How can you play this game?

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skjal
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Joined: Mon, 29. Nov 21, 22:28

How can you play this game?

Post by skjal » Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48

First of all, I'm sorry about this thread. I believe you already heard this but I have to release some steam because this game is pure masochism for me.
  • My OOS combat looks like wannabe videoclip for "Spin me round around" song
  • My mineral miners won't mine
  • My gas miners won't mine
  • My traders won't trade
  • I'm getting spammed by ship alerts (unsuccessful order)
  • My turrets won't fire
  • My subordinates won't fire
  • My subordinates attack from suicidal range
  • My subordinates won't attack station
  • AI factions wont attack enemy stations in their sectors
  • When they do they are annihilated to the last
  • Player is OP against AI in OOS
  • My pilots won't level up (180 hours and my traders constantly trading couldn't hit from star 2 to 3?; Pilots defending gate at constant enemy pressure not even able to 1 star level up after 100 hours?)
  • Unable to save orders (like ship config)
  • Every ship has to be upgraded, assigned orders one by one
  • No fleet shortcuts
  • No orders shortcuts
  • No formation shortcuts
  • My subordinates doesn't fall in to formation
  • Unable to set what class your subordinates are allowed to attack
  • Unable to select what weapons can engage what enemy class (my subordinates wasting heavy missiles worth of 22kk against 4 fighters?)
  • Resupplying fleet is nonsense (expensive, heavily micro managed)
  • Micro, micro, micro, micro, micro, micro
  • Every effin little thing I have to google around - mostly how to - get around the tings because its broken
  • Almost no info about how the game works and what can you do
Jesus...

Jaskan
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by Jaskan » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 01:09

All i can say is that , they could have improved so much of the game mechanics and sold it as DLC, rather than DLC with new sectors/ factions but same crap mechanics.

The only reason am able to play this game is the vast improvements offered by MODS. If not for mods i would have uninstalled ages ago.

Egosoft seem to be taking improvement plans and road map from people who dont actually play the game.

Its unbelievable that we still cant set minimum cargo for traders to avoid trades that are too small for ship, and yet here we are with the third DLC, based on top of the same crap.

Much of what egosoft has been working on is like cosmetics, the game badly needed a better economy where money in late game can still be a challenge, instead you get terraforming, terraforming planets you cant actually interact with in anyway.

And please please please, give us a way to shut boso up or disable bosso, whilst keeping the features offered by science lab, that 15 minute boso speech is a massive turn off.

The missions and story line is crap, just focus your efforts on the simulation, make the simulation work, it has a real story.

Y-llian
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by Y-llian » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 02:32

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48

[*] Almost no info about how the game works and what can you do
If there are specific areas of the game you’re unsure about then do feel free to ask. Folk on here have a great deal of knowledge and quite willing to help, if they’re able. Players have a wide array of play styles, so there’s at least a good chance someone might have a solution/workaround or just some good old info to help fill the blanks.

Best
Y.

LameFox
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by LameFox » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 03:19

I don't encounter all of these personally, though I do get a few different ones. There's definitely a lot that needs improving and in some cases fixing. On the other hand, it released with a lot of features simply missing. Some are still (pending the next DLC) not in the game yet, making certain playstyles untenable without mods.

My hope is that once the game is finally feature complete they will focus on bug and QOL fixes. The micromanagement of fitting, for example, and better AA and shadows. Some have speculated on a soft re-launch like X3 got a few of, maybe they will address some of this then, if it happens.
***modified***

builder680
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by builder680 » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 05:57

I have to agree with every single point... and yet I still play. Mods help a lot, bit don't fix everything. The game has a lot of good points too.

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grapedog
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by grapedog » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 08:35

imagine having 99 problems... and the first post they make is complaining about them instead of asking for help about some aspect of the game they're having trouble with.

If you are having problems, ask a question. We're have no problems at all trying to help.

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mr.WHO
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 08:35

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] My OOS combat looks like wannabe videoclip for "Spin me round around" song
Yep, this is know issue that return from time to time - looks stupid, but doesn't impact OOS combat performance.

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] My mineral miners won't mine
[*] My gas miners won't mine
[*] My traders won't trade
There can be many things that cause it:
- not enough pilot skill
- no resources/products in range
- you need to deploy resources probes and see stations with products in visibility range (or buy trading subscription at faction representative)

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] I'm getting spammed by ship alerts (unsuccessful order)
This is the very first thing you should switch off in alert/notification menu - the default setting has several irritating spam messages :(

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] My turrets won't fire
[*] My subordinates won't fire
[*] My subordinates attack from suicidal range
[*] My subordinates won't attack station
This can also be caused by the mix of several things:
- not enough skill for captain and crew (not likely)
- you might have installed the weapon that is too slow to track the target (e.g. plasma agains fighters), or too short range (e.g. Shard)
- there is currently a bug that cause Large turrets not firing, that is fixed in upcoming 4.20 patch
skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] AI factions wont attack enemy stations in their sectors
[*] When they do they are annihilated to the last
It depends on what kind of war they are to eachother. Unless it's a total war (like -30) they usually do not attack civilian targets (sometimes there is misfire and they start shooting eachother), they only attack enemy defence platform.
Unfortunately stations have more HP and turrets then ships, so unless it's liek a destroyer group, the attackers are bound to fail miserably.
skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Player is OP against AI in OOS
[*] My pilots won't level up (180 hours and my traders constantly trading couldn't hit from star 2 to 3?; Pilots defending gate at constant enemy pressure not even able to 1 star level up after 100 hours?)
Player ships are usually most well equiped and most trained crew anyway, so they will win 1:1 for 90% of times.
As for slow level up, the leveling up progression and speed is over huge complaint by the community since 1.0.
skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Unable to save orders (like ship config)
[*] No fleet shortcuts
[*] No orders shortcuts
[*] No formation shortcuts
Keep nagging, sometimes Egosoft do listen.

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Every ship has to be upgraded, assigned orders one by one
For ship upgrades, you're not meant to do this in bulk.
When you become more rich you should just buy/build fully equipped ships in bulk.

As for assign order - you can mass assing them using mass select from list or map, using shift or ctrl selection like in any RTS.

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] My subordinates doesn't fall in to formation
Known and complained issue since 1.0.
Now it's slightly better, but there is still not much use for formation, keep nagging and keep complaining till they fix it.

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Unable to set what class your subordinates are allowed to attack
[*] Unable to select what weapons can engage what enemy class (my subordinates wasting heavy missiles worth of 22kk against 4 fighters?)
Yeah, this would be useful.
For now they only glimpse of this is "interception" assignement where asigned ships will only attack S/M size ships.
I'm nagging for "bomber" assignment and range definition for ages.

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Resupplying fleet is nonsense (expensive, heavily micro managed)
Preach it! I don't use missiles at all due to this. Mainly because dedicated supply ships have to small cargo space to even resuply a small fleet.
skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] Micro, micro, micro, micro, micro, micro
[*] Every effin little thing I have to google around - mostly how to - get around the tings because its broken
[*] Almost no info about how the game works and what can you do
Belive or not, but X4 is still least micro intense and most described in the series. Albeit the older games have been ages with community macro mods and manual.
Unfortunately, give that the game will be 5.0 in Q1 2022, you can say many things are still WIP, so they don't want to waste time on manuals for feature that can change.
skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
Jesus...
Jesus will not hear you scream in space.
Last edited by mr.WHO on Tue, 30. Nov 21, 10:58, edited 3 times in total.

Rei Ayanami
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by Rei Ayanami » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 08:38

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
[*] My OOS combat looks like wannabe videoclip for "Spin me round around" song
If i remember correctly the devs said that this is just a visual bug.
But yea, it's silly and annoying, especially since this bug exists since the beginning of X:Rebirth.
[*] My mineral miners won't mine
[*] My gas miners won't mine
[*] My traders won't trade
All of these issues are usually not the game's fault. In most cases the station or ship does not fulfill some criterium to do their job.
In most cases it's something like

- the station has not enough money
- the station does not have appropriate storage type
- the manager is not experienced enough to send ships far away enough for ships to reach any viable target (ressources, stations). When assigned to a station, you can see in a ships behavior tab how many sectors far away a ship can trade/mine
- the station does not have the neccessary production modules
- in the case of stations that don't have production modules but should act as proxy stations (for mining, trading), you need to manually set the wares to buy and sell
- In the case of mining ships, deploying ressource probes can help mining ships to find ressources more easily
- Blacklists or global orders/station settings might forbid ships from travelling through certain sectors or trade with certain factions so they can't find viable targets

That being said, it would be nice if the game gave better feedback for what is missing for traders/miners to do their job

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Matthew94
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by Matthew94 » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 09:39

Unfortunately the game is just jank as ****, like all their games. The one time Egosoft sank a a ton of time and cash into a project (Rebirth) the result was just a bunch of shiny pixels and an engine that couldn't scale well. As such, these games will probably always be jank given those kinds of priorities.

You can see it happening again with update 5.0 where the big "feature" is remodelled ships and the big feature in 4.0 was fog. It's never something like "we've completely redesigned our dogshit UI" or anything, it's always "moar pixels!!!1111". I'm sure recycling will be a game changer though.

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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 10:06

It's odd though that in nearly 1,900 hours of playing vanilla X4 versions I have only paused from playing once over an issue not included in the OP's list that was resolved in the very next release version. I have a lot of fun playing and while I have indeed encountered 'game issues', there is almost always more than enough scope to achieve things temporarily in different if less-efficient ways and so avoid the problematic areas until they are hopefully improved or resolved in the next version. I know that the devs do listen to player reporting and will try their best to resolve the big issues as and when they can.

I think that we must accept the potential for some new issues appearing in new versions in order to continue to receive the sheer scale, immersion and complexity of X4's evolving gameplay. Certainly it is subjective and depends a lot upon personal playstyle and objectives, but my goals were always more about enjoyable play and entertainment rather than quick achievements or total domination in-game. Solving or working around some of the game's unintended problems almost become satisfying mini-games and challenges in and of themselves! :D
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

SirBerrial
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by SirBerrial » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 10:18

Matthew94 wrote:
Tue, 30. Nov 21, 09:39
Unfortunately the game is just jank as ****, like all their games. The one time Egosoft sank a a ton of time and cash into a project (Rebirth) the result was just a bunch of shiny pixels and an engine that couldn't scale well. As such, these games will probably always be jank given those kinds of priorities.

You can see it happening again with update 5.0 where the big "feature" is remodelled ships and the big feature in 4.0 was fog. It's never something like "we've completely redesigned our dogshit UI" or anything, it's always "moar pixels!!!1111". I'm sure recycling will be a game changer though.
Do not dismiss the ship remodels - there are a lot of people who enjoy immersing in the atmosphere of a game, and for them art direction and consistent quality of textures and models is extremely important. Seeing current PAR caps next to DLC ones (or even ones belonging to other base races) is immersion-breaking, because the PAR turds are so much worse in quality.

To elaborate further, using another game as an example - I had a lot of trouble getting into SMTIV due to the fact that the game had a lot of different artists of varying quality and with varying styles for its sprites, while also having higher resolution than previous SMT installments and spin-offs that still used 2D graphics in combat, and lack of sprite pixelation from the older titles made the differences stand out a lot. This made it feel much, MUCH less like a whole product.

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grapedog
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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by grapedog » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 13:39

Matthew94 wrote:
Tue, 30. Nov 21, 09:39
update 5.0 where the big "feature" is remodelled ships
This statement is hilarious. You should actually WATCH the teaser trailer if you want to learn what the big features are. Then, after you watch it, you can comment. If you still think that remodeled paranid capital ships is the big feature... man, you're in for a surprise.

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Re: How can you play this game?

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 1. Dec 21, 11:14

skjal wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 23:48
this game is pure masochism
Thats it! That must be the reason why I like it! :oops:
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There is no Box. I am the sand.

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