Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

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Midnitewolf
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Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 00:09

So I was engaged in a total furball with ANT and HOP because my fleet was moving through a HOP sector and a single Xenon's fighters showed up. I guess someone hit someone else and someone else shoot back and boom, huge fight and no really good way to extract my fleet from the mess. It involves a HOP Defensive Platform, 2 HOP manufacturing stations, probably 400+ drones from the 3 stations some HOP Police Fighter. A couple ANT Aux ships that just happened to be in the wrong, place at the wrong time and all more HOP ships including a few DDs and other craft on the way. Huge flipping mess because of a few stray shots thrown at a single Xenon fighter.

LUCKILY I had the mod, "Appologize for Attack" installed so after about 15 minutes of spamming my ships the command to "Flee" instead of attack combined with furious com messaging to the dozens of ships involved trying to apologize to them, while dealing with my ships trying to re-aggro them, while trying to desperately com and "re-apologize" to the many of the enemy ships that I had just managed to clam down.....well you get idea.

My point is that even with a Mod this was a nightmare to extract from.

How about something simple like a damage tolerance threshold based on your relationship with the faction? 1-10 relation up to 5% of hull damage tolerated, 11-20 up to 10% hull damage tolerated. 21+ up to 15% hull damage tolerated anything below 1 and it is like it is now, instantly hostile, something like that.

Also before anyone goes on about a players ability to exploit something like this I would like to remind everyone this is a single player game. If they want their gameplay experience to be chessy and cheap like that, let them have at it. It not like you can't download a mod that give you god mod, infinite money, etc if you want chessy and cheap gameplay anyway.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by NightmareNight91 » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 13:34

A simple comm function to "apologize" would work wonders. I mean, we had it in X3..

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Max Bain » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 17:27

Midnitewolf wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 00:09
So I was engaged in a total furball with ANT and HOP because my fleet was moving through a HOP sector and a single Xenon's fighters showed up. I guess someone hit someone else and someone else shoot back and boom, huge fight and no really good way to extract my fleet from the mess. It involves a HOP Defensive Platform, 2 HOP manufacturing stations, probably 400+ drones from the 3 stations some HOP Police Fighter. A couple ANT Aux ships that just happened to be in the wrong, place at the wrong time and all more HOP ships including a few DDs and other craft on the way. Huge flipping mess because of a few stray shots thrown at a single Xenon fighter.

LUCKILY I had the mod, "Appologize for Attack" installed so after about 15 minutes of spamming my ships the command to "Flee" instead of attack combined with furious com messaging to the dozens of ships involved trying to apologize to them, while dealing with my ships trying to re-aggro them, while trying to desperately com and "re-apologize" to the many of the enemy ships that I had just managed to clam down.....well you get idea.

My point is that even with a Mod this was a nightmare to extract from.

How about something simple like a damage tolerance threshold based on your relationship with the faction? 1-10 relation up to 5% of hull damage tolerated, 11-20 up to 10% hull damage tolerated. 21+ up to 15% hull damage tolerated anything below 1 and it is like it is now, instantly hostile, something like that.

Also before anyone goes on about a players ability to exploit something like this I would like to remind everyone this is a single player game. If they want their gameplay experience to be chessy and cheap like that, let them have at it. It not like you can't download a mod that give you god mod, infinite money, etc if you want chessy and cheap gameplay anyway.
I just wanted to save a large argon ship that was surounded by 15 Xenon fighters and suddenly a shot or two hit the ship I was defending. You know what happened... it turned red and we shot each other as if we were Xenon.
Seriously, this mechanic is so stupid especially, because it were automated turrets which hit the argon capital ship, so it was not my fault at all. And no, there is nearly no tollerance at all. Its one or two salvos and your friend turns red. Why is Egosoft still ignoring this :evil:
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Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 19:43

NightmareNight91 wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 13:34
A simple comm function to "apologize" would work wonders. I mean, we had it in X3..
I have the mod that adds this in and it did allow me to extract myself from that stupidity but it isn't enough for multiple reasons. I mean first of all it can be hard to tell a Friendly Fire conflict has even occurred. I mean your in combat after all and even it is is just one Xenon ship your shooting at, guns are blazing everywhere. It wasn't until all the Xenon were destroyed and I noticed guns still firing that I knew what was going on. In the meantime everyone is losing ships and more and more ships are getting dragged into the furball.

The second issue is getting your fleet to stand down so you can apologize. You would think a simple cease fire command would exist but nope, not that I have seen and even if you do get your ships to stand down, the second they get hit by anything, they instantly go hard aggro and attack again. I have my ships set to retaliate because if attacked by a Xenon I want them to fight back, but I also want them to listen to me WITHOUT FAIL, when I tell them to stand down but nope, can't do that.

Then if you manage to get your ships calmed down you have to try to identify all "reds" and apologize to each one of them.

And while your doing all that, how many ships die in the process?

After having experienced this once, I had a situation where a huge Xenon fleet popped though a gate right next to my large fleet. However, a friendly faction had a medium size gate guard stationed there. I just knew they weren't enough to hold the gate but did I help them? NOPE because I can't not without ending up shooting down the very gate guard I wanted to help and lose faction in the process. It was very frustrating sitting there watching them all die so I could have my turn at killing off the Xenon.

It is just damn frustrating.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by abisha1980 » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 09:40

Midnitewolf wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 19:43
NightmareNight91 wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 13:34
A simple comm function to "apologize" would work wonders. I mean, we had it in X3..
I have the mod that adds this in and it did allow me to extract myself from that stupidity but it isn't enough for multiple reasons. I mean first of all it can be hard to tell a Friendly Fire conflict has even occurred. I mean your in combat after all and even it is is just one Xenon ship your shooting at, guns are blazing everywhere. It wasn't until all the Xenon were destroyed and I noticed guns still firing that I knew what was going on. In the meantime everyone is losing ships and more and more ships are getting dragged into the furball.

The second issue is getting your fleet to stand down so you can apologize. You would think a simple cease fire command would exist but nope, not that I have seen and even if you do get your ships to stand down, the second they get hit by anything, they instantly go hard aggro and attack again. I have my ships set to retaliate because if attacked by a Xenon I want them to fight back, but I also want them to listen to me WITHOUT FAIL, when I tell them to stand down but nope, can't do that.

Then if you manage to get your ships calmed down you have to try to identify all "reds" and apologize to each one of them.

And while your doing all that, how many ships die in the process?

After having experienced this once, I had a situation where a huge Xenon fleet popped though a gate right next to my large fleet. However, a friendly faction had a medium size gate guard stationed there. I just knew they weren't enough to hold the gate but did I help them? NOPE because I can't not without ending up shooting down the very gate guard I wanted to help and lose faction in the process. It was very frustrating sitting there watching them all die so I could have my turn at killing off the Xenon.

It is just damn frustrating.
very easy fix 1% shield damage or 0.1% hull damage tolerance per faction point.
so at 20 faction you can do damage of 20% of maximum shield and 2% of hull damage

this gives enough room to have miss fires and overall better gameplay but who know it's 2021 we go backwards in game designs for last 10 years why not make absolute zero tolerance? they should instant kill even if you shave the shield a bit
btw why are the AI allow to miss fire? they should also be free to kill when they keep hitting me same game rules for anyone
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grapedog
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by grapedog » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 09:55

also, if your faction happily builds ships for pirates, then it shouldn't mind also if I have a fleet camping the shipyard, murdering the FAF immediately upon spawning....

Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 21:25

abisha1980 wrote:
Sun, 18. Apr 21, 09:40
Midnitewolf wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 19:43
NightmareNight91 wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 13:34
A simple comm function to "apologize" would work wonders. I mean, we had it in X3..
I have the mod that adds this in and it did allow me to extract myself from that stupidity but it isn't enough for multiple reasons. I mean first of all it can be hard to tell a Friendly Fire conflict has even occurred. I mean your in combat after all and even it is is just one Xenon ship your shooting at, guns are blazing everywhere. It wasn't until all the Xenon were destroyed and I noticed guns still firing that I knew what was going on. In the meantime everyone is losing ships and more and more ships are getting dragged into the furball.

The second issue is getting your fleet to stand down so you can apologize. You would think a simple cease fire command would exist but nope, not that I have seen and even if you do get your ships to stand down, the second they get hit by anything, they instantly go hard aggro and attack again. I have my ships set to retaliate because if attacked by a Xenon I want them to fight back, but I also want them to listen to me WITHOUT FAIL, when I tell them to stand down but nope, can't do that.

Then if you manage to get your ships calmed down you have to try to identify all "reds" and apologize to each one of them.

And while your doing all that, how many ships die in the process?

After having experienced this once, I had a situation where a huge Xenon fleet popped though a gate right next to my large fleet. However, a friendly faction had a medium size gate guard stationed there. I just knew they weren't enough to hold the gate but did I help them? NOPE because I can't not without ending up shooting down the very gate guard I wanted to help and lose faction in the process. It was very frustrating sitting there watching them all die so I could have my turn at killing off the Xenon.

It is just damn frustrating.
very easy fix 1% shield damage or 0.1% hull damage tolerance per faction point.
so at 20 faction you can do damage of 20% of maximum shield and 2% of hull damage

this gives enough room to have miss fires and overall better gameplay but who know it's 2021 we go backwards in game designs for last 10 years why not make absolute zero tolerance? they should instant kill even if you shave the shield a bit
btw why are the AI allow to miss fire? they should also be free to kill when they keep hitting me same game rules for anyone
Yeah I agree with what you are saying. Some sort of threshold before they aggro. Also your right about enemy friendly fire. How come they get a pass, if they hit you or your station, they should be flagged criminal and be free to kill if that is what happens for the player. Personally I would just prefer the damage threshold.

Also, I would love to be able to actually join a faction, not just help them out but "Join" them in the sense that I become part of the faction. I play a game called Bannerlord as well which is a medieval empire builder that shares a lot of similarities to X4 and my favorite playthrough is to become a vassal and help a faction conquer the world. Would love to be able to do that here.

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mr.WHO
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 21:38

I agree with OP - having friendly fire with NPC faction while having your own NPC controlled ships is a mess.

If I'm alone and I manage to shoot someone by accident, I can always flee and wait till they change back to friendly.

Having your own NPC controlled ships make it hell - if you don't spot that someoen shot someone, you own ships goes full murder rampage and it spiral to huge reputation loss.

Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:49

YET ANOTHER FRIENDLY FIRE INCIDENT!!!

No idea what happened but I notice a very expensive trader missing from my list. Looked it up and the very station he was delivering goods to apparently killed him. No clue what happened, had to be some sort of Friendly Fire incident and because there is just too much to try to micromanage, I missed it happening. Either way, dead transport, something like 30 million worth of ship gone just like that because the devs won't do anything to resolve the Friendly Fire issues.

Totally fricken frustrating.

Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 23:25

HEY, HEY ANOTHER ONE

Another 30 million credit Freighter downed by a "Friendly" 30 Relationship ARG Defense Platform. No idea why it happened but its gone. What fun and engaging game play we have here :lol:

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Jeraal » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 01:57

Midnitewolf wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 23:25
HEY, HEY ANOTHER ONE

Another 30 million credit Freighter downed by a "Friendly" 30 Relationship ARG Defense Platform. No idea why it happened but its gone. What fun and engaging game play we have here :lol:
With friends like those, who needs Xenon?

Was just dealing with wave after wave in Hatikvah. A large freighter turned red and treated me like a Xenon.
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Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 02:43

WOOT!!!

An entire fleet this time.

7 Capital Ships, 8 Corvettes, 1 Large Transport and 1 Large Miner ALL GONE TO FRIENDLY FIRE!!! All they were doing is sitting by the Wharf in case I needed them.


How the hell are we supposed to play this game???

Oh never mind, that is what Auto Saves are for. I just have to lose a half hour of effort and I can get my fleet back...yay me.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by grapedog » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 12:54

What are you doing that is setting these stations off? I have friendly fire issues too, but not often. Though I also rarely hang out around NPC structures. For me it seems to only happen in high attention. In low attention i dont think i ever have any incidents.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by af_2017 » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 13:59

Midnitewolf wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 00:09
How about something simple like a damage tolerance threshold based on your relationship with the faction? 1-10 relation up to 5% of hull damage tolerated, 11-20 up to 10% hull damage tolerated. 21+ up to 15% hull damage tolerated anything below 1 and it is like it is now, instantly hostile, something like that.
aight, and with +30 rep my weapons should heal ally ships! Win! Peace, quiet and friendship!
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Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Wed, 21. Apr 21, 22:11

ANOTHER 3 CAPS Destroyed and the "Friendly" NPC lost a station. Oh and my rep that I worked hard on dropped from 28 to 18 WOOT!!!!

As far as what I am doing. Nothing.

The Xenon are a bit out of control in my game raiding everywhere with a few fighters roaming all over the place. As near as I can tell, my ships are engaging the Xenon and are catching friendly factions ships/stations in the crossfire which is being taken as a hostile act by my ships.

Case in point, the engagement I just mentioned I managed to catch part of it. It was my main battlefleet comming back from driving off a Xenon excursion, a PAR station and 3 lonely Xenon Fighters in the mix. Pretty much the same scenario I have seen each time. There is always a live or dead Xenon around after the dust has settled.

I mean I guess I could set my fleets to defend only which might stop them from trying to engage the random Xenon flying around, which would theoretically reduce if not prevent friendly fire but I shouldn't have to. It is absolutely ridiculous that this is even happening, I would call it a GAMEBREAKING BUG to be honest.

Egosoft needs to do something about it already because even if I am having the issue more frequently that others it is still an issue everyone has.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 22. Apr 21, 01:09

Did you have a mod that increases range of weapons significantly?
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Midnitewolf
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Midnitewolf » Thu, 22. Apr 21, 02:28

jlehtone wrote:
Thu, 22. Apr 21, 01:09
Did you have a mod that increases range of weapons significantly?
Yep. VRO but that should be irrelevant because the issues isn't weapons range, the issue is that the AI has a hot trigger and takes any sort of accidental fire as hostile. There needs to be some threshold where a faction your in very good standing with tolerates friendly fire because I had this issue in Vanilla too especially when trying to help in a gate defense against the Xenon. One of my first encounters with this "feature" of zero tolerance friendly fire was in my first Vanilla run though. Khak'ak engaged a group of my ships near a 'Friendly" defense platform. "Friendly" defense platform got tagged by some fire directed at the Kha'ak and next thing I knew, "Friendly" defense platform wasn't so friendly. I thought it was a random bug until I saw it happen again a couple times and that is when I went to investigate.

So yeah I got range enhanced weapons. Yeah that means it is more likely that fire directed at a Kha'ak or Xenon will reach a "Friendly" somewhere but to use an old saying, "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?".

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 22. Apr 21, 08:15

Tea? I can kill all surface elements from an L ship and all the cops that come to look. All "allies". That is intentional fire. Yet, there is no escalation nor significant permanent change in relationships. Chewbacca says: That makes no sense.
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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by euclid » Thu, 22. Apr 21, 10:17

What I do not like is this: If a friendly station/ship fires on an enemy and hits you by accident, nothing happens. But if the situation is reversed, everything turns red in a blink. In this case I usually load a saved game. It is frustratiing but I do realize that it's an issue that is tricky to resolve via xml coding.

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Re: Another Plea for the Devs to do something about Friendly Fire and Allies

Post by Artean » Thu, 22. Apr 21, 10:55

While I have had some accidents with friendly fire, it seems no where near what you are running in to. Perhaps you can provide the devs with a save illustrating your issues? Before that, however, you will need to make sure that the problems still stands in a vanilla game.
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