Pilots skill

[Clownmug]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

[Max Bain]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

[Axeface]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

Could be a trait called Avoidance? -50% damage received for 5 star pilots (for S ships, less for detroyers). I also suggested in my wishlist thread that skilled crew could actually have events tied to their skill. Engineers shunt power to shields when they go down sometimes, instantly recharging some shield, pilots could have events where they ignore a hit that would otherwise kill them? Like the shot hits but because they are skilled they manage to make it 'glance', could be tied to a cool animation like a little jig or barrel roll.
These things could go in a new category below mods in ship details 'Crew traits'.

Edit: Thinking more about it. What if avoidance was a trait that changed depending on the type of ship the captain is in. In S ships it should give the captain a chance to entirely evade shots and in L/XL give damage reduction. M ships could be special and have a mix of Reduction and Avoidance. This would really help OOS disparity for fighters, In sector the avoidance could be coupled with a movement or a sound, sometimes they could even call out "Not this time!". Or could it even make shots that are avoided just not hit the target ship? Turn off the collision for those shots so they just pass through? (this would only work AI vs AI for obvious reasons).

S ships:- 0, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80% chance to avoid fire (implies pilot is good at evasive maneuvering)
M ships:- 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30% of both avoidance and damage reduction (Implies M ships are tough and can evade)
L/XL:- 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25% damage reduction (implies good crews and pilots are able to survive combat where bad crews cant).

Would performance of a feature like this be non-negligible?

[Clownmug]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

Could be a trait called Avoidance? -50% damage received for 5 star pilots (for S ships, less for detroyers). I also suggested in my wishlist thread that skilled crew could actually have events tied to their skill. Engineers shunt power to shields when they go down sometimes, instantly recharging some shield, pilots could have events where they ignore a hit that would otherwise kill them? Like the shot hits but because they are skilled they manage to make it 'glance', could be tied to a cool animation like a little jig or barrel roll.
These things could go in a new category below mods in ship details 'Crew traits'.

I think out of sector damage reduction would be reasonable. Could compensate for the lack of realism of L plasma turrets somehow sniping S/M ships from 10km away.

[pref]

The probability of leveling from 8 to 9 points (2 2/3* to 3*) through trading is 1*(0.32)^9 = 0.0035%. Or ~28000 trade flights on average to level up. So yes, it does look like you got extremely lucky.

Assuming a 3 minute average trade run duration, it takes ~1400 hours (on average) to level up from 2 2/3* to 3*.

My assumption is that this got changed since that number surfaced, along with seminars (last i tried before i needed 3 for a single point). With that chance i shouldn't have any, and on 3.0 release or around that i got virtually no skillups beyond 2 iirc.
Anyway noted the time i released those test guys, curious how much time it will take them to level that 1/3*. Will report back with that.

[sh1pman]

My assumption is that this got changed since that number surfaced, along with seminars (last i tried before i needed 3 for a single point). With that chance i shouldn't have any, and on 3.0 release or around that i got virtually no skillups beyond 2 iirc.
Anyway noted the time i released those test guys, curious how much time it will take them to level that 1/3*. Will report back with that.

I think those numbers are accurate for 3.20, but they might've changed it in 3.30. I haven't seen any of my traders (hundreds of ships!) leveling up to 3* in 3.20, and I played a lot back then. Moved on to other games (Rimworld and Factorio) probably until 4.0 and Terran expansion, so can't speak about the latest version.

[pref]

3* is mandatory for advanced auto mining for example. Two autominers operating in a sector will just saturate demand even to a standstill in less than 3 in game hours (even one can do it), making this whole thing senseless (especially in early game) because they will have barely make their buying price return. If they are able to trade in more sectors than one this does not happen and your initial investment turns out profits that you desperately need in early game (less than 1 game day).

I'm not saying it makes sense to lock ship commands to those seminar missions that i almost never do either. I'm saying no critical functionality is gone, and the game can be played well like this.
And that it seems to me that levelup chances increased since some recent patches. But i'll check time needed to gain the last 1/3* so i'll have some real numbers there soonish.

For this scenario you have to drop a storage module and a dock, and you will have 5* range in short time, plus you can buffer the collected stuff, trade it with npc ships, and sell with dedicated sales ships that suit sales role better then collection. So for many small buy offers you can use quick M ships and keep mining with Ls.

Nothing critical lost, and the 'official' solution is even better from management pov.
I wouldn't even have implemented any logic in the first place that allows infinite income just from a few clicks. Haven't used ATs much in X3, and i'd rather ES spends time on better logistics and station sales functionalities.

[Falcrack]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I would want to get rid of pilot skill altogether if it means we start going down that road.

[dtpsprt]

I edited my post because I realized too late that you compared 0 to 4 stars. I was more talking about 3+ stars. And I have seen the code and the values the stars effect and its not much. Formations, random behaviours and reaction times (which are very very small after 3 stars) so that the effect in combat cant be high in average. Because of the delay of about a full second for 0 star pilots this might be something else for low level pilots.

Not might, it's the whole difference and the real problem is the difficulty (or great delay if you want it) to get to 3 stars in the first place. We are not talking about perfectionists that would like all pilots to become, eventually, 5 stars.

I never let a pilot face a Xenon until he reaches 3 stars if he has the 2nd star. It has costed enough and taken time (especially building morale) to loose him on a "bad dice"... First he has to get 3 stars in piloting and at least 2 1/3 morale, then he can fight with the stakes on "even"...

[dtpsprt]

I'm not saying it makes sense to lock ship commands to those seminar missions that i almost never do either. I'm saying no critical functionality is gone, and the game can be played well like this.
And that it seems to me that levelup chances increased since some recent patches. But i'll check time needed to gain the last 1/3* so i'll have some real numbers there soonish.

For this scenario you have to drop a storage module and a dock, and you will have 5* range in short time, plus you can buffer the collected stuff, trade it with npc ships, and sell with dedicated sales ships that suit sales role better then collection. So for many small buy offers you can use quick M ships and keep mining with Ls.

Nothing critical lost, and the 'official' solution is even better from management pov.
I wouldn't even have implemented any logic in the first place that allows infinite income just from a few clicks. Haven't used ATs much in X3, and i'd rather ES spends time on better logistics and station sales functionalities.

It has marginally improved from 3.0. And most people (in the forum) just say "just make a station, the manager levels up quickly and you have your autotrading (short of)"...

Well... NO this is not the way, because you need money and a lot of searching around just to see where the resources to build the [m]damn[/b] station are. I had a playthrough that there was not even one Solar Energy station around the whole "Ring", finally found one in 18 Billion for God's shake. Total time to find it? 5 in game hours!!! that meant that I had to revisit all the other sectors to renew prices (start remember? you just have your own ship and a slow transport, if you do). Then, of course (start, remember again?), I could not hack blueprints and did not have any money to buy one or two the result was that I had to build a Solar Plant that it took some 1 day to pay back the investment (based on the scarcity of Solar Plants, which was also the idea of the AI factions that started building them at tremendous rates).

I'd strongly advise these "experts" to abandon their 400 hour games (better delete them) and try to start afresh. Then understand that the "learning curve" is exponential, so the difficulty they face is 10 times less than the difficulty of somebody with 100 hours in the game and 1000 times less than for someone with a mere 10 hour in the game (supposing he didn't quit disgusted by the tutorials, i.e. the "flight" tutorial does not tell you how to land!!!)

[Max Bain]

The tiny nuances (strafing, steering, reaction time) are not worth the investment of non-passively training pilots. The L/XL ships usually just slow boat around targets at under 200 m/s and S/M ships get instagibbed out of sector unless SETA is turned on.

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I would want to get rid of pilot skill altogether if it means we start going down that road.

Do u have any arguments against it or is it just your opinion? What's the big difference to simulate the skill in a value like hit points instead of the range he can trade or the reaction time for a maneuver? The game is a simplification of so many other things that one more shouldn't really hurt especially if the actual system is so broken.

Many other games do this so it's well known and I would say none has a worse experience system than x4 (ok that is my opinion but the many threads show me that I am not alone)

[jlehtone]

Well... NO this is not the way, because you need ...

Yes, a station requires relatively huge initial investment: blueprints, resources, ships, cash. For that you get "good ROI".

An auto-trader requires "just" a ship and "skilled" pilot. The ROI is not so great (compared to station). Getting the pilot is the topic of this thread.

Miners might be "cheaper" to get, yet more profitable than traders, so way better ROI.

A MOR[TM] (Manually Operated Remote Trader or Miner) requires only the ship. Any pilot will do. The ROI is up to your continuous herding, i.e. does not scale up much.

The question is: Are these / Must these be "balanced"? If yes, which is "off"?

If you intend to play without stations, then does it matter if stations are off the scale?


On top of those you have combat vessels that do not make much credits themselves, but can be necessary and/or fun. They are a mere cost that eatss profitss, say the Teladi.

[Falcrack]

Thats exactly what I mean.
We need something that rewards the player to have 5 star captain in his destroyer or anything else. A simple solution could be to add hull points to the ship. So a
0 star has 100% hull,
1 star 120 %
2 stars 140%
3 stars 160%
4 stars 180%
5 stars 200%

or something like that. Sure its not realistic, but its a game and we have so many other unrealstic things that I prefer gameplay over realism here.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. I would want to get rid of pilot skill altogether if it means we start going down that road.

Do u have any arguments against it or is it just your opinion? What's the big difference to simulate the skill in a value like hit points instead of the range he can trade or the reaction time for a maneuver? The game is a simplification of so many other things that one more shouldn't really hurt especially if the actual system is so broken.

Many other games do this so it's well known and I would say none has a worse experience system than x4 (ok that is my opinion but the many threads show me that I am not alone)

My reasons are that I have encountered this sort of mechanic in many other games, and I dislike it in each of them. One of my all time favorite games, Supreme Commander, had a veterency system where unit could gain veterency through kills, and I liked the game in spite of this mechanic, definitely not because of it. You could have a rampaging experimental unit killing enemies, gaining HP faster than you could kill it because of the jump in HP every time it killed enough stuff. It led to people suiciding low tier units rather than "feeding xp" to the rampaging experimental.

If you want to have pilot skill tied to increased weapons accuracy, that would be okay IMO. But having a skilled pilot should not magically make the hull any more sturdy than if a noob pilot is in command.

[pref]

Well... NO this is not the way, because you need money and a lot of searching around just to see where the resources to build the damn station are.

Yes, and i support having to discover the market and think about an investment. And having to care for that investment later on vs just making cash without a second thought.
Right here it comes out why stations aren't such a fire-and-forget cashcows as ATs are.

If ES decided to lock ATs behind high requirements and make them as effective as AI in tatertrader was when i last tried, then that's fine for me. Then they can earn a mill in a single run so they do what they are supposed to do, and not spoil game start by throwing even more cash at the player.
And there had been 10fold cries about the game being too easy compared to this thing with pilot skills.

[Max Bain]

My reasons are that I have encountered this sort of mechanic in many other games, and I dislike it in each of them. One of my all time favorite games, Supreme Commander, had a veterency system where unit could gain veterency through kills, and I liked the game in spite of this mechanic, definitely not because of it. You could have a rampaging experimental unit killing enemies, gaining HP faster than you could kill it because of the jump in HP every time it killed enough stuff. It led to people suiciding low tier units rather than "feeding xp" to the rampaging experimental.

If you want to have pilot skill tied to increased weapons accuracy, that would be okay IMO. But having a skilled pilot should not magically make the hull any more sturdy than if a noob pilot is in command.

Hey thats one of my favorite games too .
And now I do understand your point, but X4 could implement it way better. For example you wouldnt instant get the hit points but only increase the maximum possible amount, so you first have to repair the ship to make the skill count (wait for auto repair or dock).

You cant connect skill with accuracy of weapons because this will make weapons either too good or bad. Accuracy is a very important individual value for weapons if you want to keep a rock paper scissor weapon system with anti fighter weapons and stuff like that. It is also nearly impossible to balance the changes of a variable accuracy value. What if an artillery will become so accurate that it works as a anti fighter weapon? Or what if a fighter with zero stars cant hit anything because of the low accuracy of his gun?
The skill needs to effect a very simple value like Hit Points or maybe damage.

For me if a ship takes more damage it means something like in Star Trek where the crew can work better on damage control and therefore can withstand more damage than if you have total noobs on your ship.

Could be a trait called Avoidance? -50% damage received for 5 star pilots (for S ships, less for detroyers). I also suggested in my wishlist thread that skilled crew could actually have events tied to their skill. Engineers shunt power to shields when they go down sometimes, instantly recharging some shield, pilots could have events where they ignore a hit that would otherwise kill them? Like the shot hits but because they are skilled they manage to make it 'glance', could be tied to a cool animation like a little jig or barrel roll.
These things could go in a new category below mods in ship details 'Crew traits'.

Edit: Thinking more about it. What if avoidance was a trait that changed depending on the type of ship the captain is in. In S ships it should give the captain a chance to entirely evade shots and in L/XL give damage reduction. M ships could be special and have a mix of Reduction and Avoidance. This would really help OOS disparity for fighters, In sector the avoidance could be coupled with a movement or a sound, sometimes they could even call out "Not this time!". Or could it even make shots that are avoided just not hit the target ship? Turn off the collision for those shots so they just pass through? (this would only work AI vs AI for obvious reasons).

S ships:- 0, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80% chance to avoid fire (implies pilot is good at evasive maneuvering)
M ships:- 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30% of both avoidance and damage reduction (Implies M ships are tough and can evade)
L/XL:- 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25% damage reduction (implies good crews and pilots are able to survive combat where bad crews cant).

Would performance of a feature like this be non-negligible?

I like the first part with damage reduction, but if a shot hits a target it should always take damage. It would feel not good other way.

[pittlebelge]

I like the idea if having special abilities linked to the skill of a crew. But whatever system is put in place, it needs to be explained clearly to the player in the actual game. The thing that bug me the most with the present system is how little information is accessible outside of these forums.

Effects of stars ? The game says it's good to have more, but never how good. I don't even have an in-game explanation of the orders that are unlocked by higher stars captain. For example, as a noob, it's hard to guess the exact behavior that a "Distribute wares" order will entail.

How to get the stars ? That is even more cryptic, I had to see a post here (I don't remember who posted it, sorry) to understand that certain actions would simply never level my captains up to three stars.

I know that it's par for the course, I had to go through hours of youtube tutorial to get started in X3, but I think it's fair to expect improvement.

I love this game, it tries things that no others even dare, but we are still at the 600 grit polish.

[Raevyan]

Well... NO this is not the way, because you need ...

Yes, a station requires relatively huge initial investment: blueprints, resources, ships, cash. For that you get "good ROI".

Well to be fair, that initial investment does not need to be a 500m station. You can get started simply by building a 3M6S dock and storage. That does not even cost a million credits. You do not need to assign a ship to stations at all and they would still run fine (you really only need them if you have bigger stations or for wharfs because of consumption/production rates). In fact you can also get away with quite big stations without having to assign ships. If the stations need mineable resources, it’s probably best to assign some miners.

So the initial investment to get a station up and running, fully automated, is barely above of a ships cost with some equipment. You do not need To buy any blueprints (the game gives you some) to get a station running. With the trade station example, all you need is docks, storage and some thinking about the wares you add and the prices (which you would also do if you set up an auto trader). The game also gives you a 10M freebee ready to collect within about 15min.

Also there is only little difference between an auto trader and such a trade stations. Yes the trade station takes the extra building time (which is automated) and a little bit more credits to assign at least a ship. It has the same range limitations like the auto trader and it has a static position and cannot move to another location. Besides that, fully automated and does exactly what an auto trader would do without any skill requirements. The manager will also level up in no time to get the full 5 gates range.

[dtpsprt]

Well to be fair, that initial investment does not need to be a 500m station. You can get started simply by building a 3M6S dock and storage. That does not even cost a million credits. You do not need to assign a ship to stations at all and they would still run fine (you really only need them if you have bigger stations or for wharfs because of consumption/production rates). In fact you can also get away with quite big stations without having to assign ships. If the stations need mineable resources, it’s probably best to assign some miners.

I'm not talking about 500 mil. The 3M6S Dock you say has a blueprint of 600+K (you start with 5K and 1M5S right? Or maybe 10K if you get the incest monkey/Val Seldon start), then some 1 mil to build it with only a 25K container storage. The only production you get "for free" is Energy which sells dirt cheap, and it has a "price tag" of some 400K to build it (too much Claytronics needed).

So the initial investment to get a station up and running, fully automated, is barely above of a ships cost with some equipment. You do not need To buy any blueprints (the game gives you some) to get a station running. With the trade station example, all you need is docks, storage and some thinking about the wares you add and the prices (which you would also do if you set up an auto trader). The game also gives you a 10M freebee ready to collect within about 15min.

Again, as above, what blueprints? What kind of station are you going to build with these? OK, you can put 4-5 small container storages to reach 100K storage space to what use? You still need to buy an M Transport to put stuff inside, you still need money to buy resources to build it, money to buy the stuff you'll be selling, even money to buy the plot!!! When are you going to get all these back?

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet? And I don't want to hear about crystal mining, that even the crystal mining fanatics are complaining that it has been nerfed OK? Unless you can capture an SCA Behemoth all by yourself repair it and sell it to the shipyard!!!

Also there is only little difference between an auto trader and such a trade stations. Yes the trade station takes the extra building time (which is automated) and a little bit more credits to assign at least a ship. It has the same range limitations like the auto trader and it has a static position and cannot move to another location. Besides that, fully automated and does exactly what an auto trader would do without any skill requirements. The manager will also level up in no time to get the full 5 gates range.

As opposed to just the ship: No time wasting to gather build materials and for the Builder to build, then gather goods and then go and sell right? Putting the initial millions (at best 2) aside we are talking real life hours of gameplay.

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

[EGO_Aut]

Maybe you can use your HQ, take some cheap S fighter with small cargo and buy/sell energy cells to skill pilots

[jlehtone]

I ... I was thinking of "a factory". Not a "trade depot". Yes, minimal depot is far easier to build than a factory. However, a depot with no ships sounds quite limited, both in margin and throughput.

Next, enlighten the noobie here (just 3000 hours in game) WHERE is that 10 M freebie that he hasn't found out yet?

Please DO NOT mislead people, or troll...

It did not look like trolling. It is rather natural to assume that every "noobie" reads through the Spoilers Forum first "to get going", particularly when every place points out the shape of the learning curve of these games.

There is of course a minority that like "the hard way", avoid spoilers more than covid-19, and ignore all freebies.