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Kazansky22
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Noob question

Post by Kazansky22 » Mon, 25. Dec 17, 05:12

Hello guys, I just picked up X Rebirth. I had initially got it at launch but I ended up returning it because well... I couldn't play it due to gameplay issues and framerate issues but that aside I picked it up yesterday and it seems to be working great now!

I end up getting a nice little trading fleet together however have a problem with my trading capital ships getting destroyed quite often.

The only people who don't like me are the syndicate guys I think. What I was doing was for each trading ship I had I would assign a Large capital ship to the trading ship captain to serve as an escort. But they never seem to be in a position to help the trading ships whenever they get attacked by anything. I was wondering if I am doing it the wrong way, or is there a better way to have ships escort your trading ships?

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Re: Noob question

Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 25. Dec 17, 07:19

Kazansky22 wrote:Hello guys, I just picked up X Rebirth. I had initially got it at launch but I ended up returning it because well... I couldn't play it due to gameplay issues and framerate issues but that aside I picked it up yesterday and it seems to be working great now!

I end up getting a nice little trading fleet together however have a problem with my trading capital ships getting destroyed quite often.

The only people who don't like me are the syndicate guys I think. What I was doing was for each trading ship I had I would assign a Large capital ship to the trading ship captain to serve as an escort. But they never seem to be in a position to help the trading ships whenever they get attacked by anything. I was wondering if I am doing it the wrong way, or is there a better way to have ships escort your trading ships?
Hi,

Escorts are ... superfluous.

You need to check three things:

1) Is your freighter outfitted with all available upgrades?

2) Do you have *good* Defence officer? That means 5 stars in Fighting.

3) and in case your ship gets damaged: Do you have *good* Technician? That means 5 stars in Technics.

To obtain good NPCs you can make a two-stage-smalltalk with another NPC and ask him for the best applicant. Check first that the zone has a number of applicants for the job available.

To improve an NPCs skills you can use virtual lessons. You can get them via another two-stage-smalltalk or ba finding respective lockboxes in station geometry.

cu
Rainer

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Mon, 25. Dec 17, 08:31

As Rainer said, unfortunately escorts are pretty much useless (in the case of M-size freighters, having fighters escorting them is slightly useful, but they usually still get there too late.) In fact, escorts might even be counterproductive in rare situations: on those rare occasions that the escort is in the same place as its ward (for example, during jumpdrive cooldown at a jump beacon), the escorts might engage and thus draw the attention of ships that that would otherwise ignore your freighter (this doesn't apply to pirates, though, which are your main problem, and only within a certain range of "hostile" relations.)
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hisazul
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Post by hisazul » Wed, 27. Dec 17, 15:31

Problem is that your escorts can't keep up. So they are barely ever in the same zone. Escorts work much better when the entire group is restricted to one zone or it's all manually controlled.

Only time escorts work for traders tho... is when those traders are spawned as part of mission with their escorts and they belong to ai.

One small exception would be the unjumping medium traders/miners escorted by fighters. But in all honesty they are just way too fragile to actually survive anything and bloated numbers of higher difficulties means instant death. Hell some of the patches had fighter swarms spawn in such absurd numbers that I saw Arawn go 100 to 0 in less then a second not that bad last I played but you still see fighter balls of death.

Since you said capital ships your problem sounds more like a simply bad location of a homebase. There are places where you should NEVER build anything EVER. Yeah home of damn light... I'm looking right at you and your effin enemy station in only zone that has resource in entire damn sector so all the miners and traders pass right through it.

Always be aware of permanent enemy stations. Also be aware of just how pissed off factions are... it takes really REALLY low reputation for trade ships to get attacked but still... After plot PMC is sort of draining it's own reputation with player due to their ships being killed off in self defense. Also Teladi space requires plainly REALLY well defended trading ships. Teladi attack traders regardless of your reputation as long as ship is classified as trade. You either use Marauder Phoenixes for all your trading and moving stuff around or open your wallet really wide and use nothing but Lyramekrons which just drains teladi rep. Anyway it's a crappy place to build. Some places also see way too much fighting... like that cool looking mining station in HoL which always has about a few dozen enemies shooting it. Also be away of places with constant enemy jumping. If you have a station next to a place where enemy capitals jump through every 2 minutes... anything homebased to that stations is going to be in constant danger.

I personally believe in XR it's a mistake to build anything in standard zones. Build in unknown space simply because you don't have to deal with endless spawns and can build up to 6 stations in a single zone once it is claimed and if your entire empire in that system is sitting in unknown space next to each other... all inter station trade is offgrid... and the only time things get attacked is when you trade or mine back in the settled zones.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Wed, 27. Dec 17, 16:00

hisazul wrote: One small exception would be the unjumping medium traders/miners escorted by fighters. But in all honesty they are just way too fragile to actually survive anything and bloated numbers of higher difficulties means instant death.
Sorry, but this is simply not true - it hasn't been since 4.0 or perhaps earlier. In my most recent games, I relied far more on M-sized freighters and miners than capital sized ones, with the added benefit that development can start ramping up earlier because it's more granular. When threatened, M-freighters/miners boost away in an attempt (often successful) to escape,
hisazul wrote: I personally believe in XR it's a mistake to build anything in standard zones.
Again, I must disagree, but not as vehemently this time :D Matching one's stations to the correct NPC stations allows for some trade to take place almost continuously via the mass-traffic. I find it's better to place my station in same zone as their customers, rather than placing next to suppliers - station-attached freighters prioritise buying/fetching, so they will do that first in any case - being in the same zone as one's customers means somewhat more consistent sales. If one chooses from the offered build locations with a view to security, one needn't fear fighter squads - sometimes a NPC station can be near enough to provide at least partial cover; also, one can build such as to minimise in/outbound transit times, or to be nearer or farther from local action, as one desires (for example, one can build a station such that it enhances overall local security, perhaps by exerting its influence over the local jump beacon, which is a favourite way for me to build.)


BTW and FYI: I only play on the highest difficulty level, so I'm facing the same (often absurdly large, to be sure!) mobs. :)
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Post by hisazul » Thu, 28. Dec 17, 19:59

As with all things in X universe results may vary. Bwahahaha

My last game I was at the point where I had a few hundred stations in total, think it was past 300 :roll:. Large swaths of that were placed in default zones. Believe me... the logistical nightmare that those stations put me through is the reason why I loved my stations in UZs. Each station I had that needed raw mats, eventually, had their own 2 miners for each resource, perhaps not the most popular miners but I still love Onils. Anyway. Point is, UZ stations never needed replacements... HoL was NIGHTMARE. I was shoving in 50 intrepid mk2 in every single mining ship, I was using drones in thousands... personal experience was that it helped. Poor little buggers that couldn't even fart some drones out to cover their rear while they ran? Died 5 minutes after leaving momma's safety.

Don't even try blame my woes on my lack of security measures. I had at the very LEAST one Fulmekron assigned to every single one of my stations, well... eventually I did... when my wallet was oozing more money then I could practically spend. I had fleets designed to break npc stations, big enough that they could unscrew everything that was possible from that damn distillery in HoL in minutes. Then there was that fleeing mechanic added... and that fleet was sort of dumped somewhere and never used again but even before that. I made damn sure to keep enemy stations broken so my passing ships almost never had issues with stations. It was still bad. I started with large numbers of medium traders. Yes yes I did start small :P towards the end I still repeatedly tried to use smaller traders, it was getting worse and worse with time sure as hell not better and better.

In a controlled environment, where you oversee everything and more often then not, kind of doing your own things around your assets small traders/miners are great... not so great when you have hundreds or in case of lunatics, thousands of ships to oversee, make sure they are doing what they are supposed to, that they are outfitted, deal with mess in person, deal with mess remotely... and juggle weapons and equipment transportation or some other things that just need to be handled manually.

The amount of things I had to replaced in UZ was.... downright laughable in comparison. HoL needed replacements on the best of days every 1-2 hours... on bad days I needed dozens of replacements in the span of few minutes, just piling up on me. And when you are "bombarded" 8) with so many "credit transfer" messages... keeping track of anything required CONSTANT review of actual logs, oh so much log viewing... :spam: the amount of times things were overlooked just due to sheer walls of repeated text was also not small. Oh and you are not told who that Onil that was destroyed at X location belonged or what he was doing or anything else for that matter that has some sort of value... I had to check through ALL of my stations to find out... :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: so make sure you re-name EVERYTHING in a way that makes tracking things not an exercise in clicking. Don't be me and forget to do it on regular basis.

If Lyramekrons didn't exist, I just don't think I would have ever gone as far as I did. Teladi space was the single exception to Lyramekron happy train.

Experience may vary :lol:
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Thu, 28. Dec 17, 20:34

hisazul wrote:As with all things in X universe results may vary
Truer words were never spoken! :D

An entertaining read, thank you. Your patience is far greater than mine, clearly - by the time I finish the plot (which I streeeeeeeeetch out as much as possible!), that's when my interest levels start declining. At most, I get to around 50ish stations (I think I had around 70~80 once, but I don't know what I was thinking! heheheh), I'm done with that playthrough, utterly bored by the lack of meaningful (by my definition) end-game content and goals.

As for naming my ships to reflect the stations they are assigned to - absolute must! Been doing that since X2... (in X3TC/AP I regularly reach development levels similar, or at the very least approaching, what you describe, before the lack of challenges overpowers me - ha! There's comedy for you: the lack of challenge is the one challenge I can't seem to overcome :D )

Incidentally, I do agree with you that (especially if you are developing a totally or at least highly self-contained economy) placing stations in UZs has the advantage of creating functional and interconnected station groupings (very well suited to M-freighters, too, if/when the conveyor-belt-driven transportation wigs out), due to the number of build locations. Also, established sectors are quickly filled up in any case... And yet I still build there first (I build inclusive economies that interact heavily with NPC stations - by the time that potential is saturated, I generally needn't worry, as it's time for the next playthrough - usually of an earlier title, to boot.)

hisazul wrote:Experience may vary :lol:
All too true :) One of the best aspects of the sub-genre.
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Post by hisazul » Thu, 28. Dec 17, 20:50

Oh you got me with UZ grouping. Kind of have to take that one. When you have 7 stations sitting next to each other in a single zone with 0 threat... I'll give you that one.

And yeah... besides building as far as the eye can see there isn't much to do in XR. In X3 at least you had real xenon territory. Stations could be destroyed. Zones or in X3s case sectors changed their entire structure with time. In XR npcs assets are static, nothing gets destroyed... and xenon space was underwhelming. Best moments were exclusive to taking a whole bunch of combat missions that deal with one zone and having a massive brawl.

Well... it was their first run on new engine. I personally bought it with expectations that I wasn't even going to play, yet I did and I enjoyed it far more then I did XBtF. So there is that... building for me personally is what I enjoyed in XR. The process, the look, the logistics... even looking for personnel(for stations at least), the ability to dock, visit the local bar(needs stuff to do in first person tbh... at least a working arcade machine god damnit) it all kind of gave me something to do. Well boarding for all it's faults and some not so logical or believable mechanics(cargo lifters contributing to defense? how does that work? they got limbs and start smacking marines?) was something I did a LOT unlike in X3... where one thing I hated with passion was boarding or to be precise the random nature of it, I believe I still have a save where one of my marines, retired since I didn't want to lose him at that point, had 40ish boarding attempts... 1 success :oops: the level of fail of that marine was... not something you can repeat easily but he survived dozens of boardings that went sideways which is equally impressive or maybe that was my ability to save that incompetent asshole every single damn time.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Thu, 28. Dec 17, 22:00

hisazul wrote:-a bunch of truths- ... and xenon space was underwhelming.
Indeed (though Maelstrom at least runs pretty much better than any other system, in terms of smoothness.) I really wish one could properly interact with the fledgling settlement (that massive grain farming uberstation) - I mean, one can certainly integrate it into a full-house personal production economy, but it would be nice to, by doing so, enable a joint beachhead to blossom there, with an NPC shipyard to buy up production and provide the player with ships-for-sale, or at least allow the player to set up a shipyard there.

Well... it was their first run on new engine. I personally bought it with expectations that I wasn't even going to play, yet I did and I enjoyed it
hisazul wrote:... building for me personally is what I enjoyed in XR. The process, the look, the logistics... even looking for personnel(for stations at least), the ability to dock, visit the local bar(needs stuff to do in first person tbh... at least a working arcade machine god damnit) it all kind of gave me something to do.[.quote]
Ditto. In fact, having recently gone back for another spin of X2, I was reminded of something I'd forgotten: the station building animation in that game depicts a "scaffolded" station being assembled (well, worked at, really) by drones. To me, the gradual building does make a lot more sense (and is more immersive) than the previous stations that inflate like car air-bags. :D

hisazul wrote:... one of my marines, retired since I didn't want to lose him at that point, had 40ish boarding attempts... 1 success :oops: the level of fail of that marine was... not something you can repeat easily but he survived dozens of boardings that went sideways which is equally impressive or maybe that was my ability to save that incompetent asshole every single damn time.
:rofl:
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Post by RainerPrem » Fri, 29. Dec 17, 05:21

hisazul wrote:As with all things in X universe results may vary. Bwahahaha

... HoL was NIGHTMARE.
... that damn distillery in HoL
Hi,

are you sure you're speaking about Home of Light? The only "damn distillery" I know is in Omicron Lyrae/Eclipse Clouds/Murky Skies.

cu
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hisazul
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Post by hisazul » Fri, 29. Dec 17, 17:28

Ops. Yeah that one. Change all my hate for HoL to OL. Pardon that one. Been a while... been thinking about giving it another spin. Assuming capitals don't turn stupid as soon as their shield gets scratched.

HoL is the circle one with funky bus stations and zeplings. Hm... I don't remember anything noteworthy about HoL except that other place with Kha'ak and needles of doom/pingpong. Oh wait... I remember! You get a xenon M miner! I did actually use that thing, mostly due to novelty sake. Speaking of xenon... mayhaps I should try a vanilla xenon playthrough, assuming ego forgot and never fixed xenon giving missions.

Found my XR screenshots - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =441705424 needs to be a real start imo.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Fri, 29. Dec 17, 22:09

hisazul wrote: I don't remember anything noteworthy about HoL except ...
The Home of Light system, upon release in 4.0, was plagued by the fact that station-assigned M-freighters/miners couldn't be used, because they'd invariably end up wandering off that Northern path of doom into Xenon territory, almost never to return (the few that did... I wish they could have told me their stories :D ) However, this was fixed in a subsequent patch (4.10, iIrc), and since then that system is a pleasure to develop in early using M-freighters/miners because of that ring-road topology (though it's perhaps better, initially, not to explore potential suppliers/customers in the jump beacon zones, which are away from the main road, and thus incur delays to the M-ships' turnaround.)
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Post by hisazul » Fri, 29. Dec 17, 23:02

Ah right I remember there was talk about poor pathfinding into xenon area. Well... I didn't use anything short of Lyramekrons soo I know why I didn't remember anything about it. Heh just reinforces my point. Too fragile and too and get lost easily.

Anyhoo we derailed this topic a fair bit at this point. Escorts don't work well outside of single zone patrol routines and they most certainly don't work as trader escorts.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Sat, 30. Dec 17, 07:25

RAVEN.myst wrote:
hisazul wrote: I don't remember anything noteworthy about HoL except ...
The Home of Light system, upon release in 4.0, was plagued by the fact that station-assigned M-freighters/miners couldn't be used, because they'd invariably end up wandering off that Northern path of doom into Xenon territory, almost never to return (the few that did... I wish they could have told me their stories :D ) However, this was fixed in a subsequent patch (4.10, iIrc), and since then that system is a pleasure to develop in early using M-freighters/miners because of that ring-road topology (though it's perhaps better, initially, not to explore potential suppliers/customers in the jump beacon zones, which are away from the main road, and thus incur delays to the M-ships' turnaround.)
Hi,

building OL-Licensed Distilleries in HoL is a real cash cow. You don't even need ships to sell the booze. They buy it fresh from the tap.

cu
Rainer

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sat, 30. Dec 17, 09:56

RainerPrem wrote:
RAVEN.myst wrote:
hisazul wrote: I don't remember anything noteworthy about HoL except ...
The Home of Light system, upon release in 4.0, was plagued by the fact that station-assigned M-freighters/miners couldn't be used, because they'd invariably end up wandering off that Northern path of doom into Xenon territory, almost never to return (the few that did... I wish they could have told me their stories :D ) However, this was fixed in a subsequent patch (4.10, iIrc), and since then that system is a pleasure to develop in early using M-freighters/miners because of that ring-road topology (though it's perhaps better, initially, not to explore potential suppliers/customers in the jump beacon zones, which are away from the main road, and thus incur delays to the M-ships' turnaround.)
building OL-Licensed Distilleries in HoL is a real cash cow. You don't even need ships to sell the booze. They buy it fresh from the tap.
Yes, my HoL early game is to do precisely that (except that I don't leave the system in the early game, so I build a Staples Farmery instead - fewer distilleries, but the food also sells), and Med Dispensaries - the latter tend to require export ships (I found this to be true in Albion and OL, too) - I suspect that the factions needing these are treated as not having the transport license, providing the player with a very lucrative early-game niche market opportunity. In fact, I find myself moving more hooch and pills than anything else while ad hoc trading to build capital for my first station (also true in Albion and, I think, OL.)

There is, however, quite a big advantage to shipping out the whiskey oneself once a couple of freighters can be afforded (if sailing that close to the financial wind) - there's always max-price buy orders out there that can be satisfied, so the profit is better (though I haven't tested to see just how high a price they are willing to pay when coming to shop themselves, as I always have a couple of size-M containerships ready for my station by the time it's built, as I use them before that for ad hoc trading.)
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ajime
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Post by ajime » Sat, 30. Dec 17, 13:13

Quick Q. Is there a ship xyz coordinate indicator or maybe a mod for it?

hisazul
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Post by hisazul » Sun, 31. Dec 17, 07:19

Not in vanilla, game. Mod certainly can have that function, which ones do I do not know, hell something like that can be pulled from save file if all else fails or from memory. Not sure why want it tho.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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Post by ajime » Mon, 1. Jan 18, 08:37

hisazul wrote:Not in vanilla, game. Mod certainly can have that function, which ones do I do not know, hell something like that can be pulled from save file if all else fails or from memory. Not sure why want it tho.
im trying to find certain zones noted in FO on rogueys site but still failing atm :(

hisazul
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Post by hisazul » Mon, 1. Jan 18, 19:42

ajime wrote:
hisazul wrote:Not in vanilla, game. Mod certainly can have that function, which ones do I do not know, hell something like that can be pulled from save file if all else fails or from memory. Not sure why want it tho.
im trying to find certain zones noted in FO on rogueys site but still failing atm :(
Ahhh. I can see that one... had my own issues finding some :P Some of them were pretty damn hard to find, try fishing for missions that's what I did for at least one I could never find on my own it was way below eclipse or something. Zones in FO can be tricky to spot due to distance, hazard effects and lack of stations or I guess clusters of massive stations and lack of highways :twisted: Personally tho, I found that part to be fairly charming.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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