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RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Wait, so if I want to get a fleet it'd be cheaper to just buy it outright instead of build them? Or is it just that the AI will pay rock bottom prices for your ships you make?

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Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
I mean technically if you're bootstrapping factories by starting with hull parts, claytronics and E-Cells (plus stealing all the blueprints) then you can still in the end print fleets for free once you buy the fabrication blueprint.

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

buglord posted:

I played X3 and enjoyed it, but eventually washed out because the pacing was just a little too slow for me. Does X4 improve that a little? Or at least give some QoL changes to make that initial start up less harsh?

I played a lot of X3 but never really got to the empire management stage in my playthroughs. It's much easier and faster to start doing that in X4 I feel and I've done it on many playthroughs now.

ughhhh
Oct 17, 2012

RBA Starblade posted:

Wait, so if I want to get a fleet it'd be cheaper to just buy it outright instead of build them? Or is it just that the AI will pay rock bottom prices for your ships you make?

Cheaper to build still because the price markup on ai stations for parts and hulls is higher. It's just the ai that has weird ship pricing. Or better yet cap all the destroyers and build a your fighters.

buglord posted:

I played X3 and enjoyed it, but eventually washed out because the pacing was just a little too slow for me. Does X4 improve that a little? Or at least give some QoL changes to make that initial start up less harsh?

Much better this time around in x4. The story and plot progression is even better and puts you on the path towards building an economic powerhouse.

sloppy portmanteau
Feb 4, 2019
I am suddenly able to see ZYA ship orders, including stuff like "Remaining cargo after orders". This goes off when toggling "Show allied orders" under other filters.

How did they suddenly become my ally? They are my highest rep at 27 but Argon who are at 26 don't show me their orders. I have trade subscriptions and police licenses with both.

Edit: There's nothing indicating this this under factions and relations. But the Zyarth encyclopedia entry lists my faction under Allies.

sloppy portmanteau fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Apr 3, 2021

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
Is there a place to check the spool up time for all the different engines? I'd really love to spreadsheet out the different engines and see how they all compare.

ughhhh
Oct 17, 2012

That stat is currently a hidden stat that even rogueys or the encyclopedia doesn't list. But terran have the fastest spoolup/charge time while split has the longest due to their high top speed. Also ship mass and engine size affect it too.

Happy Underpants
Jul 23, 2007
I think I figured out why random stations go hostile. I sent a scout to collect drops from some xenon that were getting killed by a station but the station had also been hacked and dropped a bunch of cargo. I think picking up the spilled cargo counts as a hostile act. Additionally I'd occasionally see my station traders trying to pick up wares so that might be why I've had random hostile stations in the past. I'm not sure if there's any way to turn off that behavior.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Ice Fist posted:

:negative: I swear I tried this and didn't see this, but as soon as you mention it I go back and try it and it worked.

I like to imagine that X3 has just caused you very specific brain problems so that you couldn't imagine "select object, right click to tell it where to go" would possibly work in an X game :v:

It can be a little unclear whether you actually have something selected but yeah otherwise the map works basically like an RTS, it's great.

On an unrelated note I think it might be the faction enhancer mod but the terrans just apparently declared war on the entire universe out of nowhere. Not necessarily sure this will go well for them but we'll see.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Apr 3, 2021

Slickdrac
Oct 5, 2007

Not allowed to have nice things
At least X4 keeps the X3 requirement for cheats when the game bugs to hell. Had to cheat TP my ship out of a Terran station since they're so broken the walls are mere suggestions

Ice Fist
Jun 20, 2012

^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

Okay, so I'm thinking about adding in the suggested training mods, but I wanted my plan checked out here. I started as a Terran Cadet and I took the story mission to the point where the guy who hangs with you gets kidnapped or whatever and now I have free reign. I did some missions for some cash, enough to ditch the starting kukri for a max travel drive exploration/shuttle rapier, and a mineral bolo.

I noticed that the Terrans started out with a crap load of factories that require silicon but almost nobody was delivering any to the factories. I was going to set up some miners to go out and mine silicon and make some easy passive income off the sales, but since the devs think that checking for available silicon buyers even 1 jump away is too advanced for the average human being - locking it behind hours and hours of effort, that plan got shot down pretty hard to start - there's only one silicon buyer in the asteroid belt itself and the AI is filling it up nicely so just leaving the miners to sector mine it isn't going to get me anywhere. Once I realized I wasn't going to immediately be able to have auto mining work the way I wanted I've been doing some easy mining in the asteroid belt and running it to plants in Mars, Venus and Jupiter. It's easy, low effort 120k per full load assuming silicon is selling for 150 per m3.

My plan would now be to automate this so I'm not doing this personally, have a nice stream of passive mining income supplemented by missions, and I can go and fund my eventual combat katana plus some early stations. Am I on the right track here? Should I just say gently caress it right now and add in the mods to make training easier? Or should I save up, buy the katana I want, do the story and wait for the game to open up a bit more. I see you guys discussing how X4 opens up the empire building a bit easier and want to make sure I'm not making life too hard for myself.

Oh dear me
Aug 14, 2012

I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal

Ice Fist posted:

Am I on the right track here? Should I just say gently caress it right now and add in the mods to make training easier? Or should I save up, buy the katana I want, do the story and wait for the game to open up a bit more.

I know everyone says get the mods, but I think you're still at the stage where it's satisfying to get the training in vanilla. You can buy low level pilot training manuals from traders and then there are often missions for higher ones. It doesn't actually take that long to get advanced automining pilots.

ZombyDog
Jul 11, 2001

Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Ice Fist posted:

Okay, so I'm thinking about adding in the suggested training mods, but I wanted my plan checked out here. I started as a Terran Cadet and I took the story mission to the point where the guy who hangs with you gets kidnapped or whatever and now I have free reign. I did some missions for some cash, enough to ditch the starting kukri for a max travel drive exploration/shuttle rapier, and a mineral bolo.

I noticed that the Terrans started out with a crap load of factories that require silicon but almost nobody was delivering any to the factories. I was going to set up some miners to go out and mine silicon and make some easy passive income off the sales, but since the devs think that checking for available silicon buyers even 1 jump away is too advanced for the average human being - locking it behind hours and hours of effort, that plan got shot down pretty hard to start - there's only one silicon buyer in the asteroid belt itself and the AI is filling it up nicely so just leaving the miners to sector mine it isn't going to get me anywhere. Once I realized I wasn't going to immediately be able to have auto mining work the way I wanted I've been doing some easy mining in the asteroid belt and running it to plants in Mars, Venus and Jupiter. It's easy, low effort 120k per full load assuming silicon is selling for 150 per m3.

My plan would now be to automate this so I'm not doing this personally, have a nice stream of passive mining income supplemented by missions, and I can go and fund my eventual combat katana plus some early stations. Am I on the right track here? Should I just say gently caress it right now and add in the mods to make training easier? Or should I save up, buy the katana I want, do the story and wait for the game to open up a bit more. I see you guys discussing how X4 opens up the empire building a bit easier and want to make sure I'm not making life too hard for myself.
The solution is Repeat Orders behaviour. Repeat Orders allows you to set up a chain of commands, add some conditions and then loops them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhn_COZESQI
It's a little more work but once you've set up your desired loop you can walk away until you're ready to reassign commands or your pilots have levelled up some. Wanna have a group of ships doing the same thing? Setup one ship, then have the remainder Mimic Commander.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Apr 3, 2021

Ice Fist
Jun 20, 2012

^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

ZombyDog posted:

The solution is Repeat Orders behaviour. Repeat Orders allows you to set up a chain of commands, add some conditions and then loops them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhn_COZESQI
It's a little more work but once you've set up your desired loop you can walk away until you're ready to reassign commands or your pilots have levelled up some. Wanna have a group of ships doing the same thing? Setup one ship, then have the remainder Mimic Commander.

Holy poo poo. Thanks for the link.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
I like the training manuals system on paper but in execution combing station traders and grinding missions for the privilege to dig through the staff UI and individually hand over manuals is too much bad menus and walking.

Private Speech
Mar 30, 2011

I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.


ZombyDog posted:

The solution is Repeat Orders behaviour. Repeat Orders allows you to set up a chain of commands, add some conditions and then loops them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhn_COZESQI
It's a little more work but once you've set up your desired loop you can walk away until you're ready to reassign commands or your pilots have levelled up some. Wanna have a group of ships doing the same thing? Setup one ship, then have the remainder Mimic Commander.

That's pretty much exactly how you would do it in vanilla x3:r. Funny it still works.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

zedprime posted:

I like the training manuals system on paper but in execution combing station traders and grinding missions for the privilege to dig through the staff UI and individually hand over manuals is too much bad menus and walking.

In case you aren't aware the player tab on the menu lets you sort everyone you employ by skill level, if that makes staff management any easier.

Antigravitas
Dec 8, 2019

Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:
I just call my managers or fleet commanders from the map view if I want to given them some basic training.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Less Fat Luke posted:

In the big 4.0 patch.

Ah, I didn't have a wharf until after I was running the 4.0 patch beta so I never noticed. I had prices set to 150% and I was still buying a decent chunk of the components (Though I made the hull/turret/weapon bits and bobs at the station.) It was pulling in ~40m an hour even with the bottlenecks.

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos

OwlFancier posted:

In case you aren't aware the player tab on the menu lets you sort everyone you employ by skill level, if that makes staff management any easier.
My dream vanilla training situation is that table in the player tab allows one click application of a manual and the manuals are given to you by normal playing and not chasing down leg only station traders or crap shoot guild mission chains where any procedural generated leg might be impossible negating anything you did up to that point.

Hiding application behind dialog comm menus and collection behind some of the worst parts of the game means mod time.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

It's weird there's no Nopileos 1, 3, 4, or 5

2 is getting a claytronics complex though! And a ton of miners and traders

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Apr 4, 2021

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



I can't not have a laugh every time I come hauling rear end out of a jump gate and there's a ship just hanging out in front of it, and I plough through the ship and end up stuck in its geometry.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

What's up with some ships seemingly jumping in around gates? There's an animation and everything

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

A recent change to stop large ships from having trouble transiting the gates. Under AI control they can jump around the gate too.

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
Repeat orders are really cool, but do they still take real time days to level up? Or is that faster too?

Antigravitas posted:

Shipyards are pretty bad now because the input materials cost more than the ships you sell, though you can use them to shift a lot of volume you may not otherwise have.

Turret Components, Shield Components, Advanced Electronics sell like fresh Semmeln in my game, but every start is different.

I've been curious about this too. My Wharf is still making disgusting amounts of money after the patch. I'm building vessels from ore to final ship. Would I make even more money if I locked off my shipyard just for my own use and sold the intermediates?

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I found all the Xenon lol, they've been assblasting the split while the Teladi reclaim 451

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


So I'm looking at the Frog and Baldric (Terran S Courier and M trader TS), and is there any reason to use the Baldric? It's got a little over twice the cargo space but also under half the speed. Frog seems better all around for UTs?

I am using VRO so that is probably changing some things up.

chglcu
May 17, 2007

I'm so bored with the USA.
Got an urge to play some X3AP:

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

So I'm looking at the Frog and Baldric (Terran S Courier and M trader TS), and is there any reason to use the Baldric? It's got a little over twice the cargo space but also under half the speed. Frog seems better all around for UTs?

I am using VRO so that is probably changing some things up.

I'm using VRO and yeah the frog is a good small trader. I dunno that I would risk a good pilot in it though, very fragile.

That said I wouldn't risk one in a baldric either, probably go for a large ship if you're putting good pilots in them.

BMan
Oct 31, 2015

KNIIIIIIFE
EEEEEYYYYE
ATTAAAACK


Why am I losing rep for boarding this ship in a "stop these crazy scientists" argon vs xenon mission? This whole operation was your idea!

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


chglcu posted:

Got an urge to play some X3AP:



This is a good memory. At some point I just asked myself why tf I wasn't just using the cheat script I had installed.

OwlFancier posted:

I'm using VRO and yeah the frog is a good small trader. I dunno that I would risk a good pilot in it though, very fragile.

That said I wouldn't risk one in a baldric either, probably go for a large ship if you're putting good pilots in them.

Hmm, yeah good point, thanks! I'll probably set up some Terran-space-only Frog traders to do the lion's share of moving stuff around Sol system.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I would also say that I haven't ever really used just pure trade ships, the AI isn't that good and you make a lot more reliable money by actually producing stuff from materials you mine yourself. It's quite different from X3 in that respect in that there are a lot of ships willing to do trading but the main issue is usually actual production bottlenecks, and getting into production is a lot easier than in previous games.

If you want to do trading you are probably better off making a trade station which is just a dock with a storage container on it, and then assign ships to it to do trading. Not least because your station traders can be staffed by complete mouthbreathers because their range is dictated by the manager, not the pilots.

chglcu
May 17, 2007

I'm so bored with the USA.

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

This is a good memory. At some point I just asked myself why tf I wasn't just using the cheat script I had installed.

I do somewhat like that the repairing takes time as it adds some nice tension if some Xenon or pirates decide to show up. At the same time, it’s kind of a pain in the rear end. I’ve upped the power of the repair lasers a bit as a compromise for now.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
Somehow in my game where I'm helping the Curbs get their way the Hall of Judgment has a new owner:

Also LOL at the missions going from "give us 400 million credits" to "give us 800 million credits". Glad that I hear the CoH missions are much more interesting.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

These eggs took way too long to get

e: This complex is taking way too long to build

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Apr 4, 2021

Ice Fist
Jun 20, 2012

^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

ZombyDog posted:

Wanna have a group of ships doing the same thing? Setup one ship, then have the remainder Mimic Commander.

Unless I'm missing some crucial step, but I can't get this part to work. Do you know how to make mimic work for a list of repeat commands.

I did a bit of searching on this and found some threads on reddit and the official forums that say that mimic doesn't work with "repeat orders", as it only mimics the default order and not the list of individual ones.

Otherwise thanks! Got a couple miners doing some faux auto mining now.

Which brings me to my next question. My miners are extremely basic. Mk 1 versions of everything just to get them out the door and making money since I can't really afford to make the ships better. But boy, they suck at mining. Watching them in person is absolutely frustrating - I thought it might be fun at first to be the boss that breathes heavily watching my pilots work. Maybe I'm making them too nervous? I thought maybe letting them mine while I am OOS might have helped, but nope. Takes 10ish+ ingame minutes to fill their holds in a place where I can pop a single asteroid and be heading to a station in a jiffy. Seems to be a combination of being unable to find asteroids as well as being terrible at collecting the shards that pop out, even though I have their mining commands right on top of a resource probe that says there's plenty of rocks around. Can I make them better at mining by making the ship better? Does their pilot skill level improve the rate at which they find and or bring in ore? Or am I stuck with their shitiness forever? Not that I'm at all shocked the AI is bad at something in this game.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Miners are slowish generally, but they are extra slow in sector. Out of sector it doesn't simulate the intricacies of mining so they just fly to a place and fill up magically. In sector, especially with large miners, the process of breaking and then collecting all the rocks with drones is garbage.

Basically they work well enough out of sector but they will be very slow if you sit and watch them.

Ice Fist
Jun 20, 2012

^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

OwlFancier posted:

Miners are slowish generally, but they are extra slow in sector. Out of sector it doesn't simulate the intricacies of mining so they just fly to a place and fill up magically. In sector, especially with large miners, the process of breaking and then collecting all the rocks with drones is garbage.

Basically they work well enough out of sector but they will be very slow if you sit and watch them.

This is what I figured. Thanks for confirming my suspicion.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I would suggest the best thing to do for miners is to sector activity restrict them to just the closest sector to your station, I have one large miner supplying my entire 8 hull parts modules.

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RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I find gas miners make their money faster too, for whatever reasons

Playing around with loadouts of my own now it's still strange to have a handful of equipment options only, especially with how they're generally stuff I'd always want. It's nice to not have to scour the map for software though; it kind of just seems like it's vestigial now.

I also really like how your company actually employs people now lol

E: Also weird you can't destroy the build storage for factories being built. I shot the ore out of one and now there's just an unbuilt Xenon one on the map forever at 0% lol

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Apr 4, 2021

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