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First, pirates. Maybe adding a couple different pirate factions which each one may have their own sector(s) and have their own wares that they sell as secondary goods to the various other races within the X4 universe, perhaps a Return of the Yaki. They should be able to form their own fleets, have their own capital ships, and be able to do real raids, and masquerade as other ships like in X3. The key difference being that now in X4, they are an actual faction that may have their own war dynamics. I feel the game is kind of empty and small, while the Split Vendetta is coming out and will hopefully address the "smallness" feeling I get looking at the map and travelling around not seeing much really happen. It would be nice to add in a bounty system like the X3AP/TC XRM mod has to track various pirates that are becoming particularly notorious and make the universe feel more "alive" because more events are being tracked and various factions and rival captains are developing the universe according to their own AI goals.
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Secondly Companies, one of the things I really liked about X3 was that independent companies had their own race affiliations, and even could produce some of their own unique ships like the Jonferco brands. sure they would be just different models of the race's main ships because of the idea of "manufacturing brands" but they had their own set of perks compared to other ships of the same model but different variants. The second nicety of this was that they also produced their own goods, and while they didn't necessarily expand on their own, in X4 with the existing AI they would have the capacity for it. They would be able to ally with various factions and help spur political/military conflicts that are honestly just a little bland for me in X4. I am not asking for the stock market, that would be cool, but unnecessary to me, but I just feel like the lack of different factions also contributes to the "smallness" of the universe.
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Thirdly, the lack of ship types is rather... disappointing, with the departure from the old system of many ship classifications we have kind of approached a system where I don't find interceptors, or scouts useful, outside of quick traveling player ships. They aren't that great at combat, and if your looking to get good combat ships you take regular fighters or Heavy fighters. There is only one actual capital ship, per faction and to top it off, once you look at the combat oriented ships between L and XL, they all have the same basic design with just small variations. I find this the most obvious with the Teladi, every single one of their L and XL ships have the exact same front, and some variation or simple cutoff of the rear of the ship. Incredibly minimal variations. With Split coming around the corner, I am glad to see the introduction of bomber classes now, and a new race of ships. but the outside the argon race, I find the variations particularly disappointing and probably needing a revisit. However I do see some nice design in the Mediums and smalls, and I realllllly like that Teladi Gunboat, mmmm Sexy.
I think we should add a true non-carrier capital ship for each faction that Isn't an auxiliary resupply ship. Direct ship to ship fights are kind of an integral part of the previous series and most space games. A departure from that is kind of disappointing I mean, fighter swarms are cool but still having capital ships duking it out in space in powerful volley-fire-fights would be nice too. The bomber additions would be a good start to a counter for that class that we are already getting with split DLC. Adding escort ship classes that are heavily laden with anti-fighter weaponry, but not being effective at capital fights of their own level would also be great. This would allow for handling defensive roles against bombers for their large capital ship escorting duties. (running a dive bomber through destroyer and light cruiser anti-air ships to hit that carrier or battleship in wwII terms).
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Fourthly, I have gotten used to the slower speed of ships in this game. I often still go back to play the x3 games just for nostalgia, and one of the thing I keep wishing for myself when I do that and then come back to X4, is that I really wish the top speed for fighters was sitting around the 600~ish mark, at least for some of them. Various m5's in X3AP for instance are on average at around 400 with split and some argon variants going at around 400-500. Th kestrel was a 600m/s scout. I mean you would need to start introducing longer range weaponry to intercept incoming fighter better on capital ships, but with the improvements to the Targeting AI I have been very pleased with the turret accuracy, and the better fighter AI as well. They might have trouble still, but they have come a long way. That aside, an attack run on a capital ship feels like it always needs boosting now, and because boosting consumes shield power I have a rather big disdain for using it in combat. An alternate approach could be to just have a boost pool separate from shields, and incorporate its use more into AI for that. But overall dog-fighting is VERY slow for me, of course the capital ships will probably get some moderate speed boosts too, but being able to get in and out of ship combats, is a fighter's purpose and is what makes them dangerous. Having counter-screening ships and fighters would be more important and make for more intense factions fights as mentioned in the previous section.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the previous X3 game's ship classification systems and/or have forgotten them, Basically every ship in X4 is as slow as one ship size above it, if it were in X3. Meaning if we pretend your S class ship were in X3 right now, it would be as slow as X3's equivalent of your m class ships. Still don't understand? your fighter is too slow to outrun a Heavy destroyer or light cruiser from the X3 games.
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Fifth, I tend to find a major lack of missile and drone use in AI ships. I miss having huge amounts of missiles flying everywhere letting my PD turrets take them out before they land their hits. The AI uses them i see occasionally, but often times I kill fighters that have anti-fighter missiles and they aren't shooting MY fighter with them. Of course one the big issues here is that X4;Foundations doesn't really have S class ships with turrets, so taking out those missiles comes to shooting them manually or drones. So adding more payload based combat would require a revisit of S class ships. In the end various S ships need the ability to fire different classes of missiles, as a built in function, or have missile tubes be a totally separate customization slot that is not taking the place of a normal energy/projectile weapon hard-point. Drones need independent launch bays that are built in as a function of various ships too, have to admit I don't use drones very often, so it has been a while since I touched them. However, They shouldn't use bays, they should deploy just like cargo, mining, and repair drones do from Mining ships etc. They need to add the drone dock back as a hard-point, and then Focus on drones as a combat utility such as for missile defense/ minor shield drones that try to take some of the large capital ship weapon hits for you, or get limited to short range fighter interception etc.
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Anyway in the end, I still play both X4:Foundations, and X3:AP these days. I can't really make up my mind as to which one I like better. I enjoy X3 for its large universe, many ship types, intense missile fights, and the many antagonistic factions that feel like the universe is alive and developing without you, for better and worse. On the otherhand, I love having cockpits, ship interiors, custom stations, customizable ship productions, more drone options, actual war system and BIG ships by scale comparison. In the end though, when I install X3:AP with the XRM mod, and maybe some IR2.0 onto that, it just wins for me outright. I am sure that the mod community here will develop something to counteract the games shortcoming in the following years, but for now x3 just stands out for me more, even though I really do prefer ships that aren't just health-bars as a MAJOR consideration for X4.
P.S. I plan to change these recommendations a lot, so come back and revisit them when you feel like, and change your poll vote, because that is a thing you can do
