X4, Back-Forwards to X3 FL

[chip56]

There are still some things in X3 that i prefer over the way it was implemented in x4:

Turret commands
Missions that scale with rank so that taxi missions can actually be very worthwile
Being able to assign ANY ship with ANY task to station and then hide ships with assigned homebases.
ships that are hostile to you are at the top of the objects list and not somewhere in between.
Claiming, repairing, scanning and other things have a longer range in x3 than in x4, even though x4 has actually ships and weapons with longer range. I mean you could claim at 30 meters in x3 but now you need to find the right spot and be at 2m to do that. Scanning 500 m in x4 vs 4km in x3.
The" ohhh damn" or "oh yessss" feeling when a M2 jumps in to your location depending on which side it is. You struggle with a xenon Q moving towards your station, mentally preparing yourself that you will lose it and a rapid force m2 jumps in? Oh yeah. You want to destroy some station since its ruining your profitssss? Upps there is the M2 jumping in...
Patrol missions that ensure you have something to do. Yes its spawning ships. I still prefer that over a mission that tells me to patrol half an hour in a sector without seeing any hostile ship at all.
...

Of course some things i like much better in x4:
You need a 25 Mj shield? bad luck, none of the 50 stations you know has any in stock. Thats not happening in x4 (though i miss being a weapons trader a bit)
Teleporter device for player is damn sweet.
Finding missions and not having to com everyone first to find out what the mission is about
...

And some things i am not sure
Travel drive: On the one side i love being faster somewhere. On the other side it messes up moving in formation and hunting down ships that are in travel drive is no fun.

[GCU Grey Area]

You must have misunderstood me; I (try) play as a pure trader / explorer. However, at a certain point X4 forces me to build large complexes (BUILD) in order to be able to finance an even larger armada with which I am supposed to 'save' my universe, because either the Xenon or the HOP are running amok (FIGHT).

If it were up to me, this would be completely optional.

It has been optional for me. Have never felt forced to build anything. I do Build because I enjoy that aspect of the game, though mostly for the architectural aesthetics rather than a pure profit motive. It's really only when I get to the point in the game where I want to dabble in terraforming that I feel that major construction projects become pretty much mandatory.

As for fleets, I do have one, currently consists of 1 Tokyo with a couple of dozen fighters, 2 Asgards & 8 Osakas (paid cash for the Tokyo & Oaskas, built the Asgards). It's spent the past several weeks on guard duty at my HQ - complete overkill since the biggest threat they face there is the occasional Khaak fighter which follows a miner back home. Occasionally the fleet rolls out for a demolition job, but only if one of the factions is willing to give me a purple weapon mod for my troubles. However recently opportunities for that have been a bit thin on the ground.

Have at no point felt forced to save the universe. Sometimes I might decide to intervene militarily for a specific faction - did that in my 3.30 ZYA game, but that was still entirely my choice. Still plenty of universe to Trade with even if I'd decided to leave them to face the Xenon on their own (as I did in my preceding 3.0 FRF game).

For the most part I find as long as I focus sufficiently on Trade the factions I like have been pretty good at looking out for themselves (TEL often ends up with a particularly big fleet), while the ones I embargo tend to do less well. Was certainly effective at keeping HOP in their place in my current game.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

X4 is simulateously one of the best games and one of the most frustrating.
Visually stunning well done the artists. Most of everthing almost works. I really enjoy just flying around some of the sectors.
I am currently moving around the stations and ships I own and enjoying the view.
However I keep getting interrupted, pirates. Never a moments peace. So I can understand the view that a little bit of quiet every now and again would be nice.
I tried to go back to X3 sometime ago. It is not possible for me, each to their own.

Kudos to the guys for continuing their work. I am sure that a whole lot of people will enjoy it. X3 was for a time the best game, just as X2 was.

Now I really enjoying X4. For me the balance of CoH is almost perfect.

[Rei Ayanami]

However I keep getting interrupted, pirates. Never a moments peace. So I can understand the view that a little bit of quiet every now and again would be nice.

I had a similar issue a long time ago when the Split DLC came out, with pirate ships scanning me and talking to me almost every minute. I think depending on how much valuable stuff you have in your inventory pirates interrupt you more often. Once I sold all valuable stuff from my inventory the pirate scans and interruptions happened way less often.

Try selling your inventory stuff or putting everything in the player HQ stash box, perhaps that'll help.

[Jeraal]

Is there anything else besides visuals and my favourite Betty version? Like some neat game functionality missing in X4?
...

Not specific to FL, but X3 in general. Three words- PROPERY LIST MANAGEMENT. We could filter the list in many ways. Want to just see your M3,4,5 ships? What about just TS/TP? Easy to do.

[grapedog]

Guven how the X4 economy is run, I would be totally fine with some missions spawning enemies, and allowing a faction to temporarily go over-quota. I think that is a fair trade off for making some missions more interesting.

I do think xenon need a boost currently, but in general ive ignored the galaxy wars multiple times for a week+ and not had any issues.

That said, i would love to see more game starts/a custom start option that could tweak faction quotas, xenon/kha'ak power levels, faction aggressiveness, maybe even which factiobs are allies... things like that.

A custom game start, that allowed for a lot of choice, would i think go over really well with the entire fanbase.

[aquatica]

Custom start with diplomacy.

Now that would be cool. I don't mean anything walkie-talkie no, but missions from faction repusentative. Like: "Increase diplomacy by helping faction X in sector Y" or "Decrease diplomacy by hampering faction X in sector Y", so player could help factions gain/lose reputation between each other. Also trading from faction to faction would strengthen their status between each other, and so on.


But more to the point; a lot of things in X3 AP were better. Like that mentioned property list. Damn, it was fine! Easy to use, read and access.

[al_dude]

I want an apocalyptic start where all limits on Xenons are off and they have 90% of universe conquered.

[Raptor34]

One thing I miss from the old Xs is that they tell you which factory owned the trader you just lost.
Now I need to manually search.

[NightmareNight91]

I miss the missions from x3 and the capital ships actually felt threatening in x3. In x4 if a L or XL ship warps in there is no shock or awe moments...they are so pathetic compared to previous counterparts.

I also miss that betty talks alot more in x3 than x4...

[Raptor34]

I miss the missions from x3 and the capital ships actually felt threatening in x3. In x4 if a L or XL ship warps in there is no shock or awe moments...they are so pathetic compared to previous counterparts.

I also miss that betty talks alot more in x3 than x4...

I don't miss that. FAA rendered everything smaller obsolete.
Now if only the factions build properly equipped carriers, then seeing a carrier would be properly terrifying.

[johntarmac]

Today, it stands for FIGHT, TRADE, THINK, BUILD.

No, that's just how YOU play X4. Don't assume it's the same for everyone. For me Trade is the most interesting aspect of X4, particularly due to it's queued orders system, saving me the bother of having to keep paper notes on what I'd planned to do next with each ship in my trade fleet. Makes running a large manual trade fleet far more viable. Think that's what puts me off the most when I think of going back to X3 to try out FL. My old methods of MORTing just seem ridiculously clunky in hindsight.

You must have misunderstood me; I (try) play as a pure trader / explorer. However, at a certain point X4 forces me to build large complexes (BUILD) in order to be able to finance an even larger armada with which I am supposed to 'save' my universe, because either the Xenon or the HOP are running amok (FIGHT).

If it were up to me, this would be completely optional.

Of course, you may be in the position to trade in peace in your universe, as we know that every game start develops differently. But for me, as written above, it was over after 3 ingame days at the latest, because at that point only FIGHT was left.

So it's not how I play it, it's more about how I want to play it but can't because EGO's vision forces me to play it the way they want me to.

And all I mean is that this was not the case in the prequels - at least not if you play the way I do and don't want to go to all-out war

But maybe X4 is just not my cup of tea anymore

THINK / TRADE
As soon as I saw HOP expanding I reduced my trade and supplies to them and increased my supply to ANT & ARG. The 3 have been at an impasse in Flashpoint for many days.
I supply the 2 Paranids equally but I'll need to increase the PAR quota slightly because HOP are starting to make inroads there.
ZYA get enough to hold the Xenon in check but not enough to push into ARG.
TEL are starting to encroach on the other Splitt but I'm not overly fussed about that.
I'm about to start syphoning resources out of TER because their fleets are showing up everywhere. I might have left it too late though because their fleets seem to ROFL stomp everything they they want to.

BUILD
I tend to build more top tech factories and get lower tech from the AI.
Shipbuilding is only civilian ships for myself.

FIGHT
I only have some fighters and a couple of capped SCA Behemoths to clear out Khaak when they show up.
When I fancy a bit of personal pew pew I keep a selection of ships parked up so I can play with the Xenon as my mood takes me.

Personally I feel like I can play however I want, manipulate the universe as I want and support or crush whoever I want as I fancy.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Not too much thinking in X4, but that might be down to my small brain !
I swop heads when playing X3FL, as I know from historical X3 games.
There are things best not done, and need to be avoided. At least early game !
Exploring in X3FL is for me quite exciting at the moment, not knowing what I might find.
X4, however ! Is there anything to find ? Please don’t say lockboxes, as they are nothing more than council rubbish Bins.