. You can also filter by individual trade goods, which is probably the right way to do it. Travel drives and space highways make actually getting around much less painful than turning on SETA and slowing trucking at 120 m/s across the universe.
Just remember to fact check your deals before you head out. The trade overlay works off volume rather than profits. So you can end up with false positives like 3 dot buy/sell just being a trader station listing it's stockpile for at Average and 1 below average. Or a 2 dot supply cattle farm still selling for well above the average price.

On this subject, the log also lists the amount sold for rather than profits for any NPC traders you have going. So +500k for 4000 med supplies can turn out to mean "17k profit based off the average? maybe?" after you bust out the calculator. So if you are wondering why your cash doesn't seem to be moving when everything looks like it's going great, that can be why.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Gonna spawn 20 xenon k's into argon prime to see what happens.

MechaCrash
Jan 1, 2013

I finally saved up enough money to buy a destroyer, so I bought an Odysseus Vanguard, and loaded it up with missile launchers. I then took it around for Teladi shields and Argon engines, because gently caress it I'm going whole hog with my personal flagship. Once it was properly kitted out, I took it into Xenon space to kick a hornet's nest. I went in and proceeded to demolish everything in there, but by the time I came out I had used up all of my missiles. So I go to a Paranid dock, refit with bolt repeaters and pulse lasers, and try again. The good news is that I don't have to spend five hundred grand on missiles this time! The bad news is that I have to spend six hundred grand on repairs.

Oh well. At least rolling in and loving poo poo up was fun.

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Nicodemus Dumps
Jan 9, 2006

Just chillin' in the sink

MechaCrash posted:

I finally saved up enough money to buy a destroyer, so I bought an Odysseus Vanguard, and loaded it up with missile launchers. I then took it around for Teladi shields and Argon engines, because gently caress it I'm going whole hog with my personal flagship. Once it was properly kitted out, I took it into Xenon space to kick a hornet's nest. I went in and proceeded to demolish everything in there, but by the time I came out I had used up all of my missiles. So I go to a Paranid dock, refit with bolt repeaters and pulse lasers, and try again. The good news is that I don't have to spend five hundred grand on missiles this time! The bad news is that I have to spend six hundred grand on repairs.

Oh well. At least rolling in and loving poo poo up was fun.

Am I crazy for thinking it was Argon shields and paranoid engines that were preferable?

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