X4: Foundations -Bofu Deez nuts you uncultured swine

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > X4: Foundations -Bofu Deez nuts you uncultured swine

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I think those are reused assets from Rebirth, not current ones. The current ones are very good though.

Also I have gathered that the split plots are kind of designed as more long term goals so yeah you don't have to charge in and do it yourself right now.

Major Isoor posted:

So, are there any good places for a starter pilot (with the Young Gun start's Elite Vanguard) to make some cash by hunting bounties, etc? Since I've been looking around the Black Hole Sun system and another couple of areas, but the only viable job I've found was to take some schmuck to work, for like, 50k. (Not that I mind making easy cash! )

Also, the Elite's pulse laser (I think it's called, in this) seems to be quite weak. Are there any recommendations on weapons and/or ships I should look at upgrading to?

So the way ships work in X4 is that they don't have weapon generators any more, they just have gun slots. So a one gun ship is almost useless on its own. You want, generally, as many guns as you can get, because each one is a flat upgrade. So a quasar is one of the best fighters cos it comes with... 4 slots I think. The best ships in the game are corvettes like the Nemesis or the Dragon because they come with 5/6 medium guns apiece which is a large amount of firepower. Fighters mount small guns, frigates and corvettes mount medium guns which are significantly stronger and longer ranged.

Turrets aren't that good except for large size ones which can mount some quite heavy firepower. Capital ship forward guns are very powerful. Medium turrets are mostly for point defence against small fighters and the like but don't do very much damage.

I will say I think the actual mechanics behind the weapons are worse than X3 even if the effects are better, but the guns are quite weak and the lack of the weapon energy mechanic removes the ability to front load your firepower a lot. There's a mod called VRO that improves the feel but it's also a little bit janky and makes the game a lot more lethal generally, and it requires a new game to work properly.

The dogfighting has improved since launch but it's still got some way to go I think. VRO brings it probably more like X3 in terms of lethality but X3 was extremely easy to wreck yourself in, so it depends whether you like that or if you prefer the more low stakes combat of X4 vanilla.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 01:45

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 16:19

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

My PCs performance for this game was never great but it's become a real slideshow lately.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 01:47

Major Isoor: Mar 23, 2011

OwlFancier posted:

So the way ships work in X4 is that they don't have weapon generators any more, they just have gun slots. So a one gun ship is almost useless on its own. You want, generally, as many guns as you can get, because each one is a flat upgrade. So a quasar is one of the best fighters cos it comes with... 4 slots I think. The best ships in the game are corvettes like the Nemesis or the Dragon because they come with 5/6 medium guns apiece which is a large amount of firepower. Fighters mount small guns, frigates and corvettes mount medium guns which are significantly stronger and longer ranged.

Turrets aren't that good except for large size ones which can mount some quite heavy firepower. Capital ship forward guns are very powerful. Medium turrets are mostly for point defence against small fighters and the like but don't do very much damage.

I will say I think the actual mechanics behind the weapons are worse than X3 even if the effects are better, but the guns are quite weak and the lack of the weapon energy mechanic removes the ability to front load your firepower a lot. There's a mod called VRO that improves the feel but it's also a little bit janky and makes the game a lot more lethal generally, and it requires a new game to work properly.

The dogfighting has improved since launch but it's still got some way to go I think. VRO brings it probably more like X3 in terms of lethality but X3 was extremely easy to wreck yourself in, so it depends whether you like that or if you prefer the more low stakes combat of X4 vanilla.

Ahh, ok then right, that makes sense. I've taken a quick look at Roguey's site and think that maybe the Falcon is a reasonable step up from the Elite, before eventually upgrading to the Quasar or Pulsar, or something? I suppose I'll have to get a police license first though, and just shoot pirates somewhere. No idea where they congregate in X4, but I'll hopefully be able to find a map online somewhere, that shows sector ownership

# ? Apr 6, 2020 02:13

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Pirates in X4 are also different, they don't really... exist in the open? They appear as normal ships and will occasionally turn hostile and raid your transports and stations. Generally anything running an SCA faction IFF is a pirate but it might not be doing piratey things at the time. Also anything marked as a pillager is also potentially a pirate, but you can't just shoot them unless they start something, afaik. The SCA have a base in the east but you won't gain anything from shooting them up in there.

If you want combat your best bet is actually the xenon or picking a fight with one of the races. the HOP is hostile to all other factions and controls the southwest of the highway loop, so you can either do what I do and sell guns to them and all their neighbours, or you can go to war with/against them. The Zyarth family is also pretty hostile to most game starts and most factions in the universe except the teladi. There are also Xenon gates around the fringes of the highway loop and they will regularly invade.

Conflict zones are also a great chance to get salvage, lots of inventory items drop which you can pick up infinite amounts of, and many of which you can sell at a trader on a landing pad for decent cash. Spaceflies in particular can be glued together into a big ball to sell for a million bucks.

E: It used to be that it was pretty easy to hop in a corvette and dunk on xenon capships with persistence. But they changed the way shields work in a patch and now you basically can't fight stuff much higher than your weight class, which is a lot like how X3 worked. Because the shields just recharge instantly because they have so much constant recharge output.

However there is a slight caveat to this in that if you get a gun that does damage through shields, you can use it to shoot off the shield generators on large craft, and slowly take them out that way. But this is still a real slog to do and you want to really do it with a fleet to back you up. So when buying combat craft, don't worry about being able to fight everything, really you're just buying a ship that's good for getting around the universe in, and which can fight as many things of its own size and smaller as possible. Corvettes make ideal personal craft for this, but if you're wanting to fight wars, you're going to be doing that industrially, which means you need a major base of operations capable of outputting a lot of cash and/or or its own ships. Otherwise you're just gonna get overwhelmed with numbers.

E2: also how'd the hell this thread get a 5?

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 02:26

_Gumby: Sep 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

Major Isoor posted:

So, are there any good places for a starter pilot (with the Young Gun start's Elite Vanguard) to make some cash by hunting bounties, etc? Since I've been looking around the Black Hole Sun system and another couple of areas, but the only viable job I've found was to take some schmuck to work, for like, 50k. (Not that I mind making easy cash! )

Shooting asteroid crystals can be profitable at the start of the game, the Argon Prime asteroid field usually has a few. Look for blinking dots on asteroids (its a static particle texture blinking) fly in, shoot the crystal and hold down tractor beam (default key is o) to suck them in. Purple ones are about 2k each, blue around 10k each, green 15k, orange 20k i think? Sell them to the Trader Corners in any station.

You can also go around and get the free ships that are floating about if you want to get started easier.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 03:03

chglcu: May 17, 2007; I'm so bored with the USA.

Is there any way to make factions not be red on the map unless they're actually hostile? Thinking specifically of the Patriarchy right now, since I have negative rep with them, but not enough for them to actually attack me. Don't want to accidentally kick a fight off with them before I'm ready.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 03:07

Nicodemus Dumps: Jan 9, 2006; Just chillin' in the sink

Does anyone kow how captains actually gain pilot rank? I've got miners, explorers, a courier buying wares for my PHQ, and a ship protecting the courier, all going non-stop for hours, and they all seem to be stuck at 2 stars (and they only got those stars from store-bought seminars).

# ? Apr 6, 2020 04:42

Airspace: Nov 5, 2010

popewiles posted:

Does anyone kow how captains actually gain pilot rank? I've got miners, explorers, a courier buying wares for my PHQ, and a ship protecting the courier, all going non-stop for hours, and they all seem to be stuck at 2 stars (and they only got those stars from store-bought seminars).

EXP gain is slow.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 04:58

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I think getting into fights and doing lots of damage helps, so putting them in charge of a destroyer :v:

That also massively ranks up service crew if they do repairs (as destroyers have lots of HP to repair) as does putting them on a construction ship and building a lot of modules with it.

Managers seem to gain XP based on volume/value of goods shifted from their station.

But yeah it's just generally really hard to rank up crew otherwise. I assume traders gain it from transaction value but it's very slow. Install a mod to speed it up if you like, or remove it entirely if you don't like it.

chglcu posted:

Is there any way to make factions not be red on the map unless they're actually hostile? Thinking specifically of the Patriarchy right now, since I have negative rep with them, but not enough for them to actually attack me. Don't want to accidentally kick a fight off with them before I'm ready.

I think it's a weird situation with ZYA where they are classed as enemy but you aren't actually hostile with them. I'm not sure why. In any case you might be able to fix it by doing a mission for them to pop their rep up a bit?

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 05:04

Squiggle: Sep 29, 2002; I don't think she likes the special sauce, Rick.

Negative standing with any faction past a certain point colors them red, but there are several breakpoints as you go further negative before they outright start shooting at you. First they'll block your docking, then start attacking your combat ships on sight, and finally your commerce ships on sight. -15 isn't enough for hostilities, but will block you from docking.

If you hover over each faction's standings on your...Factions and Standings personal page, it'll tell you what permissions you have with that faction.

For ZYA, best thought I have is murdering Xenon slipping into their territory.

Squiggle fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 05:17

_Gumby: Sep 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

Squiggle posted:

For ZYA, best thought I have is murdering Xenon slipping into their territory.

Hang around near their stations and wait for a criminal transport vessel to appear, shoot it to get rep. A bit boring but reliable way of getting rep.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 05:35

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

so where do I sell crystals? I did a quick search and it said to visit the trader corner on stations, but the doors there are shut and I don't see any NPCs standing around. There is just a crafting bench.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 06:26

_Gumby: Sep 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

Galaga Galaxian posted:

so where do I sell crystals? I did a quick search and it said to visit the trader corner on stations, but the doors there are shut and I don't see any NPCs standing around. There is just a crafting bench.

Sounds like a bug? Try another station, there is always an NPC there to sell/buy stuff

# ? Apr 6, 2020 06:35

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

Third station now. No one at the desk and those doors on either side are closed.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 06:51

_Gumby: Sep 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Third station now. No one at the desk and those doors on either side are closed.

Yeah, there is supposed to be someone behind the desk there at the computer. The doors either side are always closed. Sometimes the models don't load( or take a while), so try walking up behind the counter and see if there is an NPC icon floating there?

# ? Apr 6, 2020 06:54

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014; pretense is my co-pilot

From what I've gathered by osmosis from people being bad about not posting spoilers, you can neutralize your bad Split rep eventually after the HAT plot.

Zyarth are basically fascists though. That's my opinion and im sticking to it. If it wern't for the inconvenient wall of xenon and ship-destroying evil nebula in the way.... *shakes fist*

There's a setting toggle in... options, i think? that will faction-color all ships rather than coding them by IFF state. Only works for your map, but still supremely helpful. Game needs an orange IFF for 'unfriendly but not actively hostile' in the pilot view.

Major Isoor posted:

So, are there any good places for a starter pilot (with the Young Gun start's Elite Vanguard) to make some cash by hunting bounties, etc? Since I've been looking around the Black Hole Sun system and another couple of areas, but the only viable job I've found was to take some schmuck to work, for like, 50k. (Not that I mind making easy cash! )

Also, the Elite's pulse laser (I think it's called, in this) seems to be quite weak. Are there any recommendations on weapons and/or ships I should look at upgrading to?

You can make it a decent dogfighter with a mk2 Bolt Repeater - ability to keep your gun on target can count more than more guns against fighters - but it will still lack firepower to take down M-class or the tougher S-class in a reasonable period of time. I agree that you really just need to get a better ship. Even a two gun ship like the Discoverer or Nova would be leagues better than One Gun Hell.

The ameliorating factor with ships with more guns is that guns are expensive. This isn't.. *as* big a deal for the player, at least past the initial part of the game. But the costs of mk2 front guns radically escalate when you're slapping six of them on a Pulsar made out of wet tissue paper. I generally run ships with tons of guns with mk1s - usually half the firepower at 15% of the cost - for that reason.

Also some ships with lots of guns are pre nerfed just to stop them from being the best option. The Pulsar has 6 guns, but it has the hull and shielding of a wet noodle. The work of some lost Split no doubt.

The only real bounty hunting is occasional missions that ask you to track down a ship and shoot him until he gives over the priceless heirloom (or whatever). Its a very grey activity, since the police don't consider you to have a license to kill or to shoot up strangers. The ship isn't spawned or anything, its just a normal ship going about its day (usually trading, but sometimes it asks you to dunk pirates), so it could travel anywhere. It'd neat if there was a bounty guild that would consistently offer those sorts of missions so it could be an occupation.

TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 07:01

Major Isoor: Mar 23, 2011

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

You can make it a decent dogfighter with a mk2 Bolt Repeater - ability to keep your gun on target can count more than more guns against fighters - but it will still lack firepower to take down M-class or the tougher S-class in a reasonable period of time. I agree that you really just need to get a better ship. Even a two gun ship like the Discoverer or Nova would be leagues better than One Gun Hell.

The ameliorating factor with ships with more guns is that guns are expensive. This isn't.. *as* big a deal for the player, at least past the initial part of the game. But the costs of mk2 front guns radically escalate when you're slapping six of them on a Pulsar made out of wet tissue paper. I generally run ships with tons of guns with mk1s - usually half the firepower at 15% of the cost - for that reason.

Also some ships with lots of guns are pre nerfed just to stop them from being the best option. The Pulsar has 6 guns, but it has the hull and shielding of a wet noodle. The work of some lost Split no doubt.

The only real bounty hunting is occasional missions that ask you to track down a ship and shoot him until he gives over the priceless heirloom (or whatever). Its a very grey activity, since the police don't consider you to have a license to kill or to shoot up strangers. The ship isn't spawned or anything, its just a normal ship going about its day (usually trading, but sometimes it asks you to dunk pirates), so it could travel anywhere. It'd neat if there was a bounty guild that would consistently offer those sorts of missions so it could be an occupation.

Hmm, OK then. Well, after reading a bit more online, I'm tossing up going for the Theseus (I think it's called), since it seems to have a good amount of guns, but also having reasonable speed and hull. Hopefully that's not a bad choice! I'm not sure how difficult it'll be to get one, though...hopefully I don't need to spend ages ranking-up with the Paranid.

Also, regarding the bounty hunting, that's a shame. So I guess hunting Xenon would be my best choice then, as OwlFancier mentioned? If so, would I only get cash for taking out Xenon within Argon/whoever's borders, or would I be able to turn in robo-scalps for cash wherever? And would I need a police license to get money, or is that just for killing local pirates?

ALSO, I know I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I found this map and I'm just planning on what empty sector I should convert into my own. But I'm just curious; is it only the grey sectors that I can claim? Since I notice that there seem to be some 'mini sectors' like Black Hole Sun IV and V, which have some empty white space around them. So like, could I claim a sizeable chunk of space in there somewhere (that isn't licensed from the Argon), or am I limited to one of the massive grey sectors, if I want to own my own space?

# ? Apr 6, 2020 08:04

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

It's kind of complicated, because I've found since 3.0 that the other factions will actually claim netural sectors themselves. Especailly the new ones added on the fringes of the galaxy. And they'll do it almost immediately, before you have any chance to unlock the claim modules or build them.

So... if you want your own sector I think you're a bit limited. I haven't found the teladi claiming the sectors east off of Company Regard (Turquoise Sea) and I don't think the argon go after Silent Witness. Nobody seems to go after Nopileus Fortune either. But Getsu Fune ends up under ANT control very quickly and the xenon/ANT will try to cap Frontier Edge. The ZYA will go for Heretic's End as, presumably, will the ARG.

Turquoise Sea now connects directly to a Xenon sector, however, so it's probably a bit dangerous, also it's miles away from anything. Getsu Fune would make a decent setup for supporting the Argon though as said, ANT will grab it real quick, and it borders onto a sector with navigational hazards so it's a bit awkward. Frontier Edge again, right next to a xenon core. Your best bets might be Silent Witness or Nopileus, both of which are fairly close to a lot of other sectors so they will make good trade hubs.

Failing that, though, there isn't anything stopping you blowing up the defence stations in a sector and claiming it yourself. The former owners won't appreciate it but that's a good long term goal. I do personally wish there was a way to buy out the license for some sectors though.

Presumably you could also plop down a claim station in a contested sector and then it might revert to your control once the people trying to take it over destroy the enemy control stations.

Sector ownership is decided on a per-sector basis, and the "mini sectors" as you put it aren't necessarily any smaller than the full size ones, the map just has the ability to compress multiple sectors into a "cluster" which means nothing except for the fact that generally they're all in the same solar system and are linked by superhighways or accelerators rather than gates, but that is only an aesthetic difference, functionally a sector is a sector, accelerators are just the old X3 TOAs and superhighways are the same just using the Rebirth technology and they show you moving through the system.

Re: hunting ships. There are missions to just kill xenon/khaak/presumably anyone the faction is at war with but they don't spawn too often, they pay out fairly well. There are also patrol missions that give an extra bounty for any kills you make. You do also get a bounty just for killing enemy ships in faction controlled space, up to about 200k for knocking out a destroyer. Decent money if you've got the firepower. You get paid and rep regardless but a police license I think increases your bounty payments.

One thing about stations though, you only really need one. Cos you can just bolt all your production modules onto the same station. So don't worry too much about owning your own territory. It's more of a late game thing and you will still probably want to set up in faction territory too, because they will help keep your station safe and they will also buy all your crap. You can get a massive station plot for like, two or three mil, and that will let you build a big enough station to drown out the economy of several sectors if you really wanted to.

The main reason to build multiple stations is aesthetics and to trade with different parts of the universe, as there is a five jump limit on your own traders and other factions will not stray too far either. If you want to supply the split you probably need to set up in their territory, for example, as you will struggle to reach them from the central sectors.

For your first station I probably would recommend just building on your HQ plot. It's pre-paid and in the literal center of the universe, so it can reach a lot of sectors. Plus they might eventually add in the ability to move it which would be super useful if so.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 08:27

Krogort: Oct 27, 2013

OwlFancier posted:

The main reason to build multiple stations is aesthetics and to trade with different parts of the universe, as there is a five jump limit on your own traders and other factions will not stray too far either. If you want to supply the split you probably need to set up in their territory, for example, as you will struggle to reach them from the central sectors.

And building speed, building stations is SLOW.
It took like...6 in-game hours to build my first station and it wasn't even that big, just 4 hull part module, 2 metal refinery and a grafene module with accompaning docks, storage, solar panel.
If you build them in paralel you can reduce the time it take to get operational production modules.

Station question, how many drones do they need ?
I can choose between cargo drone, repair drone and defense drone. I think the maximum is 100 but I suspect that cargo drone don't give any benefit after a certain number.
Same with defense and repair drone.

And do I need repair drones on my larger ships or is the service crew repairing them ?
Speaking of service crew, how many do you need ?

# ? Apr 6, 2020 09:42

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Krogort posted:

And building speed, building stations is SLOW.
It took like...6 in-game hours to build my first station and it wasn't even that big, just 4 hull part module, 2 metal refinery and a grafene module with accompaning docks, storage, solar panel.
If you build them in paralel you can reduce the time it take to get operational production modules.

Station question, how many drones do they need ?
I can choose between cargo drone, repair drone and defense drone. I think the maximum is 100 but I suspect that cargo drone don't give any benefit after a certain number.
Same with defense and repair drone.

And do I need repair drones on my larger ships or is the service crew repairing them ?
Speaking of service crew, how many do you need ?

That actually can be accelerated by buying your own ship. Build speed I think is a function of how many construction drones and service crew the builder ship has, and possibly their skill too.

A fully stocked builder ship you own (put like, 95% builder drones on it, and minimal cargo/repair, it should be focused on building as much as possible, also a full service crew) builds noticeably faster than most of the hired ones. Your main bottleneck is probably going to be getting the materials to it. You should be able to set up stations very quickly if you can do that. It'll still take some hours to make a big one but it shouldn't feel slow, I think. Especially not if you're using SETA or doing other things at the same time. By the time you can afford the funding/resources to build at the maximum speed of a player owned builder ship, you should have plenty to do.

Re: drones, cargo drones I believe are required to transfer cargo on L ships using the big docking booms. But you basically only need a handful. They can also be used to collect things from space with a large ship, but that's very slow and fiddly and I don't recommend using it.

Repair drones help your ship repair, they are good to have, but if they deploy in combat they will likely get shot and die, so you have to replace them a lot. Defence drones are just crappy little fighters but you can make them out of drone parts, so they're great to put like a hundred of in a station so it can poo poo them out on enemies. Really good disposable defences to tie up attackers.

Repair drones and service crew both repair ships, the more crew you have and the better their skill, the faster you repair. They are a very good thing to have for large ships because the massive numbers of HP they repair will rank them up very quickly and they actually end up giving ships really powerful hull regeneration once they get leveled up. You don't need drones if you have service crew though, again, both will make you repair faster, but you lose the drones to gunfire over time. Also you can convert them into marines to do boarding ops on the fly, which is handy. Small ships can fire them off to claim abandoned craft too so you don't have to do it yourself.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 09:52

Darkhold: Feb 19, 2011; No Heart❤️
No Soul👻
No Service🙅

I've had an auto trader distributing wares for over a hundred hours in my current save. He's gained 2-stars in morale. He's gained nothing in piloting aside from the seminars I've fed him to get him to two stars.

I fed him a few more seminars to get him to three star pilot so I could switch him to proper autotrade. Still no piloting star gain on his own though.

I've had sector miners going for a similar amount of time. Same thing.

Either the experience system for piloting is broken for auto-trading/mining or it's so slow it might as well not be in the game. Only person I've seen gain rank beyond two stars in piloting is my relief pilot in my main ship that seems to get some when I order him around and fight. I haven't gone through my attack fleet I'm guessing some of them might have gotten rank too from battles.

I do know that station managers seem to be fine but that doesn't help for piloting skill.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 11:17

Oh dear me: Aug 14, 2012; I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal

Darkhold posted:

Only person I've seen gain rank beyond two stars in piloting is my relief pilot in my main ship that seems to get some when I order him around and fight.

My pilot in my fighter ship went up to five stars pretty quickly, and I wasn't asking her to do much beyond explore and open lockboxes for me. Maybe successful hits are important?

# ? Apr 6, 2020 11:25

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I will say that I am almost certain that managers rank up specifically with volume/value of goods and engineers by number of HP healed so I would certainly venture that successful combat hits may be necessary to rank combat pilots.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 11:34

Darkhold: Feb 19, 2011; No Heart❤️
No Soul👻
No Service🙅

Yeah going through my attack fleet which has crushed Xeon sectors there's some 3ish stars in there.

I want to know if anyone has seen someone gain stars beyond two with trading/mining in piloting?
Edit:
Holy crap did some googling and found this:

quote:

The problem with the experience gain system is that, well, there is none... Experience does not exist. What we instead have is a roll-based system where certain actions have a chance to increase your crew's level by 1.

The formula for level rolls is (basevalue * falloff^currentlevel) and can be found in /libraries/experiences.xml. So a level 14 (4.67 stars) pilot winning against a ship considered stronger than them gives the pilot a chance of 1 * 0.43^14 to level up to 15 (5 stars). Roughly 0.0007%. And that's assuming a factor of 1 which is not guaranteed. Because it's completely RNG the level up can happen in 1 kill, or half a million kills.

In the table below are some stats I took from leveling up a pilot from 1 to 15 a hundred times faking hard kills (function used for posterity: <apply_experience entity="$pilot" experience="'ship_kill_hard'" factor="1.0" />) It is not entirely accurate from level 1 to 9 though as from what I can tell pilots with less than 3 stars in piloting gain double rolls from hard kills.

They don't say what the trading chance is but I imagine it's lower then fighting.

They also go on to say certain actions are capped such as a 'normal' fight stops having a chance to gain experience past 3 stars.

I'm guessing that autominers and traders are hitting some sort of trade cap at two stars that pretty much makes it impossible to get them to 3 stars on their own.

Darkhold fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 11:42

Nicodemus Dumps: Jan 9, 2006; Just chillin' in the sink

Darkhold posted:

Yeah going through my attack fleet which has crushed Xeon sectors there's some 3ish stars in there.

I want to know if anyone has seen someone gain stars beyond two with trading/mining in piloting?
Edit:
Holy crap did some googling and found this:
They don't say what the trading chance is but I imagine it's lower then fighting.

They also go on to say certain actions are capped such as a 'normal' fight stops having a chance to gain experience past 3 stars.

I'm guessing that autominers and traders are hitting some sort of trade cap at two stars that pretty much makes it impossible to get them to 3 stars on their own.

Goddamnit

# ? Apr 6, 2020 14:17

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014; pretense is my co-pilot

Darkhold posted:

I've had an auto trader distributing wares for over a hundred hours in my current save. He's gained 2-stars in morale. He's gained nothing in piloting aside from the seminars I've fed him to get him to two stars.

I fed him a few more seminars to get him to three star pilot so I could switch him to proper autotrade. Still no piloting star gain on his own though.

I've had sector miners going for a similar amount of time. Same thing.

Either the experience system for piloting is broken for auto-trading/mining or it's so slow it might as well not be in the game. Only person I've seen gain rank beyond two stars in piloting is my relief pilot in my main ship that seems to get some when I order him around and fight. I haven't gone through my attack fleet I'm guessing some of them might have gotten rank too from battles.

I do know that station managers seem to be fine but that doesn't help for piloting skill.

It's the latter.

From the egosoft forums:

quote:

The problem with the experience gain system is that, well, there is none... Experience does not exist. What we instead have is a roll-based system where certain actions have a chance to increase your crew's level by 1.

The formula for level rolls is (basevalue * falloff^currentlevel) and can be found in /libraries/experiences.xml. So a level 14 (4.67 stars) pilot winning against a ship considered stronger than them gives the pilot a chance of 1 * 0.43^14 to level up to 15 (5 stars). Roughly 0.0007%. And that's assuming a factor of 1 which is not guaranteed. Because it's completely RNG the level up can happen in 1 kill, or half a million kills.

In the table below are some stats I took from leveling up a pilot from 1 to 15 a hundred times faking hard kills (function used for posterity: <apply_experience entity="$pilot" experience="'ship_kill_hard'" factor="1.0" />) It is not entirely accurate from level 1 to 9 though as from what I can tell pilots with less than 3 stars in piloting gain double rolls from hard kills.
code:
Pilot        Average    Percent
Skill          Rolls     Chance

{2}     =       2.45   (~40.8%)
{3}  1* =       4.68   (~21.4%)
{4}     =      11.02      (~9%)
{5}     =      32.03    (~3.1%)
{6}  2* =      66.42    (~1.5%)
{7}     =     138.00   (~0.72%)
{8}     =     362.78   (~0.28%)
{9}  3* =     776.76   (~0.13%)
{10}    =    2148.75   (~0.05%)
{11}    =    4403.12   (~0.02%)
{12} 4* =   10499.32   (~0.01%)
{13}    =   25192.12  (~0.004%)
{14}    =   64724.24  (~0.002%)
{15} 5* =  142095.19 (~0.0007%)
I mean wtf? Do I completely misunderstand the code or is this for real? Trading is even worse btw with a falloff of 0.32 on piloting ASSUMING A FACTOR OF 1!!!

# ? Apr 6, 2020 14:21

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

The Xenon seem to have a hard time surviving in the Split DLC - one defense station I've built in Haktivah has halted all their raiding in there and the systems next to the HOP and ANT have been wiped out.

But my universe seems pretty peaceful? I don't see much fighting between any of the factions, they have stations in each other sectors and things seem pretty uneventful.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 14:29

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014; pretense is my co-pilot

Stations built in others sectors are usually the aftermath of successful invasion fleets. Then the fleets leave for other tasks rather than sticking around. IE ive kept a close eye on Flashpoint and not too long ago the HOP dunked ANT's fleet, then a few of ANT's stations, then finished building a defense platform, then left to go fight PAR or something but the stations are still there and building. ANT hasn't put together a fleet to resecure the sector.

In my game Xenon haven't lost any sectors that I'm aware of and have in fact expanded into empty sectors, though they have yet to claim a Commonwealth sector.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 15:12

pixaal: Jan 8, 2004; All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Third station now. No one at the desk and those doors on either side are closed.

New Save? At around launch there was a big where NPC would crash into stations and often end up killing the vendor. I'm pretty sure it's an actual position and they eventually hire a new manager or whatever to replace them.

It's possible ships are crashing into the stations again, or someone did an attack rub recently.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 15:13

Squiggle: Sep 29, 2002; I don't think she likes the special sauce, Rick.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Third station now. No one at the desk and those doors on either side are closed.

This happened to me a few times right after the 3.0 upgrade. I was able to just save and reload, and they were there. Noticed what you did: once you notice someone is gone, ALL desk-staff are gone, until seemingly you reload.

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

There's a setting toggle in... options, i think? that will faction-color all ships rather than coding them by IFF state.

It's one of the map Filters, actually - there's a checkbox for "Show faction color instead of IFF." on the...2nd tab, whatever that is.

Squiggle fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 6, 2020

# ? Apr 6, 2020 16:45

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I will say if you want the universe to be more aggressive you can install some of these modules, which greatly ups the number of war fleets in use and seems to make them behave better too.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1672198487

The catchup module should also stop anyone getting wiped out.

# ? Apr 6, 2020 18:39

SgtArseCandle: Sep 28, 2009

So I want to like this game. I had X3TC installed and modded to nine hells and I liked it. I could start out as a bounty hunter in what amounted to a steel barrel with a 9mm handgun sticking out of it, and do assassinations, bounties, pirate hunting, a bit of light banditry in argon space. I would buy bigger and better ships. I loved flying the Hyperion or the Springblossom and did plenty of fighting in both. Eventually I'd amass a small fortune and start doing some empire building. I was a proper kingpin in that I started on the "street" and fought my way up into the boardrooms.

However, after about 6 hours it feels like this cannot be replicated in X4 (yet). There are no assassination/bounty missions like in X3, so it's difficult to earn a living through fighting. There's the occasional mission to harass a trader and make them give up some stupid heirloom, but these are all boring targets and I'm not supposed to kill them in any case. Even worse, these missions somehow always give me targets with the same faction I'm trying to fight for, resulting in a rep loss.

Banditry also seems to be somewhat iffy, because there are no low security sectors seemingly. There are so many patrols in pretty much every sector so it's impossible to get off the ground. Even later on, flying solo or a small wing is pretty much a death sentence in enemy sectors, so raiding can only be done with fleets seemingly.

So I did the usual grind and ended up in a Split Dragon. The problem is that it's turning speed is atrocious, even with max combat thrusters and engines. It has plenty of guns, but again, it feels like to actually experience combat, one has to have a fleet or might as well just not bother.

Am I doing something wrong here?

# ? Apr 6, 2020 21:09

_Gumby: Sep 14, 2005; Fun Shoe

SgtArseCandle posted:

However, after about 6 hours it feels like this cannot be replicated in X4 (yet). There are no assassination/bounty missions like in X3, so it's difficult to earn a living through fighting. There's the occasional mission to harass a trader and make them give up some stupid heirloom, but these are all boring targets and I'm not supposed to kill them in any case. Even worse, these missions somehow always give me targets with the same faction I'm trying to fight for, resulting in a rep loss.

I could have sworn i have been offered assassination missions. I think they are only given through data leaks though? Its probably still fairly difficult to do as a living though. The piracy type missions are a bit expanded though, sabotaging turrets and other station-related crimes.

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:23

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

SgtArseCandle posted:

So I want to like this game. I had X3TC installed and modded to nine hells and I liked it. I could start out as a bounty hunter in what amounted to a steel barrel with a 9mm handgun sticking out of it, and do assassinations, bounties, pirate hunting, a bit of light banditry in argon space. I would buy bigger and better ships. I loved flying the Hyperion or the Springblossom and did plenty of fighting in both. Eventually I'd amass a small fortune and start doing some empire building. I was a proper kingpin in that I started on the "street" and fought my way up into the boardrooms.

However, after about 6 hours it feels like this cannot be replicated in X4 (yet). There are no assassination/bounty missions like in X3, so it's difficult to earn a living through fighting. There's the occasional mission to harass a trader and make them give up some stupid heirloom, but these are all boring targets and I'm not supposed to kill them in any case. Even worse, these missions somehow always give me targets with the same faction I'm trying to fight for, resulting in a rep loss.

Banditry also seems to be somewhat iffy, because there are no low security sectors seemingly. There are so many patrols in pretty much every sector so it's impossible to get off the ground. Even later on, flying solo or a small wing is pretty much a death sentence in enemy sectors, so raiding can only be done with fleets seemingly.

So I did the usual grind and ended up in a Split Dragon. The problem is that it's turning speed is atrocious, even with max combat thrusters and engines. It has plenty of guns, but again, it feels like to actually experience combat, one has to have a fleet or might as well just not bother.

Am I doing something wrong here?

Have you joined the Scale Plate Pact? You can sign up with their faction rep just like you can any other faction.

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:28

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

SgtArseCandle posted:

So I want to like this game. I had X3TC installed and modded to nine hells and I liked it. I could start out as a bounty hunter in what amounted to a steel barrel with a 9mm handgun sticking out of it, and do assassinations, bounties, pirate hunting, a bit of light banditry in argon space. I would buy bigger and better ships. I loved flying the Hyperion or the Springblossom and did plenty of fighting in both. Eventually I'd amass a small fortune and start doing some empire building. I was a proper kingpin in that I started on the "street" and fought my way up into the boardrooms.

However, after about 6 hours it feels like this cannot be replicated in X4 (yet). There are no assassination/bounty missions like in X3, so it's difficult to earn a living through fighting. There's the occasional mission to harass a trader and make them give up some stupid heirloom, but these are all boring targets and I'm not supposed to kill them in any case. Even worse, these missions somehow always give me targets with the same faction I'm trying to fight for, resulting in a rep loss.

Banditry also seems to be somewhat iffy, because there are no low security sectors seemingly. There are so many patrols in pretty much every sector so it's impossible to get off the ground. Even later on, flying solo or a small wing is pretty much a death sentence in enemy sectors, so raiding can only be done with fleets seemingly.

So I did the usual grind and ended up in a Split Dragon. The problem is that it's turning speed is atrocious, even with max combat thrusters and engines. It has plenty of guns, but again, it feels like to actually experience combat, one has to have a fleet or might as well just not bother.

Am I doing something wrong here?

If you install VRO you might find the combat more appealing. But I'd ask... have you got the hang of the travel drive and boosters? Because enemy sectors are actually way more traversable than they were in X3, because you can go way faster than the enemy most of the time.

I also could have sworn there were missions that just tell you to kill people.

Also if you want to make a ship perform better you can install modifications to it to push its speed and maneuverability past the normal limits.

E: yeah, pirates want to hire me to merk some fucker:

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Apr 7, 2020

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:36

Shrimp or Shrimps: Feb 14, 2012

So I brought through a save from launch (stopped playing at 1.5, started again with the SV DLC), and by that point in my universe the xenon were contained to their own sectors and the main races had no trouble defending against them.

But after I'm guessing maybe 10 or 12 hours of play, I am noticing Xenon K's and I's in multiple sectors. They've also taken Company Regard.

I sort of expected the Xenon to just remain dead and that I'd have to start a new game to get all the effects of the increased war, but I'm impressed and really starting to take them seriously in this save. Admittedly, I did help them along by spawning in a couple of K's here and there to kill stuff.

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:48

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

So I brought through a save from launch (stopped playing at 1.5, started again with the SV DLC), and by that point in my universe the xenon were contained to their own sectors and the main races had no trouble defending against them.

But after I'm guessing maybe 10 or 12 hours of play, I am noticing Xenon K's and I's in multiple sectors. They've also taken Company Regard.

I sort of expected the Xenon to just remain dead and that I'd have to start a new game to get all the effects of the increased war, but I'm impressed and really starting to take them seriously in this save. Admittedly, I did help them along by spawning in a couple of K's here and there to kill stuff.

They added a thing in one of the patches to give the xenon a kick up the bracket if they'd died out. So they probably got a big boost when you first loaded it up.

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:49

SgtArseCandle: Sep 28, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

If you install VRO you might find the combat more appealing. But I'd ask... have you got the hang of the travel drive and boosters? Because enemy sectors are actually way more traversable than they were in X3, because you can go way faster than the enemy most of the time.

I also could have sworn there were missions that just tell you to kill people.

Also if you want to make a ship perform better you can install modifications to it to push its speed and maneuverability past the normal limits.

E: yeah, pirates want to hire me to merk some fucker:

Ooh interesting. Was that a scanned signal? I tried hanging out a little near an SCA base but got nothing interesting from it. Maybe I just need to go to different sectors?

# ? Apr 7, 2020 01:59

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

No that's just on the SCA base. It's a quite normal criminal contract. There's actually two of them there both assasinations.

If you dock on the main SCA base in Hewa's Twin they should ring you up and offer you access to their chain missions. Which is like, pack of several random jobs to do (like the argon war missions etc) and you usually get a bonus if you complete the set. Being crimelords they will generally be stuff like killing people and stealing poo poo but they also have supply missions same as most factions where they want you to provide goods/stations.

If you want to be a full time crim that's probably your best bet. Personally I'm lazy so I just sell guns to everyone which while ethically dubious is perfectly legal :v:

e: oh also, quick question, if you're using combat thrusters, you do know how they work yeah? They've got worse yaw control than regular thrusters but much better spin and pitch, so you have to roll into turns and pitch rather than yawing, bit harder but it gives you better maximum rotation ability.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 7, 2020

# ? Apr 7, 2020 02:05

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 16:19

Major Isoor: Mar 23, 2011

So, what's the deal with piracy, assassinations, etc? I've never bothered with it in X games, since I didn't want to burn bridges with any of the major factions. So, could I just raid one of the random small companies/factions and not ruin my relations with their 'parent' race? Since if so, I might start hijacking a minor faction's freighters, perhaps. (Also, where do you get missions to kill members of a specific faction? In rival stations bordering the aforementioned faction's sectors, I assume?)

# ? Apr 7, 2020 02:23

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > X4: Foundations -Bofu Deez nuts you uncultured swine

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