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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. ^^

Finally being able to print my own L miners is pretty awesome. Just rolling these suckers off the assembly line catching up to all the silicon demand I have.

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OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Once you get to that point the fast and loose management style of the game really transitions it into a different feel, because you just start throwing piles of ships and resources at problems.

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord
Should I be safe and start a new save when I buy Split Vendetta? Or does it just drop into an existing just fine?

Airspace
Nov 5, 2010
Nothing breaks, you should be fine.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I think I'm done with the main campaign in FL. I know there's a second one later one through the explorer's guild but I'm just going around seeing what's up right now. I found Argon Prime! I bet it sucks losing all these cool sectors around it in X4.

If you're wondering about where to point the Hub, the game ignores your initial choice and chooses them all. The hub also immediately led four fleets that hate each other into it including the Xenon lmao. I found some engine tuning mods to upgrade the Nemesis which despite its terrible sighting is the best I've got at the moment. It seems like after that initial plot, and the followup if you choose to, the game just becomes a sandbox. I'm not sure there's anything else around. That main plot itself took me 8-9 hours though so not too shabby despite some tedium.

I have not seen a second hyperspace access point. No drone frigates either, and economies outside the starting bubble are mostly collapsed lol

e: I found an abandoned Khaak fighter though! It's unclaimable however. Also, do not ever fight the Xenon without saving first; they do nothing but suicide ram now.

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 7, 2021

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I've gotten further into FL and something seems wrong with how they set things up. The economy everywhere is obliterated. There are tons of ships and stations but nothing is making it anywhere. I've found a ton of derelict ships, been sold a bunch of tankers, and I can't send them out because shields just don't exist. You can get blueprints for stations for tens of millions of discovery points, but I've explored the universe and gotten like 2 mil, tops. Using diplomacy to get things has such a low chance of success it's not worth considering. Missions pay out so little they're either a waste of time or actively drain your resources - station building is usually a net minus for you now and with how the rep seesaws unless you really want to max out a faction there's no point to doing it. Except for experiencing the new plots (and good luck getting the Special Discovery one to trigger, I didn't) if you want to do things you may as well replay AP again if you don't want to do it in X4, though it was a fun visit around during the actual plot stuff.

It's still cool this exists, but I feel more than done after 16 hours.

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 07:10 on May 9, 2021

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
What's the best way to destroy stations? I tried the attack command and some ships will correctly get into range and use all their turrets. But most of them will either only use their main batteries or not get close enough to fire at all.

I'm using Argon turrets so I can outrange the stations btw.

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

RBA Starblade posted:

I think I'm done with the main campaign in FL. I know there's a second one later one through the explorer's guild but I'm just going around seeing what's up right now. I found Argon Prime! I bet it sucks losing all these cool sectors around it in X4.

If you're wondering about where to point the Hub, the game ignores your initial choice and chooses them all. The hub also immediately led four fleets that hate each other into it including the Xenon lmao. I found some engine tuning mods to upgrade the Nemesis which despite its terrible sighting is the best I've got at the moment. It seems like after that initial plot, and the followup if you choose to, the game just becomes a sandbox. I'm not sure there's anything else around. That main plot itself took me 8-9 hours though so not too shabby despite some tedium.

I have not seen a second hyperspace access point. No drone frigates either, and economies outside the starting bubble are mostly collapsed lol

e: I found an abandoned Khaak fighter though! It's unclaimable however. Also, do not ever fight the Xenon without saving first; they do nothing but suicide ram now.

What is the story in FL? I assume you're meant to use the Hub to reconnect the systems?

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Thom12255 posted:

What is the story in FL? I assume you're meant to use the Hub to reconnect the systems?

That's basically it, with the Duke's Buccineers trying to claim it instead while no one can stop them. Weirdly, the only real unconnected sectors are The Void and Holy Vision. Everyone else is pretty much fine at the moment, though everyone's economies have exploded.

The second plot from Special Discovery is afaict about hooking the Terrans back up to the gate network (again lol) but I never got the option.

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 17:47 on May 9, 2021

frogge
Apr 7, 2006


It is impressively hard to take out anything larger than a destroyer if all you have is fighters and gunboats. There's a hostile carrier and destroyer parked right outside the wharf that I use to buy ships from just sitting and lobbing shots at it, occasionally getting attacked by fighter swarms and barely getting dented. If I had enough I'd probably build my own destroyers and try to have a go at it.

frogge fucked around with this message at 21:40 on May 9, 2021

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

The economy in X3TC and AP is pretty much held together with a shoestring, I’m not surprised it’s crashing in FL.

I usually end up parking ships in the most convenient satellite and missile factories so they don’t disappear 10 hours into a game.

Xan
Feb 7, 2005
Shop smart, shop S-Mart.
In case anyone finds this helpful: Earlier I was complaining that silicon mining speed seems to be reduced. Then I discovered you can install modifications on mining lasers:



With a 4+ star pilot from seminars these guys mine stupid fast now. 2 of them are supplying 5 silicon wafer modules. It's a real case of quality over quantity. In my Terran game I was using 80 L miners for just silicon...

Xan fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 10, 2021

frogge
Apr 7, 2006


Just realized that my entire fleet of ships was running with 1 or 2 crew tops. As soon as I started recruiting for 'em all everything started running smoother. Mining ships and trade ships are turning out a profit way faster.

ZombyDog
Jul 11, 2001

Ere to fix yer gubbinz

frogge posted:

Just realized that my entire fleet of ships was running with 1 or 2 crew tops. As soon as I started recruiting for 'em all everything started running smoother. Mining ships and trade ships are turning out a profit way faster.
If you're cool with mods I use Faster Crew Levelling to speed things along.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

In X4 I just sold a captured Behemoth to finish funding my hq's build out, complete with a dozen miners and some traders lol. Unfortunately the mods to speed up construction aren't working so I get to alt tab for a couple of hours with SETA

Then the nightmare of auto mining begins

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


RBA Starblade posted:

In X4 I just sold a captured Behemoth to finish funding my hq's build out, complete with a dozen miners and some traders lol. Unfortunately the mods to speed up construction aren't working so I get to alt tab for a couple of hours with SETA

Then the nightmare of auto mining begins

Does your game still run when alt-tabbed? As far as I can tell, my game pauses or at least runs at a very slow rate.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

Does your game still run when alt-tabbed? As far as I can tell, my game pauses or at least runs at a very slow rate.

Yeah, I haven't had an issue with it, SETA stays on and everything.

Also lmao I ran into a Xenon blockade two feet out from the other side of the gate at frontier edge and instantly died, rip

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Xan posted:

In case anyone finds this helpful: Earlier I was complaining that silicon mining speed seems to be reduced. Then I discovered you can install modifications on mining lasers:



With a 4+ star pilot from seminars these guys mine stupid fast now. 2 of them are supplying 5 silicon wafer modules. It's a real case of quality over quantity. In my Terran game I was using 80 L miners for just silicon...

Huh, I didn't know that that would affect NPC mining speed OOS.

Cool Dad
Jun 15, 2007

It is always Friday night, motherfuckers

I've gotten stuck in at least four objects so far since buying this game yesterday. How the gently caress do you keep from doing this?

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. ^^

Shrimp or Shrimps posted:

Does your game still run when alt-tabbed? As far as I can tell, my game pauses or at least runs at a very slow rate.

For me, I needed to be in borderless window. When I alt- tabbed while full screen the game would pause.

Slickdrac
Oct 5, 2007

Not allowed to have nice things
I think there's also a checkbox in the settings under graphics for it?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:

I've gotten stuck in at least four objects so far since buying this game yesterday. How the gently caress do you keep from doing this?

Avoid grinding your ship into things and try to have your ship's pilot fly your places rather than using the autopilot, NPC pilots are usually a bit smarter than the autopilot and if nothing else they can usually unstick themselves if they somehow do get stuck in something.

Later on you can just teleport around and it becomes a pretty non issue.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

OwlFancier posted:

Avoid grinding your ship into things and try to have your ship's pilot fly your places rather than using the autopilot, NPC pilots are usually a bit smarter than the autopilot and if nothing else they can usually unstick themselves if they somehow do get stuck in something.

Later on you can just teleport around and it becomes a pretty non issue.

If you DO get stuck, open the sector map, select a random station somewhere on the other end of it and go to external view - it'll stop checking the collision of the asteroid (or station, the collision's pretty bad there too usually) you're inside

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Slickdrac posted:

I think there's also a checkbox in the settings under graphics for it?

It's one of the settings. The game will drop most of the frames when alt-tabbed which can result in ships clipping into things. It's also a way to get out of it where you hit boost and immediately alt-tab out of it.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

While ultimately I found X3 too dated (and FL too buggy and grindy) to get back to, I really do miss how it handled some things compared to X4. X4's sectors are great but the border/core idea works out a lot more interestingly than just "owned/not". More sectors seemed to lead to way more traffic despite the fact they're all extremely small in comparison and thus more fights/skirmishes, which I assume are still happening in X4 because the Argon, Paranid factions, and Split all still are at war with each other, but something about the presentation makes it seem pretty static. Boresights were nice to have, and ships having more guns and turrets in general feels better than not. It's cool to do it but still weird that I can defeat a destroyer by hugging the butt with my Katana and waiting really patiently for the shields to drop so my destroyer can drop off some guys and win (though boarding is 100% superior in every way itself, rip all the marines I shot into the void with boarding missile pods). Fewer weapons and smaller fleets makes even large fleet engagements feel fairly limp a lot of the time. Something about the weapons all being basically variations of the same thing makes them bland too but that was a problem with X3 outside of particular guns as well. I still like the software idea to improve ships and wish they'd do a combination of that to supplement your terrible dogshit pilots, especially since it's weird there's a whole category for it when buying a ship that consists of maybe two options tops if you're lucky (though other than that, I like that you actually have to have pilots and crew and managers now, even if it's basically just flavor, it's kind of weird just having a fleet of robots in X3). I liked the old M1/2/3/etc design more than S/M/L too, I still conflate half the ships in the game even more than I did learning it in AP, and I miss having small psuedo-carriers, bombers, and missile frigates

Basically every other aspect is a straight improvement though. Walking on stations can be tedious but not as tedious as talking to the station's automated system ten thousand times lol. The travel drive is way better than SETA.

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:47 on May 12, 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. ^^

Finally kicked off this TER vs ANT/ARG war to spice up the universe. Getsu Fune and the Void are now super hot. Piles of TER destroyers, previously unused and sitting idle in Savage Spur gatecamping the Xenon now lie dead near ANT defense stations. TER are dropping stations of their own in the Void. Suddenly the Terrans need ships and I'm happy to supply them!

*Cackles maniacally*

I realize I'm a bad guy here since I'm basically Moriarty from Game of Shadows, kicking off a war so I can supply the war with weapons, but does it make a difference if I did it only because I was depressingly bored with how quiet the universe has been? The Xenon have been a complete nonfactor and have lost sectors to the Terrans, Teladi, and Paranid. Beyond that, nothing of note has been occurring. Nobody has made any headway in the faction wars. I think I saw one station get taken out in the Paranid Civil War.

It's nice to see *something* going on. You're welcome universe. Now to finish uniting these Paranid and see if they apply any pressure to the ANT/ARG.

ZombyDog
Jul 11, 2001

Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Ice Fist posted:

Finally kicked off this TER vs ANT/ARG war to spice up the universe. Getsu Fune and the Void are now super hot. Piles of TER destroyers, previously unused and sitting idle in Savage Spur gatecamping the Xenon now lie dead near ANT defense stations. TER are dropping stations of their own in the Void. Suddenly the Terrans need ships and I'm happy to supply them!

*Cackles maniacally*

I realize I'm a bad guy here since I'm basically Moriarty from Game of Shadows, kicking off a war so I can supply the war with weapons, but does it make a difference if I did it only because I was depressingly bored with how quiet the universe has been? The Xenon have been a complete nonfactor and have lost sectors to the Terrans, Teladi, and Paranid. Beyond that, nothing of note has been occurring. Nobody has made any headway in the faction wars. I think I saw one station get taken out in the Paranid Civil War.

It's nice to see *something* going on. You're welcome universe. Now to finish uniting these Paranid and see if they apply any pressure to the ANT/ARG.

Basically if you peace out with everybody the universe just stagnates. Ultimately the only thing the driving the Economy is the destruction of ships, and if all of the AI factions are holding hands singing Kumbaya like it's a world without lawyers there's nothing left for them to do after the Xenon are pacified. Terraforming exists as a resource drain for you but there's no such thing for the AI. War is hell, but peace is worse. Unless you decide to wardec everyone and conquer the gate network all for yourself like some spaceborn Alexander, but we know how that ends too.

ZombyDog fucked around with this message at 14:38 on May 13, 2021

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I should've asked first, but does anyone actually care that I have a S/M Maintenance Bay? I have the price set to 95% construction prices but no takers. No big deal if not, I had the cash and I'm just waiting for the wharf money to come in now (at 40 mil!) and it's selling a ton of its wares, but it seems kind of useless.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Ships very rarely refit because they either win or die in combat, most of the time.

I think I had someone use my fabrication bay to refit once but it is a vanishingly small proportion of activity.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

OwlFancier posted:

Ships very rarely refit because they either win or die in combat, most of the time.

I think I had someone use my fabrication bay to refit once but it is a vanishingly small proportion of activity.

Well, at least I can do it for my own ships lol

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I honestly don't know why the maintenence bay is so expensive given that you can do consumable replenishment and repairs with a fleet tender (and on the move, to boot) so the only thing it can do that is novel is refitting ship modules, which is still absurdly expensive because you need to buy blueprints which are not even remotely worth it if you aren't planning on producing them to sell, which you can't do without a fabrication bay.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Does anybody know if faction fleet caps change with the number of sectors they control? Just wondering if helping the Terran take void / frontier edge and those xenon ones below it just means they'll have to spread the same number of ships over a larger area or if they'll build more.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



OwlFancier posted:

Ships very rarely refit because they either win or die in combat, most of the time.

I think I had someone use my fabrication bay to refit once but it is a vanishingly small proportion of activity.
... Is that why it's usually cheaper to get stuff at an equipment dock than at a shipyard/wharf?

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Equipment docks are usually flush with resources because they're almost always only used by the player. I buy all of my ships at minimum spec then send them to equipment docks for cheaper refers. I suppose you could even 'trade' that way by outfitting cheap and downgrading the ship again at a shipyard.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Lol I let SETA go for a few hours to build up funds and the only thing that happened was a tern ran into Xenon and died

Also my hq made 3 mil only because I forgot to tell it to not buy the poo poo it's making, an option that somehow isn't the default one

Richard Bong
Dec 11, 2008
This game reeeeaaallly needs some fleet combat reworks.

Basic things like

-ships going where you tell them to go

-ships not being stuck in place while a cargo drone that was launched while in warp slow boats to it

-being able to set engagement ranges

-ships going where you tell them to go

-also ships going where you tell them to go

-the “flee” order not making ships take the long way through the combat area to escape

-allowing the “recall subordinates” order to be cancelled.

-being able to set fighters to only launch when needed

-having escort ships actually escort instead of flying way ahead or behind the escorted ship

-forcing every ship to recall on a carrier every time you want it to warp.

Like it’s so bad I keep the cheat menu installed so I can respawn a ship when it dies to bad game design.

Did every ship but one sit outside of gun range and not fire while one charged in to die alone even though all of them were issued the same attack command? Respawn.

Did my carrier die because the recall command that couldn’t be cancelled locked it in a bad place? Respawn

Did a ship take a “move here” order as a vague suggestion and died?
Respawn

This game is so close to great. It’s incredibly frustrating.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
Yep that's pretty much where it all falls down for me too.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Lol I finally get the ship fab bay and the game refuses to acknowledge I've hired ship traders

e: Oh it had to have me dock there to update it

e: I have a fleet :toot:

Now to shill my wharf to the rest of the universe lol

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 05:04 on May 15, 2021

FrickenMoron
May 6, 2009

Good game!
Haven't played this since 2018 and want to get back into it now with the new version. Are the dlcs worth it and are there any must have mods?

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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. ^^

I’d go as far to say that carriers are basically worthless in sector. Or at least the Tokyo class is. Can’t speak to the others. They’re honestly pretty great OOS. Watching OOS fighter blobs dissect an I is fun to watch, but the fighters are just unable to reliably take off or dock in sector and since it appears that fighters will dock after most actions there’s just a huge traffic jam at the undock when they do anything in sector. It sucks a lot.

The difference between in sector and oos behaviors has been a problem since i first played X3:TC ages ago ( and probably way before that). The fact that the game still plays so differently in the two situations even now is bizarre.

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