Ideas to improve X4 late game

[Falcrack]

EDIT: Here is the TLDR of the following post:
Improve X4 late gameplay by limiting the amount of production modules in sectors via a finite supply of workers, with workers being essential for station operations. Terraforming can increase that worker supply.


X4, by the time you reach late game, can feel rather stale and pointless. The reason for this is because once you reach a certain critical mass in terms of stations and shipyards, there is nothing that provides sufficient resistance to your further expansion. Threats and challenges do not increase proportionally in response to your increased economic and military clout.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is the fact that X4 is so much geared towards being a sandbox. You can create an unlimited number of stations, anywhere you want, with no real restrictions. Some people love that about X4, and for a while, at the start of the game, it can be fun. But this lack of restrictions makes it suffer somewhat as a game, especially late game. It becomes boring. Any good RTS or 4X game has limits on how many factories and production capacity can be set up around a single tile/planet/solar system. These limits provide a challenge, and encourage the player to expand, but with X4, you can happily create a universe sized amount of stations and production in a single sector. Where then is the motivation to try and expand your base of operations? If there are no limitations to your expansion, where is the fun in that? I play games because I like a challenge, to have some sort of obstacle to overcome. If that barrier to my progression is gone, so is the fun.
With this in mind, I suggest something along these lines:

1. The number of production modules a single sector can support is limited by the size of the available workforce. You can build above this limit, but they won’t be able to get full workforce. This limits the amount of production modules you can spam in a single sector, and also makes some sectors more valuable in terms of putting down stations. Of course, this only works if workforce is actually needed, where right now it really isn’t (100% efficiency for 0% workforce and 125% efficiency for 100% workforce? SMH), which leads me to the next point.

2. Workforce is made much more mandatory to operate modules (modules production speed is directly proportional to the % of workforce, e.g. 10% workforce filled = 10% production module speed, 100% workforce filled = 100% production speed etc.). Since workforce is now much more necessary, the barriers to getting workforce should be lowered at bit, leading to the next point.

3. Lowered blueprint cost for habitation modules, they are super high right now. Possibly give the player access to a small habitation module from the game start, racial type depending on the species you start as.

4. Taxes that are paid to the sector owner. More reasons for the player to build in unowned sectors, or to become a sector owner themselves, rather than try to build the bulk of your empire in some other faction’s territory. Taxes are based on the number and possibly type of modules you own per sector, not the station plot size, which should be meaningless in the vastness of space.

5. Sector ownership can allow you to restrict other factions from building stations in your sectors. Or you can allow certain factions to build in your sector, but they would have to pay you taxes for the privilege of doing so. You can set the number of production modules AI are allowed to build in your sector.

6. Wages for workforce! Incidentally, this makes it so that you have to consider your stations more carefully, because it is possible that your stations could become unprofitable and lose you money if you are unwise in your choice of stations. Wages for ship crew too (getting paid mod), so you cannot build military too large without a strong economic base to support it. Adequate amount of service crew would be needed on ships to provide maintenance so they do not fall apart (see kuertee wear and tear mod).

7. If more stations are built than can be supported by the available workforce, new stations cannot attract new workforce, unless they attract workforce by offering higher wages. You can offer low wages when there is more workforce than available stations, but if there is competition for workforce such as when building stations in sectors with many factories, your operating expenses will be higher because you have to offer higher wages to attract workers. Workers migrate to the jobs that offer higher wages, possibly leaving your stations if you set your wages too low relative to others.

8. The speed at which workforce accumulates is proportional to how much higher the wages you offer compared to other job opportunities. Setting wages really high will cause them to come to your stations faster, but only slightly higher wages will give a very slow workforce growth rate. NPC stations will try to increase their wages to stay competitive with you if workforce is limited, while still trying to maintain a profit.

9. NPCs will not attempt to build more production modules in a sector than can be supported by the local population. They will leave a small amount of unemployment so that the player can build a few station modules in a sector without having to worry about unavailable workforce.

10. Terraforming worlds, and selling goods to them via orbital trade stations, can increase the size of the available workforce in a sector.


The above suggestions are related mainly to increasing the economic challenge, but there are other things to improve upon which would affect the diplomatic situation. Here are some ideas:

1. If faction A is at war with faction B, then selling goods or ships to faction B will result in decreased standing with faction A. This loss of reputation will be proportional to your net worth, so starting out, it will be a non-issue, but becomes a greater issue when you are a multi-billionaire. See the Reactive Factions mod for an example of how this works.

2. As you gain control over more sectors, other factions become increasingly hostile towards you. More valuable (highly populated) sectors will count for more in terms of damaged faction relations. If you grow too powerful and own too many sectors, you may find that all the other factions stop fighting amongst themselves and starting fighting you. See the Dynamic Wars mod for an example.

3. You can declare war directly against a faction without having to grind down your reputation. You can also repair your reputation with factions by making financial contributions. The greater your net worth, the higher the contribution that must be made to repair standing with a faction.

[MHDriver]

Interesting read but too much focus on the industrial side of the game for my taste.

[Nort The Fragrent]

A blueprint ought to have a restriction associated with it.
Say can only be used 5 times. And thats it. No more.

If you want more, you have to go get a new blueprint, but this time the price has gone up significantly. This means you need to stay friendly with the faction who has the blueprints you want !

That way you will need to be more careful where and how many modules you build.

If you have a bad rep with a faction, then they will not sell you a build plot in their sector. Why would they help an enemy. !

[LameFox]

I agree that in principle there's no late game threat in vanilla but this sounds like it would have a snowball effect where once you overcome their initial hostile reaction to expanding, they basically fall apart as your own expansion denies them space they need to produce things, even if it didn't contain any vital resource. And on a personal level I don't really like sprawl. It seems weird to have made the sectors so much bigger and then be like 'well, sprawl anyway'.

Also some of these extra fees would really suck if you don't want to play industry. Basically saying you need to be generating an income all the time to have a functional ship or your PHQ which you still can't get out of empire space in vanilla yet whether you want to pay taxes for it or not.

I will say though that some sort of civilian economy would be nice. There are already products in game that could be sold to it as well. I'd rather it be based on something tangible than a planet though, like those hab stations in Helium Rain.

[taztaz502]

Or they could just add terraforming... for no reason.. or reward... because shaders... and a quest maybe.. to add to the already amazing questline/story x4 has to offer.

<-- me watching the cradles of humanity dev diary.

[Falcrack]

Or they could just add terraforming... for no reason.. or reward... because shaders... and a quest maybe.. to add to the already amazing questline/story x4 has to offer.

<-- me watching the cradles of humanity dev diary.

That was me too!

[mr.WHO]

1. The number of production modules a single sector can support is limited by the size of the available workforce. You can build above this limit, but they won’t be able to get full workforce. This limits the amount of production modules you can spam in a single sector, and also makes some sectors more valuable in terms of putting down stations. Of course, this only works if workforce is actually needed, where right now it really isn’t (100% efficiency for 0% workforce and 125% efficiency for 100% workforce? SMH), which leads me to the next point.

This would require first to remake how the workforce is handle, because current, passive growth system is too slow and inflexible.
Workforce should become a product - you should be able to buy/sell it (BTW slave force could be alternative "illegal"version of workforce), there should be supply and demand that affect the workforce price.
TP (Transport Personel) should be come new type of transport for workforce.

P.S. Currently sectors have "soft limit" by local resource fields that can be overmined - this means you will get to the point you will no longer be able to sustain your production chain by adding more modules, especially if you have large self-sufficient production complexes - I know this because I have this issue with my home sector.

2. Workforce is made much more mandatory to operate modules (modules production speed is directly proportional to the % of workforce, e.g. 10% workforce filled = 10% production module speed, 100% workforce filled = 100% production speed etc.). Since workforce is now much more necessary, the barriers to getting workforce should be lowered at bit, leading to the next point.

Good, but workforce adjustment from my point 1 should be done first before this.

3. Lowered blueprint cost for habitation modules, they are super high right now. Possibly give the player access to a small habitation module from the game start, racial type depending on the species you start as.

Good, but probably we should make new "city" modules what "produce"workforce with corelation to nearby planet population and habitability.

4. Taxes that are paid to the sector owner. More reasons for the player to build in unowned sectors, or to become a sector owner themselves, rather than try to build the bulk of your empire in some other faction’s territory. Taxes are based on the number and possibly type of modules you own per sector, not the station plot size, which should be meaningless in the vastness of space.

Egosoft stated multiple times that they want to avoid "recurring" cost/taxes because they make thing too complicated/micro intense.
However it would be good idea for one time pay for NPC station plot build in player space, just like player pay one time fee for their plot in NPC space.

5. Sector ownership can allow you to restrict other factions from building stations in your sectors. Or you can allow certain factions to build in your sector, but they would have to pay you taxes for the privilege of doing so. You can set the number of production modules AI are allowed to build in your sector.

yes, more options for sector owners is always good.

6. Wages for workforce! Incidentally, this makes it so that you have to consider your stations more carefully, because it is possible that your stations could become unprofitable and lose you money if you are unwise in your choice of stations. Wages for ship crew too (getting paid mod), so you cannot build military too large without a strong economic base to support it. Adequate amount of service crew would be needed on ships to provide maintenance so they do not fall apart (see kuertee wear and tear mod).

Again, "recurring fees/taxes" are big no no! However if we would apply my idea from point 1, then you one time pay for buying/producing workforce.

7. If more stations are built than can be supported by the available workforce, new stations cannot attract new workforce, unless they attract workforce by offering higher wages. You can offer low wages when there is more workforce than available stations, but if there is competition for workforce such as when building stations in sectors with many factories, your operating expenses will be higher because you have to offer higher wages to attract workers. Workers migrate to the jobs that offer higher wages, possibly leaving your stations if you set your wages too low relative to others.

Better implement my idea from point 1 and let the capitalism do the thing with supply/demand fluctuation - possibly adding sinks by tiny passive workforce attrition over time - otherwise you could actually fully saturate entire universe.

8. The speed at which workforce accumulates is proportional to how much higher the wages you offer compared to other job opportunities. Setting wages really high will cause them to come to your stations faster, but only slightly higher wages will give a very slow workforce growth rate. NPC stations will try to increase their wages to stay competitive with you if workforce is limited, while still trying to maintain a profit.

9. NPCs will not attempt to build more production modules in a sector than can be supported by the local population. They will leave a small amount of unemployment so that the player can build a few station modules in a sector without having to worry about unavailable workforce.

Again, too much convoluded. Better use what is already working well in product supply/demand logic.

10. Terraforming worlds, and selling goods to them via orbital trade stations, can increase the size of the available workforce in a sector.

Good - terraforming should have proper effect on local economy, not just background decoration.

The above suggestions are related mainly to increasing the economic challenge, but there are other things to improve upon which would affect the diplomatic situation. Here are some ideas:

1. If faction A is at war with faction B, then selling goods or ships to faction B will result in decreased standing with faction A. This loss of reputation will be proportional to your net worth, so starting out, it will be a non-issue, but becomes a greater issue when you are a multi-billionaire. See the Reactive Factions mod for an example of how this works.

I think Egosoft mentioned in the past that this would be too convoluded to effectively implement.
Maybe it would be doable if narroved down to warships (e.g. If you build a carrier for one faction).

2. As you gain control over more sectors, other factions become increasingly hostile towards you. More valuable (highly populated) sectors will count for more in terms of damaged faction relations. If you grow too powerful and own too many sectors, you may find that all the other factions stop fighting amongst themselves and starting fighting you. See the Dynamic Wars mod for an example.

I'd rather want for NPC factions to actually better compose and use their forces (e.g. something more diverse that destroyer and frigate spam) as well as field bigger standing fleet (e.g. more than one carrier that use only 1/3 of it's docking capacity).

3. You can declare war directly against a faction without having to grind down your reputation. You can also repair your reputation with factions by making financial contributions. The greater your net worth, the higher the contribution that must be made to repair standing with a faction.

Yep - the grind up is tedious, but to my suprise, grind down is also the thing

[taztaz502]

Egosoft stated multiple times that they want to avoid "recurring" cost/taxes because they make thing too complicated/micro intense.
However it would be good idea for one time pay for NPC station plot build in player space, just like player pay one time fee for their plot in NPC space.


Probably shouldn't be playing an economy simulator, or an X game in general then, One of the X's is THINK, which is completely devoid in X4 as everything is just basically given too the player, no real sense of achievement not having to actually think about your economy.

No recurring costs just means it's like litcubes SHCs in X3, once you have one station you're just printing money until you can afford the next station and so on until you can make a money printer (shipyard) by which time money is pointless because you can just produce all the ships you'll ever need without the need to actually THINK.

No point in getting a 1 time free from NPC factions when money is pointless, need a viable credit drain and not something pointless like terraforming.

[Falcrack]

No recurring costs just means it's like litcubes SHCs in X3, once you have one station you're just printing money until you can afford the next station and so on until you can make a money printer (shipyard) by which time money is pointless because you can just produce all the ships you'll ever need without the need to actually THINK.

Yeah I played LU a bunch in X3, and while the idea of the SCHs are nice, you realize the utter pointlessness of the game when you can cram an entire galaxy's worth of production in one tiny cube with no sort of restriction at all. No need to leave that starting sector, no need to expand. No costs at all for owning such a large complex

I greatly prefer the approach Joubarbe has taken with the Mayhem mod, which is to limit the number of stations each sector can support. It makes that if you want to expand your empire, you really need to expand your territory, which mean conquest.

As to the idea that adding taxes or recurring costs would make to game too complex, all I have to say is, currently it is far too shallow. I would welcome more complexity in X4, more economic challenge.

[taztaz502]

No recurring costs just means it's like litcubes SHCs in X3, once you have one station you're just printing money until you can afford the next station and so on until you can make a money printer (shipyard) by which time money is pointless because you can just produce all the ships you'll ever need without the need to actually THINK.

I greatly prefer the approach Joubarbe has taken with the Mayhem mod, which is to limit the number of stations each sector can support. It makes that if you want to expand your empire, you really need to expand your territory, which mean conquest.

As to the idea that adding taxes or recurring costs would make to game too complex, all I have to say is, currently it is far too shallow. I would welcome more complexity in X4, more economic challenge.

Those two idea's alone would vastly improve the game for me, i have 720 hours clocked in X4 and have never been to war with anyone other than xenon and SCA, because i've no reason too. (Despite the fact my fleet would absolutely rickroll the entire galaxy)

They should also add civilian economy, like consumer goods, luxury goods, perishables, transportation etc that could effect the productivity of a station. Sucks how the entire economy is war based.

Spacefuel/spaceweed etc should have detrimental effects to a stations productivity and increase piracy in a sector if left unchecked, giving us a reason to actually police our sectors.

In X3 buying your first ship was a big deal let alone buying your first station, and having your own destroyer was endgame content, you're basically handed them on a silver platter in X4. (Granted they suck)

[Lord Dakier]

You want to limit stations in sectors? Then you need to do it in a way that makes sense. Sectors and space in general are limitless spaces, so room is hardly a factor. We have two options; workers and power. Workers should require food as they do now, but also water and luxury goods. This begins to open up a civilian economy, which the game lacks already. Power should be a requirement for every module, nothing running without it. Now both workforce and power needs should increase by percent depending on how many modules you have in your station. Eventually the more you add the efficiency of our station would decrease. Large centralised city-like stations could still be viable, but spreading your stations out would still be the money maker.

Late game threats, we need aggressive corporations that slowly begin to target the player as they're building their mega corporations. We need real enemies enemies like Xenon incursions and Khaak raids that force the player to actually start policing their sectors. Taxation has to appear, it's that simple. Every time the player stands to make a profit in a races sector, they should be taking up to 20% dependent on relations. There's no current benefit to owning your own sector aside from the plot cost which is one-time and meagre at best.

One of the pillars this series is built on is Think and currently in X4 you don't really need to do much of that when you can farm crystals/sell the oddy > buy a mining fleet > buy hull parts factory > buy shipyard > make self-sufficient for unlimited money. Honestly we need money sinks, really badly.

[mr.WHO]

There are already recurring cost included in the game as workforce consume food & medical resources.

They are simply not obligatory, because workforce is not obligatory.
Workforce could become obligatory if player and economy could regulate workforce and player could buy/produce (one-time cost) workforce for his usage.
Terraforming could impact worforce pool, production speed and attrition (there needs to be a "sink" for workforce, otherwise you will saturate the economy far too easily).

This could be also great for pirate gameplay:
- captured workforce/crews could be turned to slave force - illegal in all faction but Split that is "cheaper" to maintain.
- there could be an "unemployment" factor - high unemployment could spawn more pirates.

[taztaz502]

There are already recurring cost included in the game as workforce consume food & medical resources.

They are simply not obligatory, because workforce is not obligatory.
Workforce could become obligatory if player and economy could regulate workforce and player could buy/produce (one-time cost) workforce for his usage.
Terraforming could impact worforce pool, production speed and attrition (there needs to be a "sink" for workforce, otherwise you will saturate the economy far too easily).

This could be also great for pirate gameplay:
- captured workforce/crews could be turned to slave force - illegal in all faction but Split that is "cheaper" to maintain.
- there could be an "unemployment" factor - high unemployment could spawn more pirates.

Consume them at a stupidly slow rate that 1 food production factory will keep a huge station complex happy indefinitely i wouldn't even call it a minor inconvenience having to supply stations with food/medical supplies.

Then you've got workforce on ships which need absolutely nothing, meaning you can just pump out the biggest fleet the galaxy has ever seen requiring no upkeep whatsoever, no limitations. Personally i think you should have to build an economy to support your fleet, bigger the economy, bigger the fleet which is why taxes are a great solution.

Then as lord stated add in a civilian economy so we can get more out of our stations, and give us an actual reason to get more out of them. (to support our ever growing economy/fleet)

[mr.WHO]

If you really so fixated on taxes, I suggest you to fill yout tax declaration in real life.
I never thought someone would treat is as some form of fun, but I won't judge you

[taztaz502]

If you really so fixated on taxes, I suggest you to fill yout tax declaration in real life.
I never thought someone would treat is as some form of fun, but I won't judge you

Having everything handed too you on a silver platter is not fun, It's like cheating on a game once you have everything the game becomes boring. At least to me.

But i suppose some people just want everything without any negatives and just want to rickroll the galaxy without any actual competition.

This is why X-games are going down the pan, too much catering to the casuals.

[mr.WHO]

Having everything handed too you on a silver platter is not fun, It's like cheating on a game once you have everything the game becomes boring. At least to me.

There was never any taxes in X-series before. X4 is first where you have to pay for plot land, so you can't really claim it's casualized.
X-Series is not Europa Universalis nor Hearts of Iron, but it's still far far away from what is considered casual.
I like to watch YT videos where real casuals take on and fail on easiest things in X-series.

X-Series is already niche, so pushing it forward to more harcore simulation is a road to nowhere.
Additionally, if peaople would want taxes, they would implement them as a mods in X2 or X3 or X4.
I can't remember even a single tax mod across all 3 games (plus XR), so even if it exist, the majority of community didn't embraced it.

X-Series is not a Football Manager nor Tycoon series.


P.S. I do agree that the game provide no challenge for late-game player - I have more carriers and destroyers than rest of galaxy combined.
However if you participate in "special olympics" and you complain about the competition level - do you opt for breaking your legs, or rather you want better competition?

NPC faction fleets and war logic sux - they need to be completely remade and boosted - in X3 each faction had several carriers, so I don't see why in X4 each faction doesn't field multiple carrier battlegroup - they just go for boring Destroyer/frigate spam and apart from Teladi, they don't use their carrier battlegroup outside their capital.

[taztaz502]

Having everything handed too you on a silver platter is not fun, It's like cheating on a game once you have everything the game becomes boring. At least to me.

There was never any taxes in X-series before. X4 is first where you have to pay for plot land, so you can't really claim it's casualized.
X-Series is not Europa Universalis nor Hearts of Iron, but it's still far far away from what is considered casual.
I like to watch YT videos where real casuals take on and fail on easiest things in X-series.

X-Series is already niche, so pushing it forward to more harcore simulation is a road to nowhere.
Additionally, if peaople would want taxes, they would implement them as a mods in X2 or X3 or X4.
I can't remember even a single tax mod across all 3 games (plus XR), so even if it exist, the majority of community didn't embraced it.

X-Series is not a Football Manager nor Tycoon series.

That's because they weren't necessary in X3, everything cost way more in X3 you wouldn't have your first mining ship or passive income within the first 10 minutes of gameplay, frigates/destroyers would cost hundreds of millions and thats without weapons/software/equipment and you wouldn't have one without 10s of hours of gameplay.

Weapons were also pretty limited unless you were producing them yourself, so even if you had multiple destroyers/capital ships you wouldn't be to arm them without some effort on your part.

In x4 like i said you can just build a station that feeds itself making it completely passive income for the duration of your game, things in X3 actually took time and effort to achieve. People clearly do want taxes or some other form of upkeep as the 3 people who have commented here have all agreed.

X4 is an empire simulator/manager not a cheese simulator.

FIGHT, THINK, TRADE,BUILD.

Not Build, forget and profit.

[mr.WHO]

Other than price difference for biggest capships I felt no diffrence to what I played in X3:TC.
I got my first miner, corvette and first destroyer in about the same amount of time.
In X3 I didn't bothered with fleet - the game ended for me when i got to the destroyer, because capship/fleet management was menu clickfest without tonst of mods.

In X4 I have 10 full carrier battlegroups and I can manage them easily, but I don't have a target for them.
Simply taking them away or artificially cockbloking them via higher costs & taxes wont solve ANYTHING, because no matter if I can have fleet in 10 months or 10 minutes, I'll get to the same issues - I don't have anything to do with them (other than boring game ending galaxy conquest)



FIGHT, THINK, TRADE,BUILD - the later 3 are perfectly fine, it's the FIGHT that is currently the weakest - once you get self sufficient empire with first carrier battlegroup you're already beyond reach of any NPC faction due to how their military logic is (not) working.

I read that many people have problem with pirates raiding their trade lanes, yet in my 300h game I lost about 5 medium freighters and as far as I know I never lost single large one.

This game need more late game mechanics and boost NPC factions fighting forces.

[Nort The Fragrent]

It's all too easy !

No challenge !

Quickly becoming boring !

You can play the game blind fold, hang upside-down, whilst drinking a glass of water. And still progress.

[taztaz502]

Other than price difference for biggest capships I felt no diffrence to what I played in X3:TC.
I got my first miner, corvette and first destroyer in about the same amount of time.
In X3 I didn't bothered with fleet - the game ended for me when i got to the destroyer, because capship/fleet management was menu clickfest without tonst of mods.

In X4 I have 10 full carrier battlegroups and I can manage them easily, but I don't have a target for them.
Simply taking them away or artificially cockbloking them via higher costs & taxes wont solve ANYTHING, because no matter if I can have fleet in 10 months or 10 minutes, I'll get to the same issues - I don't have anything to do with them (other than boring game ending galaxy conquest)



FIGHT, THINK, TRADE,BUILD - the later 3 are perfectly fine, it's the FIGHT that is currently the weakest - once you get self sufficient empire with first carrier battlegroup you're already beyond reach of any NPC faction due to how their military logic is (not) working.

I read that many people have problem with pirates raiding their trade lanes, yet in my 300h game I lost about 5 medium freighters and as far as I know I never lost single large one.

This game need more late game mechanics and boost NPC factions fighting forces.

Then you've been REALLY slow in X4, the reputation grind alone in X3 was tenfold compared to X4 getting your first corvette was a big achievement let alone a destroyer.

You could get lucky and come across an abandoned one but even then you wouldn't be able to put anything worthwhile on it, since weapon and software were also behind a reputation wall.

I don't see how it's **** blocking anything other than slowing down the progression of the game, all you have to do is build more stations to support your bigger fleets and bobs your uncle at least you'll be on par with the NPC factions for a decent chunk of the game before it all gets faceroll and you could wipe out the entire galaxy.