X4: Foundations - Mount and Blade with space-ships. Now with significant Beta update

[Dedicated_Dark]

Did they add in some story yet. I generally need something other than a free form sandbox to keep my attention in check.

Do these 'campaigns' have an ending?

 

[Jinn]

Did they add in some story yet. I generally need something other than a free form sandbox to keep my attention in check.

Do these 'campaigns' have an ending?

Well, I pretty much just asked the same question a couple posts back, and Perkel essentially said no.

With a little more research, I've discovered that the new DLC provides a nice focused start to your game. What this should essentially provide you is the momentum needed to go out into the universe, find a faction you'd like to align with, and start doing missions for them. As you progress through your own personal goals, you'll encounter more "story" missions organically as you continuing exploring. So there are things to focus on, but it's not necessarily the overarching "campaign" feeling that both you and I might be looking for. But if you can sustain your interest with sidequests and the like while you pursue your own goals, then it might be worth checking out Cradle of Humanity if you own the base game. With the base game and both the DLC right now, there are a lot more sectors than when it first came out. But again, you're going to have to set your own "endgame" goals if you ever want to feel as though you've "finished" the game. Successfully terra-forming and self-sustaining might be good endgame goals, along with maybe aiding a faction in taking a large chunk of territory.

Anyway, this is again all based on mostly research, and a decent amount of experience with the game pre-DLCs. I have Split Vendetta, and am seriously considering getting Cradle of Humanity so I can start out aligned and guided by a Terran faction.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Did they add in some story yet. I generally need something other than a free form sandbox to keep my attention in check.

Do these 'campaigns' have an ending?

Well, I pretty much just asked the same question a couple posts back, and Perkel essentially said no.

With a little more research, I've discovered that the new DLC provides a nice focused start to your game. What this should essentially provide you is the momentum needed to go out into the universe, find a faction you'd like to align with, and start doing missions for them. As you progress through your own personal goals, you'll encounter more "story" missions organically as you continuing exploring. So there are things to focus on, but it's not necessarily the overarching "campaign" feeling that both you and I might be looking for. But if you can sustain your interest with sidequests and the like while you pursue your own goals, then it might be worth checking out Cradle of Humanity if you own the base game. With the base game and both the DLC right now, there are a lot more sectors than when it first came out. But again, you're going to have to set your own "endgame" goals if you ever want to feel as though you've "finished" the game. Successfully terra-forming and self-sustaining might be good endgame goals, along with maybe aiding a faction in taking a large chunk of territory.

Anyway, this is again all based on mostly research, and a decent amount of experience with the game pre-DLCs. I have Split Vendetta, and am seriously considering getting Cradle of Humanity so I can start out aligned and guided by a Terran faction.

There have been "focused starts" since day 1
The expansions just add more.

 

[Jinn]

There have been "focused starts" since day 1
The expansions just add more.

I realize that, but from what I've been reading, the first Terran start is one or the best for new players, as well as one of the longest.

 

[Zarniwoop]

There have been "focused starts" since day 1
The expansions just add more.

I realize that, but from what I've been reading, the first Terran start is one or the best for new players, as well as one of the longest.

Not really. I haven't restarted the game since it came out, I do new missions every time an expansion comes out. So if you count by number of missions, they're all pretty much the same. It just depends which faction you want to start with, which ship etc.

And luckily for me I skipped some of the new """improvements"""" such as research taking resources now and being a massive pain in the ass.

 

[Perkel]

random Egosoft. They apparently will shortly release X3 game...

Ten years after the release of X3: Albion Prelude, Egosoft is revisiting the X3 universe. X3: Farnham's Legacy is a new chapter in the popular X3 series, created over the past five years by long-time community members, in close cooperation with the Egosoft team. What community members may have thought was an April Fool's joke, actually exists and will be released on May 4th, 2021. With three games released between 2006 and 2011, and over 2 million copies sold, the X3 series remains a fan favourite. Set in the years after X3: Albion Prelude, as the chaos caused by the gate shutdown really takes hold, X3: Farnham's Legacy starts very differently to previous games in the X3 series. Trapped in an isolated area of space, players will first need to make use of the new exploration features to find their way back to civilisation. Afterwards, they'll be able to use the new diplomacy options to help shape their relationships with the factions they find. The new features don't end with the storyline, though. There are numerous other improvements, ranging from drone carriers, station-building services and an enhanced player headquarters, to a new ship browser and a hyperlinked encyclopedia. And of course, no new X3 game would be complete without new ships and stations! X3: Farnham's Legacy will be released on May 4th, 2021. The best news of all, however, is that this new expansion will be FREE OF CHARGE to all owners of X3: Albion Predule on Steam!

 

[Joggerino]

Thats crazy! I hope they include all the QOL mods, really looking forward to this!

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

random Egosoft. They apparently will shortly release X3 game...

Please have cockpits. Please. Just fckn please. Never could play X3 cause I can't get muh immersion with a floating space camera.

 

[Tweed]

Well, is this game good yet?

 

[cw8]

Please have cockpits. Please. Just fckn please. Never could play X3 cause I can't get muh immersion with a floating space camera.

You can mod them in.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

You can mod them in.

I've seen the mods. They are shit.

Another thing I hated in X3 is that they removed all the cool still-motion cutscenes and character portraits that X1 & 2 had. I know it's by far the most loved game, but I really can't get interested in it as much as the others. I rather play Rebirth.

 

[adddeed]

Yeah X3 even though it looked amazing lacked the charm of XBTF and X2 The Threat.

 

[Jinn]

Dedicated_Dark, I ended up getting the Cradle of Humanity DLC and can confirm the Terran Cadet start is not only a great introduction to the game at large, but a ton of fun too. I've had a steady stream of missions for several hours of play now, and it seems like a nice way to jettison off into the the rest of the game, especially in terms of faction play if that's what you're interested in.

 

[Perkel]

Especially since you start like a proper Terran with most of factions being hostile. Yeah this is great start. Generally Terrans usually had the greatest starts.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Dedicated_Dark, I ended up getting the Cradle of Humanity DLC and can confirm the Terran Cadet start is not only a great introduction to the game at large, but a ton of fun too. I've had a steady stream of missions for several hours of play now, and it seems like a nice way to jettison off into the the rest of the game, especially in terms of faction play if that's what you're interested in.

Awesome! I'll jump in too. Thanks!

 

[anvi]

Jeez anyone know if this is actually true?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/3/3079873787852782223/#c3174449951061351979

 

[Curratum]

Jeez anyone know if this is actually true?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/3/3079873787852782223/#c3174449951061351979

German engineering! :D

 

[Curratum]

The devs have always been shit at making games that work well, I only played X3 on hardware that could eat it up whole, but both X Rebirth and X4 have been miserable piles of shit when it comes to performance on decent hardware.

 

[Zarniwoop]

The devs have always been shit at making games that work well, I only played X3 on hardware that could eat it up whole, but both X4 and X4 have been miserable piles of shit when it comes to performance on decent hardware.

To some extent yes but X4 is on a whole other level. I suspect this is the main reason why the universe is so tiny compared to previous games. The clunky Stillbirth engine can't scale well to a proper X Universe size. Kind of like why all Unity based games have such small maps.

That said, performance has massively improved since the Cradle of Humanity DLC came out. It just gets shitty when SETA is on.

 

[Perkel]

That is actually a bug. Usually their AI keeps track of amount of stations and they have their own internal budgets that disallows something like that.

When they release expansions they actually upgrade their engine. Game with Split Vendeta actually run faster for me than non Vendeta and especially 1.0. Since they switched to Vulcan with X4 they slowly upgrade their engine.

To some extent yes but X4 is on a whole other level.

Whole other level your head. X3 run like dogshit for most of the time after release. It was better hardware that solved problem and it was time when each new generation of CPU was major step not like today.

X games simulate every single entity in their economy which means as game progresses it start to hit CPU more and more. That is not new for X games. I still remember X3 completely stalling after 100-150 hours with some slight modding on my E7200 @3,6Ghz.

 

[Blaine]

X3's engine was only able to utilize a single CPU core, yet it was a CPU-intensive game.

Obviously, as CPUs improved, so did X3's performance—but only based on the power of an individual core.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Did they add in some story yet. I generally need something other than a free form sandbox to keep my attention in check.

Do these 'campaigns' have an ending?

Cradle of Humanity is such a good intro it actually got me into X4. It also puts you in an area with a bunch of missions you can take. So you don't just have to spend the first hour scanning for missions. Also it gives you this preset mission that allows you to sign up for the war against the Xenon. IDGAF about trade or economy. I want to fight wars and earn territory for my faction. And CoH just points you where you need to go. Job done that's all I wanted. Now I'm just waiting for the Star Wars TC to make more progress. They're already working on converting the X universe and map to Star Wars wholesale. Just a complete conversion.

 

[Perkel]

I have spent 40 hours over past week playing 4.10. So far i am mostly doing just default storyline of young gun mostly to test how game changed. since 2.0 where i put most of my hours. Completely vanilla.

Things i noticed:

- Flying in formation now works !. In 1.0 and 2.0 basically you couldn't fly in formation at all. Either ships didn't know what to do or ai just couldn't keep up. Now not only AI knows how to follow you in non travel mode but they also know how to do it in travel mode as they properly fire up travel mode as you do. If ships are driven by captain instead of you ships also now use speed of slowest spacecraft to move which means group stays as groups instead of crapshot.
- Stable. No crashes nothing. Just 1 bug where i flew into asteroid. Automode also doesn't make anymore mistakes like it did before where it would often fly into asteroids on path.
- AI works great now. There used to be a lot of issues where AI would get stuck on doing tasks like trading infinitely sometimes breaking game etc. Nothing happening anymore like that. Everything works like in switz clock.
- Performance improved. 1.0 used to be terrible performance wise. It is still hog of a game for especially CPU but 4.0 has been great so far and i don't usually fall down below 60fps. In Argon Prime it used to be 30-40fps now butter smooth 60fps all times on same hardware.
- Police actual works now. There are two kinds of police in X4 sector one and local station one. It used to be that you could just dump illegal cargo wait for scan and just take it again but now they destroy your container with that cargo, meanwhile local police didn't work at all before or they would just randomly fly around you like you did something. Now they do in fact scan you from time to time and they have their own separate icon now.
- Reputation changes. Local/global is a thing now. Usually when you randomly hit station you would get minus from faction but now they first warn you and then you get local reputation hit instead of global. Global hit is only for killing stuff. Reputation also takes a while longer to max out. It used to be really simple thing but now it takes shitload of time to get to 30. First 10 is easy then next 10-20 is hard then last 20-30 is very hard.


Overall they did great job so far. Almost all problems are gone and this is imho proper 1.0 and good point for other folks to join in.

 

[anvi]

Heading towards something I would buy!

 

[Alter Sack]

I have spent 40 hours over past week playing 4.10. So far i am mostly doing just default storyline of young gun mostly to test how game changed. since 2.0 where i put most of my hours. Completely vanilla.

Things i noticed:

- Flying in formation now works !. In 1.0 and 2.0 basically you couldn't fly in formation at all. Either ships didn't know what to do or ai just couldn't keep up. Now not only AI knows how to follow you in non travel mode but they also know how to do it in travel mode as they properly fire up travel mode as you do. If ships are driven by captain instead of you ships also now use speed of slowest spacecraft to move which means group stays as groups instead of crapshot.
- Stable. No crashes nothing. Just 1 bug where i flew into asteroid. Automode also doesn't make anymore mistakes like it did before where it would often fly into asteroids on path.
- AI works great now. There used to be a lot of issues where AI would get stuck on doing tasks like trading infinitely sometimes breaking game etc. Nothing happening anymore like that. Everything works like in switz clock.
- Performance improved. 1.0 used to be terrible performance wise. It is still hog of a game for especially CPU but 4.0 has been great so far and i don't usually fall down below 60fps. In Argon Prime it used to be 30-40fps now butter smooth 60fps all times on same hardware.
- Police actual works now. There are two kinds of police in X4 sector one and local station one. It used to be that you could just dump illegal cargo wait for scan and just take it again but now they destroy your container with that cargo, meanwhile local police didn't work at all before or they would just randomly fly around you like you did something. Now they do in fact scan you from time to time and they have their own separate icon now.
- Reputation changes. Local/global is a thing now. Usually when you randomly hit station you would get minus from faction but now they first warn you and then you get local reputation hit instead of global. Global hit is only for killing stuff. Reputation also takes a while longer to max out. It used to be really simple thing but now it takes shitload of time to get to 30. First 10 is easy then next 10-20 is hard then last 20-30 is very hard.


Overall they did great job so far. Almost all problems are gone and this is imho proper 1.0 and good point for other folks to join in.

It would be interesting to know how the late game performance is now.

In the past it was reported that the performance especially in the late game suffered because the engine somehow couldn't handle it anymore.

I am considering buying the game but I am worried that I still will run into problems in the late game.

I think with 40 hours in game you are at a point where these problems would have started to show up in older versions.

Do you notice some decrease in performance?