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

[Perkel]

I wish they would do something with weapons. Because all of them suck major ass.

 

[deuxhero]

They keep wanting to make the map bigger and presentation shinier, rather than making the combat, trade, and pathfinding algorithms smarter and gui more functional.

Idiots.

7.0 did fix a lot of combat, trade and pathfinding stuff. The most obvious (you can see it) is that turrets have more behavior options now so you can set certain target types as priority but not exclusive targets.

 

[moleman]

X4 Timelines Expansion and Update 7.00 have been released yesterday:


Just as a info for the other three people on this forum who are interested in this game.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

storyline it's shit and bug. Overall improvements are welcome with update.

 

[dbx]

Last X game I played wat X3.
Does x4 still has retarded space highways?

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

X4 half gimmic are those retard highways lol.

 

[Joggerino]

There is a mod that removes them and adjusts cruise speed to compensate I think. Worked well enough when I tried it.

 

[The Anus Of Discontent]

I recall playing back when Tires of Avarice came out, and was extremely saddened how there really wasn't much to do in the end. Nothing really mattered since the factions barely ever expanded, neither did the pirates, or the xenon. 200-300 hours into the game, I think xenon got wiped out entirely out of most sectors. There never was any kind of threat or pressure.
Trying to build an empire was pointless, barely anyone ever wanted to trade in my own space stations, and managing all of that was an expensive nightmare where barely anything ran smoothly. All that money would have been better off being invested into more traders until it seemed like I was the only one supplying stations anything. There would constantly be a total, ridiculous demand for very specific goods (I think involved in space ship or station construction) across the universe the entire playthrough, thing is there were stations producing those goods but it seemed like no one besides me ever traded them, bringing in ridiculous multi million credit profits each trip, making most other good trading pointless.
And the reward for all of that autistic work being able to afford a huge fleet and no one to fight for any reason other than to spitefully try to wipe out a faction just out of boredom.

Is 7.0 the same? I don't want to sink another 200 hours to be disappointed by a flaccid toothless simulation again. I did hear there's a new 'endgame threat' but it's just a

Spoiler

big overpowered khaak ship that meanders around.

I think those problems are not exclusive to X4, the previous X games also really lacked any kind of ultimate goal to strive towards. In that sense, Litcube's Universe and Mayhem have utterly spoiled me, the former vastly overhauls the game and adds an actual endgame in the form of exponentially growing super xenon and a corporation who's sole goal is to fuck with the player, and the latter takes the Litcube foundation and turns it into a full blown 4x grand strategy game with you establishing yourself as a separate faction. Things that X4 desperately needs.

 

[Wasteland]

I recall playing back when Tires of Avarice came out, and was extremely saddened how there really wasn't much to do in the end. Nothing really mattered since the factions barely ever expanded, neither did the pirates, or the xenon. 200-300 hours into the game, I think xenon got wiped out entirely out of most sectors. There never was any kind of threat or pressure.
Trying to build an empire was pointless, barely anyone ever wanted to trade in my own space stations, and managing all of that was an expensive nightmare where barely anything ran smoothly. All that money would have been better off being invested into more traders until it seemed like I was the only one supplying stations anything. There would constantly be a total, ridiculous demand for very specific goods (I think involved in space ship or station construction) across the universe the entire playthrough, thing is there were stations producing those goods but it seemed like no one besides me ever traded them, bringing in ridiculous multi million credit profits each trip, making most other good trading pointless.
And the reward for all of that autistic work being able to afford a huge fleet and no one to fight for any reason other than to spitefully try to wipe out a faction just out of boredom.

Is 7.0 the same? I don't want to sink another 200 hours to be disappointed by a flaccid toothless simulation again. I did hear there's a new 'endgame threat' but it's just a

Spoiler

big overpowered khaak ship that meanders around.

I think those problems are not exclusive to X4, the previous X games also really lacked any kind of ultimate goal to strive towards. In that sense, Litcube's Universe and Mayhem have utterly spoiled me, the former vastly overhauls the game and adds an actual endgame in the form of exponentially growing super xenon and a corporation who's sole goal is to fuck with the player, and the latter takes the Litcube foundation and turns it into a full blown 4x grand strategy game with you establishing yourself as a separate faction. Things that X4 desperately needs.

I've had a similar experience. In my last playthrough (circa patch 6.0), my "end game" was in building mega-shipyards all across the map, then picking winners and losers by selectively granting or cutting off access to them--e.g. if Argon started beating the Paranid, I could reverse the course of the war by reversing faction access to my facilities. That was amusing for awhile, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Based on what I've read, the new "crisis" mechanic in 7.0 is indeed inadequate. The first beta implementation of the crisis auto-triggered when the player hit 500 million credits worth of military assets, at which point huge doom fleets of Xenon/Khaak would just spawn in, as if by magic, on top of player assets. This naturally provoked complaints, so Egosoft "fixed" the system by making it opt-in: now the crisis is triggered after the player explicitly starts a research project about it. So now you still have the un-immersive magical-spawning-in behavior, AND you have the un-immersive ability to put off or prepare endlessly for the crisis before you start it. Not thrilled. I think it would have been better to increase the original 500 million trigger by a substantial multiplier. 500 million really isn't a huge amount of military assets; it's basically two tricked out Asgards, IIRC.

There are mods for X4 that might help to provide an end-game or at least a less sterile feeling universe. Unfortunately I don't have personal experience with any of them, so I can't make recommendations. Compatibility is also always a bit of a murky question so soon after a major patch. Personally I wouldn't start another play through for at least a month or two, but when I do play X4 again, I will definitely use some of the following mods, for the reasons you've described:

• DeadAirRT Scripts
  • A collection of faction/war enhancing mods that are quite well regarded. The normal versions are on Steam (here's an example). The author has mentioned that he wanted to collect them all into a package, which would then allow the player to pick and choose which features to enable/disable--hence this github version--but he's not sure how/when he'll be able to implement this system on Steam. He does say that both versions of the mods should work in 7.0 now.
  • Requires SirNuke's Mod Support APIs
• Mysterial's Faction/War Enhancer Modules
  • Also very well regarded, and I think these should be compatible with the DeadAir mods above. Apparently updated for 7.0.
• Foundations of Conquest and War
  • I've heard good things about this one, but I know very little about it. Another "faction enhancer." I don't know if it works in 7.0, or to what extent it's compatible with the other mods on this list.
• Xenon Proliferation
  • A smaller mod that simply boosts Xenon ship production by reducing their cost. No idea if it's compatible with patch 7.0.
• Xenon Hell
  • Drastically increases the number of Xenon ships and the strength of their weapons. Also adds a new game mode, in which you start with the Argon Prime system under siege. Again, no idea about patch compatibility.