Anyone still think early game is just fine?

[csaba]

Even if they fix this issue by pirate M ships actually squatting you if you bug them you still have the free ships floating about, one of which is a destroyer.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game, maybe a small station or mining fleet that get gives you passive income and rep while you go around and decided where to proceed. In XR you could board a trade ship 5 minutes into the game that has 100 of millions worth of cargo inside it, between zones so patrols wont even bug you. In X3 the stockmarket just gives you infinite money as well. Here you can dry up the SCA Minotaurs and Behemoths quite fast leaving you with 20-30 mill tops at which point hunting down the newly built ones takes more time than their worth.

[radcapricorn]

Like X3 and XR, in X4 you can progress amazingly quickly if you know what you are doing. The issue and challenge is learning what to do, which itself can take many days of play time.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

This should be solved with advanced gamestarts, not broken cheesy game mechanics.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game...

There are already enough cheesy "boosts" to income.

[teleportationwars]

Like X3 and XR, in X4 you can progress amazingly quickly if you know what you are doing. The issue and challenge is learning what to do, which itself can take many days of play time.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

This should be solved with advanced gamestarts, not broken cheesy game mechanics.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game...

There are already enough cheesy "boosts" to income.

How would you like it to work?

[Imperial Good]

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

If you think making pirate M ships bail with the starting S ship is an issue. You clearly have much to learn about X4.

You can literally take your starting ship to a war zone and ask any S and M ship that meets the bail requirements to surrender. This performs a bail roll without penalty. This way you can get any S or M ship such as a Gorgon or Nemesis, complete with most loadout intact, right from the start. Your ship does not need a single gun or turret to do this. Unlike the Minotaur Raiders which are among the worst M fight ships due to their bad flying characteristics and fewer turrets, the Nemesis is the best M fight ship and can easily be used to solo pirate destroyers with a little loadout modification.

Part of the issue you are complaining about is the result of the totally nonsense pirate logic. Minotaur Raiders are very bad in combat as a lot of ships are faster than them. If their main guns are Plasma only their 2 turrets can hit an S ship and even then those might also be Plasma. They also do not call for help from each other and even when they try to flee they cannot due to how slow they are.

[radcapricorn]

If you think making pirate M ships bail with the starting S ship is an issue. You clearly have much to learn about X4.

I know, IG, I know...

[csaba]

I did read the OP. I also said it's a balance issue when I said:

Even if they fix this issue by pirate M ships actually squatting you

Also you had a decent understanding how combat works, and you probably checked the loadout before committing to the capture.

In reality the pirate should have switched to shards as soon as it selected a small ships as it's target but alas such thing is not in the game.

There will always be quick money exploits in large complex games like X4, squatting them all is a fools errand. Just look at Skyrim there are at least a dozen ways to get infinite gold and it went through who knows how many iterations: It just works!

[999jefro]

Lucky event.
Or do you want to be artificially cockblocked, just because you want to grind 10 hours for your first corvette like in X2?

The point is that X4 has no early game whatsoever, rendering lower tier ships and equipment irrelevant. Which exacerbates X4's limited content problem.

In X2, there was an entire stage of gameplay where upgrading your ship and software mattered, which would then transition into being able to afford better and better ships, and eventually get into station building etc. If you wanted to skip "the grind", you could always pick an advanced game start, and presto.

Right now in X4, you can basically start with M ships and lower tier ships and equipment have very limited reason to exist. This is a big part of why it feels there is less variety in gameplay, since all the stages of early game and progression have been removed, and you're immediately thrown into fleet, empire and station building.

To me it is the story aspect which is really hampering X4 in its current state, the story of X2 and X3 was the early game, you would get sent out in your Disco with a clear set of objectives & progression up to a M6, this really framed the game & showed you the ropes in the best possible way, giving you a footing to explore the sandbox. I really am not a fan of the X4 ethos of just throwing you head first into the sandbox as I think it makes for a really rather dull early game experience & limits your exposure to the rich lore that the X universe has.

[RodentofDoom]

What early game. You mean that little bit of time before the infinite money machine "wharf" gets built? Nerf Wharf income, then nerf it again because one nerf isn't enough for this most overpowered thing in any X game ever. I thought the stock exchange in X3 was bad for taking out all the work.

I've done 2 wharf tests so far

All ANT/ARG S/M ship & equipment blueprints unlocked
It's okay money, but it's nowhere nearly as lucrative as the HOP/PAR alternative

The money to acquire all those blueprints is really easy to get from the build us this station please missions
15m reward for a 1/6 dock, 3 bridges, 6 shields and 12 turrets … it's slightly high

Another easy way to make money is just follow an npc miner and tape down your "O key" … whilst 2 of the 3 items you'll vacuum up for no effort are illegal police scans are really infrequent in the fringe sectors where miners often travel too.
But when you're crafting caviar in 10's at a time … the occasional police scan isn't much of an issue with how easy it is to escape them after they've said "drop those wares"