Mission rewards and why they are not worth it vs Miners and why they are op

[IRaven]

Missions do pay out quite well, if you do the ones, that are Hard.

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I always do the Assemble Fleet and Build Military Base Missions for ARG (dont have 20 Rep with PAR or HOP yet)
Assemble Fleet you practically buy Ships for ~25-35 Mil. Credits and deliver them. After that you will be rewarded with 50 Mil. Credits.
That can be done in like 20 Minutes, so 60 Mil. Credits an hour. (As long as you keep the Shipyard supplied with ressources and the prices dont rise too high)

Military Base is like 1.5 Mil Credits building costs vs. 6 Mil Credits payout. Only downsize is the long construction time, so you can only do that every 1 - 1.5 hours.

So if your missions dont pay out enough you are doing the wrong ones

[Lander1979]

No nerf plz god no. If something performs badly what on Earth makes you think Nerfing everything else to make it just as bad is the answer? If you want the game to be harder go tie one hand behind your back or something... Besides, mining earns a pittance compared to Auto-Traders.

[LameFox]

I don't think missions and miners should be seen as something that competes with each other in this way. It's likely balanced around the fact you can and will be having both occur at once.

Also miners are kind of critical to the game economy. If there was to be any nerf I'd rather it to the credit value of the minerals than the function of the ships...

[TonyEvans]

Here's the thing -

Supply and Demand

YES, you can eventually have a bunch miners that can, at game start, bring you a hundred mill an hour or something. But, more they mine and sell, the higher the supply and the lower the damage. Mining becomes less profitable. Quickly. It doesn't actually take much to fill up most stations to where they just don't need to buy anymore.
I did something the same with Energy Cells. When I first started EVERY station I ran into was out or low on ECs. So, naturally, I built an incredibly profitable Solar cell farm. I had to build 4 more docks (6s 3m) just to keep up with the docking requests. After about 3 hours... ships stopped showing up. I literally supplied myself into no income again.Fortunately I did see that coming so I used a lot of that income to see what else was short in the galaxy.

I think that game's sitting at about 8bill credits, mostly from a single shipyard and wharf. Which are, in my opinion, the best end-game source of Credits. That said, I also have nothing left to "buy" as anything I want I can just source and build myself.

[NightmareNight91]

There is no sense of accomplishment when I buy a larger ship, money pours in way to fast even without miners or traders. Seems like every ship bails out way 2 easy now. Atleast in X3 i had to work for things.

[dannyxx30]

There is no sense of accomplishment when I buy a larger ship, money pours in way to fast even without miners or traders. Seems like every ship bails out way 2 easy now. Atleast in X3 i had to work for things.

Yep with the bailing, I feel like the bailing rates with traders and miners is spot on, but military/combat ships bail far too easy; the majority of them should be fighting to the death.

Whenever I fight a war with the HOP for example, fighting against their combat ships, I can easily build up a squadron of their ships in just a couple of battles, I would capture a few nemesis, a couple of Gorgons and a couple of Ares (the ships I specifically target for capture).

[humility925]

I don't believe in nerf it, because it's just ruin game for some people, better off make other style improve rather than nerf it. Something that many or lot of company game need to learn, they are too forced on nerf this, nerf that to point of gameplay is no longer fun and no longer enjoy.

[CaptainRAVE]

I just started a new game with X4 and Split vendetta. I like that they added alot of new missions. I am now 2:50 hours in game, so its kinda a fresh start. I did half an hour of crystal mining and bought me 2 M miners.

These 2 miners which are only mining silicon and not nvidium which would be more profitable give me about 50k credits each 15 minutes.

I now have 8 miners working for me and a steady income of 300.000 credits ever 10 minutes. Thats 1.800.000 per hour.
Now most missions that are offered to me give me a reward of 30-400k where 400k missions are more the exceptions and missions around 100k are more common.

As you see, even now after just 3 hours all these missions are not worth it to be played. Sure, if I want some action or if I am too bored watching my credits grow, it might be fun to do some misions, but my point is that missions are way to less profitable or miners are way too good.

I would go and say that miners are too profitable because after 3 hours you shouldnt be able to watch your income growing so fast.

After 3 more hours I am pretty sure that my income will be several millions an hour while doing nothing then just buying more miners.

I would suggest to lower the capacity/effectiveness of M and S sized miners a lot to make missions not only fun, but also a viable source of income compared to other very easy solutions like auto mining.
Because of the cheap miner price of around 450k, they are no brainers and S mners can be completely skipped in any situation.

What do you think?

Hell no, nerf miners and I’m out for good. Missions are dull and there is no other way to make money.

[NightmareNight91]

This game literally drowns you in money...

[grapedog]

Considering you need multiple billions to get all the blueprints for being able to build your own ships, making a few mill an hour is pretty miniscule.

The beauty of the X series is different people can win the game in different ways. I enjoy setting up huge trading empires, and spend a lot of time actively defending other factions spaces from kha'ak and xenon. I'll never try and take over the map, that would just bore me... but others do what to do that.

You also cheaply farmed crystals to get your first mining ships. Instead, do missions for the small payouts first, then buy your miners that way... and you'll probably feel a lot better about the time it takes to start getting a trickle of cash.... and yes, i consider millions an hour a trickle.

I am about 500hrs into my game, that started off at 1.0... still enjoying my empire. But to each their own.

[Drakke]

Don't nerf miners. Just make missions better. X4 doesn't have the best mission mission design.

[Imperial Good]

The issue is that missions do not scale very well. At the start 50k is nice as you want to get miners going. But when your miners are brining in 10-20M per hour automatically without you having to lift a finger, suddenly the 500k from a convoluted and repetitive mission makes no sense. Most of the missions do not even have an impact on the game particularly which makes them feel even more pointless.

I would like to see missions made to have more of an impact on the game world. For example completing a prospecting mission could cause the giver faction to build additional appropriate mineable refineries in the sectors. Fleet delivery missions would add the given fleets to the faction logic for up to 12 hours so they can be used for operations. Intelligence gathering missions encourage the faction to either attack or defend strategic targets. Many more complex missions could be created that in the long term change the universe in some small way.

[luckbox]

This game literally drowns you in money...

Pretty much this. On some days X4 just feels like a massively overcomplicated idle clicker game. The only challenges are working around the broken mechanics and being patient enough for the money to arrive.

[aard00]

Very early in the game, as soon as I realised I could make millions with miners, I stopped doing missions. I thought, what's the point of trading in this game? I enjoyed the X BTF feeling of "oh, just another 56 2 hour real time trips to that solar power plant and back and I'll be able to afford that gizmo that increases my storage space from 5 to 6!!!"

I'm doing the main quest now, in a 1500+ hour game, and I can say that at no point have I found those mission rewards either tempting or necessary beyond getting the initial pocket money together to buy my first miner.

[ezra-r]

I agree with the OP! Missions are too nerfed!!

After having dozens of miners, 100+ stations, dozens of figher/destroyer/XL fleets, I still check for missions once in a while.

Most I find are of the type "Repair satellite for a piece of nvidium crystalite..." no thanks. Missions need some love, definetly.

[jlehtone]

I'm doing the main quest now, in a 1500+ hour game, and I can say that at no point have I found those mission rewards either tempting or necessary beyond getting the initial pocket money together to buy my first miner.

High-star pilot seminars from generic missions?

[leoriq]

The issue is that missions do not scale very well.

This is not an issue, but the basis of capitalism, where the owner of tools of the trade reaps the profits as others are working for him.

[Imperial Good]

High-star pilot seminars from generic missions?

Those are needed?

This is not an issue, but the basis of capitalism, where the owner of tools of the trade reaps the profits as others are working for him.

Which is also the issue here. They should not bother offering you a satellite repair mission when you are at 30 reputation and own a huge fleet and set of factories. They should be offering you huge missions like "liberate X sector from Y faction" for hundreds of millions.

[Nort The Fragrent]

The good old days when you had to grind away, made the reward of getting your first ship built a real treat. One that you worked hard for. And thus took pride in your new ship.

This new, pour money at the player kills that first ship excitement. Now all things are thrown at the player, and you advance so flipping fast, the game has lost its challenge. It is all too fast too quick and you're a billion air in no time. The game might as well start with a couple of billion, and scrap the blue prints.
The money side of the game gives it a fake, sense of achievement. In fact there is no achievement, as it is so easy to advance. All you have to do is play for a short time and the universe is yours.

This new youth, have it all now, has killed this kind of game. Make the young struggle, make the game hard to advance. That way some one with a station has done well.

You can have a flipping shipyard in a very short time, and the game is effectively over by that time.

[leoriq]

Which is also the issue here. They should not bother offering you a satellite repair mission when you are at 30 reputation and own a huge fleet and set of factories. They should be offering you huge missions like "liberate X sector from Y faction" for hundreds of millions.

Who, do you think, are 'they', game-wise?