Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

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dtpsprt
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by dtpsprt » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:02

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 01:55
capitalduty wrote:
Fri, 10. Sep 21, 23:55
For real big guns, turreted ships Cruisers/battleships are the way to go and we need more of those for sure!
Not so sure about that myself. One notable difference in how I play X4 is that, as a consequence of smaller, less well armed capitals, I'm using a lot more of them.

In X3, on the few occasions when I bothered with capital ships, I only ever used one of them at a time. That was always more than enough & was pretty much invulnerable to whatever the game would throw at me. No point taking more than one when a single capital ship was already overkill for most tasks.

In contrast, in X4 I'll use an entire fleet to do the same job, generally 5-10 destroyers, along with a carrier full of fighters & (unless playing as a Terran) an auxiliary for repairs & resupply. Been having way more fun with my X4 fleets than I ever did with X3 capitals.
It all has to do with the watering down of the term "Capital Ship". By definition is a lumbering hulk so much armored and defended that is almost impervious to anything and with devastating firepower. The only ship that nearly comes to that is the Asgard. The rest are, as noted, the M6-M7's of previous titles which would never go it alone at least in major battles... which is what is happening with X4 Destroyers... an S can take them down...

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Shuulo
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by Shuulo » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:09

I feel that if Egosoft wants to stay with this idea its better to make destroyer weapons more diverse between factions and change their behavior from 'pew-pew' to 'WOOOP KDSHHHH WOOOP KDSHHHHH'

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 03:07

dtpsprt wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:02
It all has to do with the watering down of the term "Capital Ship". By definition is a lumbering hulk so much armored and defended that is almost impervious to anything and with devastating firepower. The only ship that nearly comes to that is the Asgard. The rest are, as noted, the M6-M7's of previous titles which would never go it alone at least in major battles... which is what is happening with X4 Destroyers... an S can take them down...
You're probably right, however the key thing for me is I'm having a lot more fun. That feeling in X3 of being impervious to everything, & having devastating firepower to lay waste to everything around me, just wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. Enemy ships might be exploding in droves all around me, but I just didn't involved in the fight. Was certainly never worried by anything as utterly inconsequential as fighters in X3. In contrast, in X4 whenever I'm flying a destroyer I'm always intensely aware that there might be one in the swarm armed with torps or heavy swarm (etc) that can nuke my engines before I even know they're there...

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by dtpsprt » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 04:24

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 03:07
dtpsprt wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:02
It all has to do with the watering down of the term "Capital Ship". By definition is a lumbering hulk so much armored and defended that is almost impervious to anything and with devastating firepower. The only ship that nearly comes to that is the Asgard. The rest are, as noted, the M6-M7's of previous titles which would never go it alone at least in major battles... which is what is happening with X4 Destroyers... an S can take them down...
You're probably right, however the key thing for me is I'm having a lot more fun. That feeling in X3 of being impervious to everything, & having devastating firepower to lay waste to everything around me, just wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. Enemy ships might be exploding in droves all around me, but I just didn't involved in the fight. Was certainly never worried by anything as utterly inconsequential as fighters in X3. In contrast, in X4 whenever I'm flying a destroyer I'm always intensely aware that there might be one in the swarm armed with torps or heavy swarm (etc) that can nuke my engines before I even know they're there...
Like I said above... M6/M7... only not as manoeuvrable... Remember Acynonyx and how to escape back to normal space? Or the Hyperion... Even flying it back to finally learn that it's yours... Or Operation Final Fury? I can go on and on...

EDIT: Or getting your Kea?

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by Loecus » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 04:37

In my opinion they should add ships from x rebirth. After annoucing of beta 4.1 and being frustrated by mining bug i started again to play rebirth, and there is a lots of awesome ships, which shall be best to adding to factions after little lifting and then every faction should have same ammount of ships or at least every class of ships (talking about battleships :p) they already used some ships from rebirth like drill. In my opinion fulmekron is made for argon battleship. I know there is some mods adding them into the game but i think this should be in vanilla version. Guys you made awesome job by creating ships(at least L and Xl) to rebirth, why dont use them in x4?

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by LameFox » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 06:42

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 01:55
Not so sure about that myself. One notable difference in how I play X4 is that, as a consequence of smaller, less well armed capitals, I'm using a lot more of them.

In X3, on the few occasions when I bothered with capital ships, I only ever used one of them at a time. That was always more than enough & was pretty much invulnerable to whatever the game would throw at me. No point taking more than one when a single capital ship was already overkill for most tasks.

In contrast, in X4 I'll use an entire fleet to do the same job, generally 5-10 destroyers, along with a carrier full of fighters & (unless playing as a Terran) an auxiliary for repairs & resupply. Been having way more fun with my X4 fleets than I ever did with X3 capitals.
Isn't how many of them you need more dependent on what the enemy is fielding in this game than how well armed or big they are? After all they are working with the same types of ships that we do.
Shuulo wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:09
I feel that if Egosoft wants to stay with this idea its better to make destroyer weapons more diverse between factions and change their behavior from 'pew-pew' to 'WOOOP KDSHHHH WOOOP KDSHHHHH'
They should do this anyway IMO. It's strange that even though they have invented various weapons already they only exist for forward guns, and only on S and M ships. Are those ships just so inconsequential that they aren't worried about balance? Do they think only small ones where you personally click the fire button can be interesting anyway? Really a mystery to me.
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Raylak
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by Raylak » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 08:15

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 03:07
dtpsprt wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 02:02
It all has to do with the watering down of the term "Capital Ship". By definition is a lumbering hulk so much armored and defended that is almost impervious to anything and with devastating firepower. The only ship that nearly comes to that is the Asgard. The rest are, as noted, the M6-M7's of previous titles which would never go it alone at least in major battles... which is what is happening with X4 Destroyers... an S can take them down...
You're probably right, however the key thing for me is I'm having a lot more fun. That feeling in X3 of being impervious to everything, & having devastating firepower to lay waste to everything around me, just wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. Enemy ships might be exploding in droves all around me, but I just didn't involved in the fight. Was certainly never worried by anything as utterly inconsequential as fighters in X3. In contrast, in X4 whenever I'm flying a destroyer I'm always intensely aware that there might be one in the swarm armed with torps or heavy swarm (etc) that can nuke my engines before I even know they're there...
As others are saying, the issue here isn't your ship's power, but the power of the enemy ships. Your big lumbering giant of a capital should feel near invulnerable against low to moderate numbers of fighters, corvettes and frigates, except if they are running torpedoes to be capital killers.

If capitals of that level are going to be in the game, every faction should be fielding them, well maybe not pirates etc, but you get the idea. They should be the core asset of major fleets and operations. Terrans want to take 'The Void' from the ANT, this should be a invasion level event with a supped up Asgard in command with it's destroyer escorts. It should be met by an ANT BS+escorts when an ANT defence event triggers from the attacks and there should be a major battle that could last over an hour.

The player can take missions to support either side with various tasks from killing fighters or bombers, disabling systems on the enemy capital or even bringing in supplies to a carrier sitting behind the battle that is rearming fighters/bombers. If the player can field a powerful enough fleet, they could enter the fight directly with their own capitals and get rewards based on damage dealt to the enemy capital.

That would give a living universe feel where the player can make an impact. This would require Egosoft to cater less to the 'fighter pilots' amongst the fan base and make capitals feel like capitals.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 09:14

Raylak wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 08:15
As others are saying, the issue here isn't your ship's power, but the power of the enemy ships. Your big lumbering giant of a capital should feel near invulnerable against low to moderate numbers of fighters, corvettes and frigates, except if they are running torpedoes to be capital killers.
Maybe that would be more realistic, however personally just don't find that sort of invulnerability particularly enjoyable. Frankly, tends to be a bit boring, which is the last thing I want from an exciting space battle. On reflection damn glad they went with the smaller capitals in X4. If they'd made them all equivalent in firepower/invulnerability to X3 I'd just have used the same single ship tactics, been just a bored & missed out on all the fun I've had with fleets in X4. Know aesthetcs are always subjective, however as far as I'm concerned a battle involving fleets looks way cooler than a single big ship swatting gnats:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt1xpiauqt5r4 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qk5cwkgjx3lx ... 1.jpg?dl=0

LameFox
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by LameFox » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 10:14

I would say the vulnerable surface elements contribute far, far more to that change between X3 and X4 than overall ship stats have. In X3 that ship could only be taken out by application of raw damage. It was a race between its own dps and hp and that of the fighters. Now they can turn it into a floating box and deal with it with time to spare. The AI could probably stand to get a little better at it IS but they do actively engage surface elements. Ironically those forward guns are sometimes all that's left over.
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 10:53

LameFox wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 10:14
I would say the vulnerable surface elements contribute far, far more to that change between X3 and X4 than overall ship stats have. In X3 that ship could only be taken out by application of raw damage. It was a race between its own dps and hp and that of the fighters. Now they can turn it into a floating box and deal with it with time to spare. The AI could probably stand to get a little better at it IS but they do actively engage surface elements. Ironically those forward guns are sometimes all that's left over.
Definitely like that aspect of the game too. Even the humble defence drone can strip a capital down to hull & main shields if there's enough of them to saturate anti-fighter defences.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by Raylak » Sat, 11. Sep 21, 11:32

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 09:14
Raylak wrote:
Sat, 11. Sep 21, 08:15
As others are saying, the issue here isn't your ship's power, but the power of the enemy ships. Your big lumbering giant of a capital should feel near invulnerable against low to moderate numbers of fighters, corvettes and frigates, except if they are running torpedoes to be capital killers.
Maybe that would be more realistic, however personally just don't find that sort of invulnerability particularly enjoyable. Frankly, tends to be a bit boring, which is the last thing I want from an exciting space battle. On reflection damn glad they went with the smaller capitals in X4. If they'd made them all equivalent in firepower/invulnerability to X3 I'd just have used the same single ship tactics, been just a bored & missed out on all the fun I've had with fleets in X4. Know aesthetcs are always subjective, however as far as I'm concerned a battle involving fleets looks way cooler than a single big ship swatting gnats:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt1xpiauqt5r4 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qk5cwkgjx3lx ... 1.jpg?dl=0
You apparently didn't actually read my post beyond the one line you quoted. I was explicitly in favour of fleet vs fleet warfare, just realistic fleet warfare with ships filling their proper roles. This would require a half competent AI however, but would make single ship warfare almost impossible, which is a good thing.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by GDS_dmitry » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 12:30

No, I don't like X4 destroyers. In fact, they are not destroyers, but simply M7 frigates from X3. Just one and boring attack style - front (Sucellus from XR like) assault, not circling and maneuvering near target. Even Homeworld (2) RTS has different attack styles for different ships counting their weapon placement (I've modded Homeworld a lot in the past). From broadside attacks to strafing and circling. Destroyers in AI hands in X4 are garbage. Taranis from XR - is a real destroyer (it's behavior in XR was even better, than "destroyers" from X4). Sadly.
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by capitalduty » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 20:03

GDS_dmitry wrote:
Wed, 15. Sep 21, 12:30
No, I don't like X4 destroyers. In fact, they are not destroyers, but simply M7 frigates from X3. Just one and boring attack style - front (Sucellus from XR like) assault, not circling and maneuvering near target. Even Homeworld (2) RTS has different attack styles for different ships counting their weapon placement (I've modded Homeworld a lot in the past). From broadside attacks to strafing and circling. Destroyers in AI hands in X4 are garbage. Taranis from XR - is a real destroyer (it's behavior in XR was even better, than "destroyers" from X4). Sadly.
I tend to agree with most of your statement, specially about Taranis from XR, what a beast to behold and to go into battle!! Also ai usage was kind of ok most of the time for this kind of vessels of XR.

But X4 is lacking on real M2 and M1 Capital ships...yes those can also be balanced into game without making it invincible...it's a matter of proper faction use of this assets and how to counter it and better ai piloting behaviour for XL class to make better dynamic battles with multiple fleet compositions possible.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by Dreez » Thu, 16. Sep 21, 02:17

Personally i hate everything with the shipdesign in X4, that's no secret.
I think it's cutting corners and the quality in design is a rollercoaster and i have no love for how all races uses the same
main weapon loadout and there's no changing them. We own the ships so we should be able to decide what they're
equipped with no matter what, like in X3TC.

In X3TC you could also decide what to prioritize, being able to fire longer but less damage, or do massive damage
but risk draining the powergenerator faster, OR we could simply use capitalship weapons that relied on ammunition
or simply just make a FLAK boat and rely on missiles.

The way we're restricted in our ways to equip ships in X4 is killing it. I like the game, but i would like it more
if they had kept what was great about X3TC (which was everything) , and used it to make X4.
Of all the things i've lost, i miss my mind the most.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by S!rAssassin » Thu, 16. Sep 21, 07:36

Prior to customization ships, I`d like to see XL-weapons mount not only in nose point, but turrets. I`d like to see various weapons to that mounts: plasma (like now), beam (like Asgard), mighty torpedoes, more maneuverable heavy rockets, long range artillery (like dumb missiles), etc...
No fun with main weapon in X4, because only one tactics - stand forward to enemy and shoot until death...

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by JoeVN09 » Fri, 17. Sep 21, 06:42

I like the changes made to capital ships in X4. It's cool that current destroyers closer match the real-world naval definition of destroyers than the old ones did, which more resembled a heavy cruiser or battleship role. Main batteries have great cool factor and feel appropriate on this class of ships, I think. It makes their large size feel useful, and it means epic space battles with lots of big ships are a much more common occurrence.

The problem is the lore: new "destroyers" have the same naming and heritage as the old "destroyers". The Odysseus, Phoenix and Osaka are clearly tied to their X3 namesakes, despite having very different roles and designs, and would more accurately hearken back to the Deimos, Shrike and Yokohama frigates. The Rattlesnake is clearly the old Tiger's design philosophy on a Cobra hull. I can't help but feel the XL ship models are wasted on Auxiliaries; the name 'Odysseus' deserves to go on a battleship with the form factor currently occupied by the Atlas. Much as I like the current L and XL ships, I think there's room for more battleship or dreadnought-type designs like the Raptor, Asgard and I.

The class reshuffle trickles down to smaller vessels, too. What we now call a frigate is a box for an S ship to go in, with almost no room left for any other design consideration since they have to fit on an M landing pad. I'd much rather frigates had been a lighter class of L-size ships, avoiding this design limitation and the role conflation with corvettes they currently have.
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by taztaz502 » Fri, 17. Sep 21, 18:36

Well from my experience the AI very rarely use them and if they do 9 times out of 10 they'll miss, even 5* in everything.


I wish they had longer range like 10x what they have now, stations already take forever to kill unless you're in an asgard so they won't be over powered, especially if they fixed the combat AI to send out fighters to disable hardpoints on the big ass capital ship shooting it from afar.

It also wouldn't be over powered vs ships as the chance to hit anything from range is significantly reduced, at the minute everything feels unbalanced and face roll.

You could literally have 20 asgard escorted by 500 med and small ships and they would under perform vs 1 player piloted asgard. (Or any destroyer to be fair)

For me this is what is holding X4 back, Yeah the economy etc is mediocre but it works, once you get a shipyard and credits become redundant and you start building and managing your own fleets you come to realise just how bad the AI is.

(First person to say use 5* pilots will get a karate chop to the throat, i've not noticed ANY difference in AI for rank of pilot, the ONLY difference rank gives in my opinion is unlocking more orders/commands and yes i've tested a lot, you can now easy test it yourself with creating your own new game.)

The only AI that ever performed as expected is your wingman at the start of the terran campaign.
Spoiler
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He becomes utterly terrible once you unlock and recruit him as your own during the campaign, ends up stupid like everyone else.
I really hope ego do something drastic to improve combat AI or it's off back to x3 which is a shame because i thought X4 really would be a great "foundation" to build upon but from what ive witnessed from the patches since release nothing really gets much better, and the patches tend to break more than they fix.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 18. Sep 21, 01:31

taztaz502 wrote:
Fri, 17. Sep 21, 18:36
Well from my experience the AI very rarely use them and if they do 9 times out of 10 they'll miss, even 5* in everything.
Not my experience at all. Do these ships look like they're rarely using their main guns, or missing 90% of their shots?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cm0sqhiwfbc8x ... 1.jpg?dl=0

builder680
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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by builder680 » Sat, 18. Sep 21, 06:34

I'll chime in once more to say that ship variety in general is really disappointing. Egosoft had the ideas of a well-polished (created over several years) mod FREELY available to them that included balancing of weapons, shields, and the addition of DOZENS of ship models in the SRM/XRM mods created by paulwheeler. That man took X3 and made it what X4 should be now. OVER TEN years ago!

They should have hired him, tbh. When I bought X4 a couple weeks ago, my expectation was enormous variety in ships and weapon/shield loadouts, not to mention script improvements to things like satellite placement, resupply, attack formations, and carrier management (hello, CODEA) that were written for FREE for you OVER TEN YEARS AGO. My disappointment is (probably) measurable on a seismometer.

X4 is a fun game, but Egosoft seems to have willfully rejected so many things that made the game better and it is just irritating. I find this version fun, but it could have been so much better if Egosoft had just accommodated more of the more popular mods of X3 into the base version. The sheer willfulness of their disregard on that point is just glaringly apparent and it REALLY irritates me.

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Re: Do you feel the move to main weapon destroyers was successful?

Post by NightmareNight91 » Sat, 18. Sep 21, 09:20

L size destroyers should have been L size frigates, destroyers should be XL depending on lots of turrets instead of main guns. The current M size "frigates" are a lame joke. I dont care about real world classifications, this is space.

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