Skill and training Feedback

[pref]

What's boring to the pilot won't get them skills so lets delegate the boredom to the player and keep our AI excited.. cmon
I'm fine with ventures being the only source for purple weapon mods, but have it as most effective training activity.. and make trained staff a requirement for automation?
Can't say i like the general concept.

[chew-ie]

What's boring to the pilot won't get them skills so lets delegate the boredom to the player and keep our AI excited.. cmon
I'm fine with ventures being the only source for purple weapon mods, but have it as most effective training activity.. and make trained staff a requirement for automation?
Can't say i like the general concept.

Shouldn't be that bad if we are allowed to send some more ships at once - and L + XL ships as well

Not saying that there should be limitless venture modules (in this Community there _ARE_ people who would just ... overdo it ten fold ). But having 5 S/M modules and 1 L/XL module would be nice.

[Gregorovitch]

What's boring to the pilot won't get them skills so lets delegate the boredom to the player and keep our AI excited.. cmon
I'm fine with ventures being the only source for purple weapon mods, but have it as most effective training activity.. and make trained staff a requirement for automation?
Can't say i like the general concept.

Shouldn't be that bad if we are allowed to send some more ships at once - and L + XL ships as well

Not saying that there should be limitless venture modules (in this Community there _ARE_ people who would just ... overdo it ten fold ). But having 5 S/M modules and 1 L/XL module would be nice.

I was about to look at ventures as the only viable means to generate a reliable supply of 3* pilots in quantity left - I've heard that you can only send one pilot at a time on a venture. If that is true then ventures are obviously a bust.

It does look at though the game is currently unplayable as there is in fact no means at all to generate the required number of 3* pilots (or any really) automatically.

I am discounting exploration as viable 'cos I am assuming that pilots can only accumulate XP with exploration if they are actually working in unexplored territory (which obviously runs out quickly as you map the universe). If that isn't true and you can just put any number of ships on explore in an y sector and they will accumulate decent XP from it I'd like to know.

Other than that the only way to play would be with a mod that deals with this situation.

[Gavrushka]

Do pilots even level up without seminars? My auto miner and (manual) trader didn't get 1/3 of a star after several hours now. The ship crew on the other hand has gained several stars by now.

Sector miners, do, yes, but exceptionally slowly.

What is interesting is if you look at the crew, who gain morale and engineering. - The morale improvement makes them perfect candidates for captains after applying piloting seminars. - So each mining ship can produce several future captains.

I'd not realised manual trading levelled piloting skill! - I've a couple of large freighters who I instruct to do manual trades (and have been doing for 6 months) and both are still 3*, just as they were when they took the helm.

[Rimak]

I've posted on the steam discussions, but will just copy here also.

So I gave up on seminars and just added mods that solve the problem.
BUT.

I also thought about it. What I think is that the whole system with seminars is actually good.
STOP STOP, HEAR ME OUT.

So there is not that much issue with the seminars early when you are building up and micromanaging can be somewhat fun. The issues start to arise when you start to scale and grow the empire. So I think that there should be a somewhat simple solution to this.

1. Spread the ways of acquiring seminars. Not all people like to do missions so maybe bounties for different factions or trade-in for specific resources.

2. Add a PHQ module for training. Research that allows the training of staff of the docked ships. When the empire begins to grow almost no one wants to micromanage every single. However, building stuff and managing this academy would add an additional layer to the game.

3. Continuing HR department research on PHQ. It should be very expensive and for the late game so that the pilots you hire are at a specific level. Let's say it has multiple tiers of research. So that when you are a super-empire you would not worry what level your staff is.

[Gregorovitch]

I also thought about it. What I think is that the whole system with seminars is actually good.
STOP STOP, HEAR ME OUT.

So there is not that much issue with the seminars early when you are building up and micromanaging can be somewhat fun. The issues start to arise when you start to scale and grow the empire. So I think that there should be a somewhat simple solution to this.

1. Spread the ways of acquiring seminars. Not all people like to do missions so maybe bounties for different factions or trade-in for specific resources.

2. Add a PHQ module for training. Research that allows the training of staff of the docked ships. When the empire begins to grow almost no one wants to micromanage every single. However, building stuff and managing this academy would add an additional layer to the game.

3. Continuing HR department research on PHQ. It should be very expensive and for the late game so that the pilots you hire are at a specific level. Let's say it has multiple tiers of research. So that when you are a super-empire you would not worry what level your staff is.

I don't disagree with that. The issue, as you say, is scaling. We must have access to a reliable and automated source of 3* pilots once stations are being built or it is not possible to run them. It don't matter how much it costs, it just needs to be something you can plan for to put in place and get up and running ASAP.

Incidentally what mod are you using to deal with this problem?

[Gregorovitch]

I'd not realised manual trading levelled piloting skill! - I've a couple of large freighters who I instruct to do manual trades (and have been doing for 6 months) and both are still 3*, just as they were when they took the helm.

Could you clarify exactly what you mean by that, I'm somewhat confused by what seems to be a mixed message (I didn't realise manual trading leveled pilots......they are at exactly the same level they were when I started manually trading them)

[Rimak]

Incidentally what mod are you using to deal with this problem?

This one. It's simple. But it at least gets the problem out of the way.
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/422

[Gavrushka]

I'd not realised manual trading levelled piloting skill! - I've a couple of large freighters who I instruct to do manual trades (and have been doing for 6 months) and both are still 3*, just as they were when they took the helm.

Could you clarify exactly what you mean by that, I'm somewhat confused by what seems to be a mixed message (I didn't realise manual trading leveled pilots......they are at exactly the same level they were when I started manually trading them)

Of course I can.

The original poster *may* have been suggesting they had anticipated a captain aboard a ship which was trading according to player orders (manual trading) could level. - I am saying I've not seen a captain gain rank when they are only following my trade instructions (as opposed to autotrading.)

[reqw]

Do the pilots actualy get any experiance att all ?

i cant see that they have fixed the game that mutch sins releas 1y agou

[Matthew94]

Do the pilots actualy get any experiance att all ?

i cant see that they have fixed the game that mutch sins releas 1y agou

The devs repeatedly state that they do level up though it seems to be painfully slow in my opinion. I just assume it never happens as I've too many crew to deal with.

[CaptainRAVE]

This has really spoiled the game for me. Getting seminars is painfully dull and pilots skill up too slowly. Classic Egosoft alienating its player base. I love X4 and the split DLC is great, but I won’t be supporting Egosoft anymore of this is their intended direction, to turn the game into a tedious, boring grind. Why can’t I just pay to buy qualified staff when I hire them!

[reqw]

painfuly slow aye. 10 H RL trading and they havent even goten a sliver of exp . and fleet fights thats a disaster

[Big_Gun]

This has really spoiled the game for me. Getting seminars is painfully dull and pilots skill up too slowly. Classic Egosoft alienating its player base. I love X4 and the split DLC is great, but I won’t be supporting Egosoft anymore of this is their intended direction, to turn the game into a tedious, boring grind. Why can’t I just pay to buy qualified staff when I hire them!

I nearly stopped playing till I found a mod that circumvented this. Its an incredibly horrid mechanic.
I understand they want to have progression but the way they have chose to do it is not intuitive, dull, and makes no sense really. Can't hire competent personnel for really expensive ships? Come on.
I think the levels of the pilots should matter to tactics and time it takes to find trades/mineable resources. They should be able to do everything out of the gate (auto trade and what not) just not be as proficient at it imho.
Flying is flying. If my pilot is flying, at all, they should gain exp. No matter if Im ordering them to fly in a straight line. Maybe combat would make it faster.
Perhaps auto trade/mine would make it level faster in those skills since they are using their own decision making.
I dunno what the answer is. I just know that the way that it is now is not fun. At all.

[Ghatanathoa6]

Is this bugged? I've been working on a new start since the release of the expansion. No mods. 26 hours now. I have a decent fleet and stations. I have close to 30 million in net worth. I have medium and small traders, all of which I manually trade with. I have sector minors. I have scouts. And NONE have achieved a third star in anything yet....

If not bugged, then this is BROKEN. It's not fun. I think I'm done with the game.

[CaptainRAVE]

Is this bugged? I've been working on a new start since the release of the expansion. No mods. 26 hours now. I have a decent fleet and stations. I have close to 30 million in net worth. I have medium and small traders, all of which I manually trade with. I have sector minors. I have scouts. And NONE have achieved a third star in anything yet....

If not bugged, then this is BROKEN. It's not fun. I think I'm done with the game.

Same here. It’s ridiculous. Another half baked Egosoft idea implemented in a final edition patch.

[Ghatanathoa6]

Is this bugged? I've been working on a new start since the release of the expansion. No mods. 26 hours now. I have a decent fleet and stations. I have close to 30 million in net worth. I have medium and small traders, all of which I manually trade with. I have sector minors. I have scouts. And NONE have achieved a third star in anything yet....

If not bugged, then this is BROKEN. It's not fun. I think I'm done with the game.

Same here. It’s ridiculous. Another half baked Egosoft idea implemented in a final edition patch.

I was loving this game from 2.6 up through most of the beta. Hundreds of hours. I took a month off and was ready to come in and enjoy the new content....

[M@ReK]

I have watched the Q&A session on Twich and I do understand that progress is meant to be slow but it have to be VISIBLE, visible at all... now you can not even tell if this is a bug or it will take a year of real time gameplay to get one 3 star pilot... it ruined a game...

[tomchk]

Hang in there, all! Bernd and team are listening, and I think it’s not meant to take this long to gain experience.

[Max Bain]

Hang in there, all! Bernd and team are listening, and I think it’s not meant to take this long to gain experience.

The strange thing is when it comes to reputation it is the oposite.
I gain so fast reputation with stationtrading and mining that I get the rank for buying a carrier while I dont have the money for this. In the same time my pilots gained not a single star (and I guess the first star is reached way faster than the 5th)
Lets see what they will change and relax. I think we can let this thread die until next version comes out.