Employee of the month, Feb 825

[Admiral Sausage]

This month's award goes to Zera Poler:



Zera started her employment as a marine. Not only was she the first one to survive long enough to reach elite status, she put in the extra effort to gain that fifth star. Like all my marines, in her off hours I put her to work allowed her to relax as service crew, where she excelled, gaining a second five-star skill.

With such an outstanding record, she deserved the honour of being promoted to desk jockey manager at my most prestigous station, where once again she demonstrated unswerving five-star loyalty.

And so now Zera has earned the highest honour... Employee of the Month! To show my appreciation, I gave her a generous 5% raise on the 0Cr p.a. she already earns, plus a lovely bust of Boso Ta that I had lying around made specially. I was hoping that would help with her merely four-star morale, but she didn't seem impressed. Employees are so ungrateful these days.

Has anyone else done better? Maybe also put in the extreme effort required to train someone naturally to five stars in piloting (not just with seminars)?

[Alan Phipps]

I always thought the player was the employee of the month. We certainly seem to get everyone else's dirty jobs all the time and we still grin and bear it.

(PS: Have you any idea how much a Teladi would charge somebody if they wanted to hire Zera right now?)

[Socratatus]

Has anyone else done better? Maybe also put in the extreme effort required to train someone naturally to five stars in piloting (not just with seminars)?

I'm working on a couple of pilots, but as you know it takes time. I don't mind it. It's realistic. I found it funny when my 0 star noob pilot blows opening a Lockbox or bounces into a sitting meteor. I guess standing behind him makes him nervous!

However, the Devs should have say 1 or 2 full 5 Star people (in one or two skills) around sometimes, but they should be very, very rare and expensive. Maybe there already are some?

[dtpsprt]

Has anyone else done better? Maybe also put in the extreme effort required to train someone naturally to five stars in piloting (not just with seminars)?

I'm working on a couple of pilots, but as you know it takes time. I don't mind it. It's realistic. I found it funny when my 0 star noob pilot blows opening a Lockbox or bounces into a sitting meteor. I guess standing behind him makes him nervous!

However, the Devs should have say 1 or 2 full 5 Star people (in one or two skills) around sometimes, but they should be very, very rare and expensive. Maybe there already are some?

Well actually the devs are providing a 4* pilot and change with the Fires of Defeat gamestart and a 4 1/2* pilot at the end of the Yaki plot along with his own Kuraokami if you make the right choice in the plot.

Of course, when it is too late and they are not needed any more, you can train Pilots and Marines during Terraforming...

[GCU Grey Area]

Of course, when it is too late and they are not needed any more, you can train Pilots and Marines during Terraforming...

Not necessarily true. Don't have to leave it until it's too late to make a difference. Can get pilot/marine training up & running in around 4 days if you focus on it & just build the essentials on the planet (i.e. bubble city & training facilities). No need to do any actual terraforming to build those. Bulk of that time is spent acquiring the resources to complete teleport research & moving the HQ to a suitable sector, both of which could be skipped if using a custom start. Don't tend to have all that much of a fleet in the first few days of a new game, so the pilot/marine training kicks in at just the right point for my usual progression through the game.

[dtpsprt]

Of course, when it is too late and they are not needed any more, you can train Pilots and Marines during Terraforming...

Not necessarily true. Don't have to leave it until it's too late to make a difference. Can get pilot/marine training up & running in around 4 days if you focus on it & just build the essentials on the planet (i.e. bubble city & training facilities). No need to do any actual terraforming to build those. Bulk of that time is spent acquiring the resources to complete teleport research & moving the HQ to a suitable sector, both of which could be skipped if using a custom start. Don't tend to have all that much of a fleet in the first few days of a new game, so the pilot/marine training kicks in at just the right point for my usual progression through the game.

Necessarily true I'm afraid... Unless you have come to my "resolution" to leave vanilla well alone and go for modified, where there are many different options... In vanilla and without cheating (won't say here how to do it) you must have at least one playthrough all the way to Terraforming from scratch... Then and only then you can use custom start (Budgeted) to speed things up... And then wonder: "since I got all this way into the game why should I start over?"

P.S. Why people always seem to forget that not everyone (especially the ones starting threads like this one) have over 6,000 hours in the game?

EDIT: BTW where do the 200 mill for the S/M Shipyard blueprint (necessary for Terraforming) come from? OK it can be 120 mill in custom start but still one has to have played the game to get such money availlable for it. Not to mention others like L Liquid Containers and such... afterall they can be "hacked"...

[GCU Grey Area]

Necessarily true I'm afraid... Unless you have come to my "resolution" to leave vanilla well alone and go for modified, where there are many different options... In vanilla and without cheating (won't say here how to do it) you must have at least one playthrough all the way to Terraforming from scratch... Then and only then you can use custom start (Budgeted) to speed things up... And then wonder: "since I got all this way into the game why should I start over?"

The 4 day timeframe in my earlier post was for a standard game (not custom) so absolutely no need to have completed a previous game to unlock custom start options. Anyone can do this & the earlier they start the better. The benefits of having an effectively inexhaustible supply of 4-5* marines & pilots are significant.

EDIT: BTW where do the 200 mill for the S/M Shipyard blueprint (necessary for Terraforming) come from? OK it can be 120 mill in custom start but still one has to have played the game to get such money availlable for it. Not to mention others like L Liquid Containers and such... afterall they can be "hacked"...

Nope, you're way off on the cost of blueprints: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3ktca0x3kk0t ... 1.jpg?dl=0. As for how to get it, same way cash is generated for anything else. 116 million isn't really all that much in X4 terms. I use generic & trade/war guild missions to generate the bulk of my early game cash, though I suspect there are significantly faster methods. No idea why you bring up L liquid storage specifically. Don't recall liquid storage being needed for any of the research projects. Mostly what I needed was container storage, with a small amount of solid for nividium. In any case storage module blueprints are hardly the most expensive to buy. Cheap enough that I don't tend to waste EMP's to hack them or my time hunting for a free data leak.

[dtpsprt]

Necessarily true I'm afraid... Unless you have come to my "resolution" to leave vanilla well alone and go for modified, where there are many different options... In vanilla and without cheating (won't say here how to do it) you must have at least one playthrough all the way to Terraforming from scratch... Then and only then you can use custom start (Budgeted) to speed things up... And then wonder: "since I got all this way into the game why should I start over?"

The 4 day timeframe in my earlier post was for a standard game (not custom) so absolutely no need to have completed a previous game to unlock custom start options. Anyone can do this & the earlier they start the better. The benefits of having an effectively inexhaustible supply of 4-5* marines & pilots are significant.

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it... It can be done, yes but, again, have in mind that new players may blunder about and, again that most people puting this kind of posts are new (or relatively new) to the game. There is also the fact that some people just want a "steady" amount of money, nothing special, so they can keep on exploring and fighting...

EDIT: BTW where do the 200 mill for the S/M Shipyard blueprint (necessary for Terraforming) come from? OK it can be 120 mill in custom start but still one has to have played the game to get such money availlable for it. Not to mention others like L Liquid Containers and such... afterall they can be "hacked"...

Nope, you're way off on the cost of blueprints: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3ktca0x3kk0t ... 1.jpg?dl=0. As for how to get it, same way cash is generated for anything else. 116 million isn't really all that much in X4 terms. I use generic & trade/war guild missions to generate the bulk of my early game cash, though I suspect there are significantly faster methods. No idea why you bring up L liquid storage specifically. Don't recall liquid storage being needed for any of the research projects. Mostly what I needed was container storage, with a small amount of solid for nividium. In any case storage module blueprints are hardly the most expensive to buy. Cheap enough that I don't tend to waste EMP's to hack them or my time hunting for a free data leak.

The L Liquid storage is needed for Methane in the Terraforming process, it can be "hacked" but there are not many of it's kind around... As for the price of the blueprint you are correct but it gets up to that amount (200 mill) with the necessary wares to build along with Habitats and Storage... Then, not mentioned, is the cost of getting the High Mass Teleportation researched...

[Raptor34]

Nice! I've considered doing something like that too for a personal pilot, though I don't exactly have a personal boat yet. Maybe the Astrid?
But anyway, you're missing out on piloting.

[jlehtone]

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it... It can be done, yes but, again, have in mind that new players may blunder about and, again that most people puting this kind of posts are new (or relatively new) to the game. There is also the fact that some people just want a "steady" amount of money, nothing special, so they can keep on exploring and fighting...

Yes. Some start slow. Some (new players) peruse all Fora in order to min-max from word go. At some point a new player has learned something and might try to start again, "more efficiently". The important thing is not how to do that, but that it is possible. There are surely games where only options are "hard" and "difficult". X4 is not one of those games.

Does Zera Poler wear ToA fashion? Born with it?

[Admiral Sausage]

I always thought the player was the employee of the month. We certainly seem to get everyone else's dirty jobs all the time and we still grin and bear it.

(PS: Have you any idea how much a Teladi would charge somebody if they wanted to hire Zera right now?)

At least we get paid something for it.

Sadly you can't exploit ship selling prices by stuffing them with high-skill crew. That's probably why NPCs put up with a total lack of compensation - no one else wants them, so they would be unemployed otherwise.

I'm working on a couple of pilots, but as you know it takes time. I don't mind it. It's realistic...

I suppose it's ok that it takes a long time, but what isn't realistic is that in the time it took to train Zera to five stars in three skills, I don't think any of my pilots have gained more than one star in piloting, and most never gain anything except morale.

...most people puting this kind of posts are new (or relatively new) to the game...

I have actually been playing since X3 (technically since X2, but I never really got into that). I've never done any terraforming though, since by the time I have the resources to do that, I'm already capable of crushing the entire galaxy, leaving little reason to continue playing until the next expansion.

Does Zera Poler wear ToA fashion? Born with it?

She would have been part of a bulk purchase of marines from one of the ToA factions, I don't remember which. So she came with her one outfit that she lives in, including the convenient carrying handle on the side.

[oddible]

This is awesome, I love doing this. People who just want instant 5-star everything are missing out on a great feature of the game. As someone who has managed a lot of people in my life I can tell you that I've never worked with a 5 star person, ever, I'm certainly not one. I've seen them, gone to talks by them, but never worked with them. Even a 4-star person IRL is a unicorn. There are more 3-stars around but they're pretty rare as well. Most of us sit in the 2-star range and will most of our lives with a few glorious moments or projects where we peak in the 3-star range.

I LOVE celebrating my employees achievements and I do the same thing you do - move them around to give them "rewards" for their time with me and their efforts in personal growth. My very first pilot who joined me on my fighter often becomes my first Miner captain, and then my first PHQ manager. I also move them to safe areas to protect them! When even 3-star personnel are so rare, protecting them like the assets that they are is critical. I can replace a ship easily but busting my hump for seminars or waiting for the organic growth of high-star employees is the real resource in this game. And the game values it - high star employees perform EXCEPTIONALLY better than lower star employees. This is such a cool feature.

I get why people don't like it - folks want to fling a fleet of destroyers a carrier and fighters at a Xenon Defense station and suffer zero losses so they complain about the AI and stars. I definitely installed Learning All the Things early in my time with X4 but I've since gotten rid of it and now just enjoy the organic growth, and the losses.

Training boarding crew is so nuts - finding the choice target ships to send in my veteran marines for low stress experience, while every other ship gets green recruits and suffers insane losses. I always pack every one of my trade / mining ships with Service Crew because they train while working. Hours into the game I have solid mid-range stars on hundreds of employees that make for the perfect choices for seminars.

I love doing this with employees and love this feature set in the game.

[GCU Grey Area]

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it... It can be done, yes but, again, have in mind that new players may blunder about and, again that most people puting this kind of posts are new (or relatively new) to the game. There is also the fact that some people just want a "steady" amount of money, nothing special, so they can keep on exploring and fighting...

Yes, 4 days with a very slow, relaxed & laid back approach to the game, mostly doing generic & guild missions to raise cash; sometimes doing the early parts (i.e. the cheap bits) of some of the plots to pass the time while my freighters gather resources in the background & production modules are built at HQ. Absolutely certain there are far more efficient ways of raising the cash, gathering resources, etc, which would enable a more impatient player to do get their training facilities up & running considerably faster than 4 days. However that's just not the way I like to play. X4 is not a game I like to rush.

The L Liquid storage is needed for Methane in the Terraforming process, it can be "hacked" but there are not many of it's kind around...

No need to do anything at all with methane in order to build the training facilities. Methane is only needed for the biosphere projects, none of which are pre-requisites for marine/pilot training. As long as you don't pick one of the harder planets (e.g. where toxic cleanup is required) the ONLY other thing needed is a bubble city to provide planet-side habitation. Incidentally can recommend Black Hole Sun as a good choice for this. That's where my HQ is located in my current game. Have not done any of the biosphere projects yet, however on day 5 already have several hundred well trained marines & pilots (got considerably more of them than I have ships for them to fly).

As for the price of the blueprint you are correct but it gets up to that amount (200 mill) with the necessary wares to build along with Habitats and Storage... Then, not mentioned, is the cost of getting the High Mass Teleportation researched...

Build cost of an S/M fabrication bay is around 5 million (at average prices), L storage modules are around 300k each, while S habitation modules are around 400k or so. Still no idea where you're getting that 200 million number from. Suspect you just made it up. Anyway by that point in the game I usually have my own production of basic construction materials setup so it's more of an opportunity cost to use them to construct the S/M bay, rather than something I'll have to pay for. Incidentally the introduction in ToA of recycling facilities to make hull parts & claytronics from scrap (i.e. without needing the lower tier production chains) has proved really quite useful in my current game.

Frankly not sure why you spread so much misinformation about this. You seem to be dead set on discouraging people from exploring this aspect of the game, when it has proved to be an incredibly beneficial thing to do early on in my past couple of games. Makes a world of difference, for example, to be able to do boarding ops with 4-5* marines, rather than relying on the untrained 0-1* idiots that can be bought from a shipyard.

[jlehtone]

Does Zera Poler wear ToA fashion? Born with it?

She would have been part of a bulk purchase of marines from one of the ToA factions, I don't remember which. So she came with her one outfit that she lives in, including the convenient carrying handle on the side.

In other words, her career has not taken many months in real life, since ToA has not been out long.

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it...

Thinking more about this, I'm confused. Do you feel that four ingame days it a long or short time? (Personally, I spend closer to three months to advance four days ingame.)

[dtpsprt]

..........

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it...

Thinking more about this, I'm confused. Do you feel that four ingame days it a long or short time? (Personally, I spend closer to three months to advance four days ingame.)

I definitely find it a long and ardous time. And I'm extimating in real ime with 4 hours average per day (3 plus change playing and about 1 loading - saving - reloading)... Sounds like a full time job doesn't it? If you cut it in half then you have your three months....

[dtpsprt]

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it... It can be done, yes but, again, have in mind that new players may blunder about and, again that most people puting this kind of posts are new (or relatively new) to the game. There is also the fact that some people just want a "steady" amount of money, nothing special, so they can keep on exploring and fighting...

Yes, 4 days with a very slow, relaxed & laid back approach to the game, mostly doing generic & guild missions to raise cash; sometimes doing the early parts (i.e. the cheap bits) of some of the plots to pass the time while my freighters gather resources in the background & production modules are built at HQ. Absolutely certain there are far more efficient ways of raising the cash, gathering resources, etc, which would enable a more impatient player to do get their training facilities up & running considerably faster than 4 days. However that's just not the way I like to play. X4 is not a game I like to rush.

The L Liquid storage is needed for Methane in the Terraforming process, it can be "hacked" but there are not many of it's kind around...

No need to do anything at all with methane in order to build the training facilities. Methane is only needed for the biosphere projects, none of which are pre-requisites for marine/pilot training. As long as you don't pick one of the harder planets (e.g. where toxic cleanup is required) the ONLY other thing needed is a bubble city to provide planet-side habitation. Incidentally can recommend Black Hole Sun as a good choice for this. That's where my HQ is located in my current game. Have not done any of the biosphere projects yet, however on day 5 already have several hundred well trained marines & pilots (got considerably more of them than I have ships for them to fly).

As for the price of the blueprint you are correct but it gets up to that amount (200 mill) with the necessary wares to build along with Habitats and Storage... Then, not mentioned, is the cost of getting the High Mass Teleportation researched...

Build cost of an S/M fabrication bay is around 5 million (at average prices), L storage modules are around 300k each, while S habitation modules are around 400k or so. Still no idea where you're getting that 200 million number from. Suspect you just made it up. Anyway by that point in the game I usually have my own production of basic construction materials setup so it's more of an opportunity cost to use them to construct the S/M bay, rather than something I'll have to pay for. Incidentally the introduction in ToA of recycling facilities to make hull parts & claytronics from scrap (i.e. without needing the lower tier production chains) has proved really quite useful in my current game.

Frankly not sure why you spread so much misinformation about this. You seem to be dead set on discouraging people from exploring this aspect of the game, when it has proved to be an incredibly beneficial thing to do early on in my past couple of games. Makes a world of difference, for example, to be able to do boarding ops with 4-5* marines, rather than relying on the untrained 0-1* idiots that can be bought from a shipyard.

4 in game days of being a manager? Not my cup of tea for sure and these costs you put are good with a lot if infrastructure to support the build of the Wharf (as you say so yourself). My point is that not everybody wants to be a builder/manager/tycoon. There are people who prefer the explorer/wanderer/warrior path... It's supposed to be a sandbox and it ends up being Space Monopoly....

[GCU Grey Area]

4 in game days of being a manager?

Nope, quite the opposite. The primary reason I use missions to generate my early game cash is that I want to spend the bulk of my time flying around doing stuff, rather than say managing an exponentially expanding fleet of auto-miners, even though the latter approach may well generate cash a lot faster. In the early game prefer to keep the number of ships & stations I own to a minimum. During those first few days often all I've got is my HQ, a bunch of ships to fetch stuff for it & a few ships to fly personally. This for example is everything I owned about 3½ days into my current game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fzfq70inoqnc9 ... 1.jpg?dl=0. Very little management required.

[jlehtone]

You mean 4 game days? That is 96 hours of game playing which means a month plus at it...

Thinking more about this, I'm confused. Do you feel that four ingame days it a long or short time? (Personally, I spend closer to three months to advance four days ingame.)

I definitely find it a long and ardous time. And I'm extimating in real ime with 4 hours average per day (3 plus change playing and about 1 loading - saving - reloading)... Sounds like a full time job doesn't it? If you cut it in half then you have your three months....

You went on tangent that terraforming tools that allow training crews are for "late game" and "too late" for players that (apparently) want automated income as by "late game" there is no longer need.

GCU claimed (and proved) that one can get those training facilities "early" and without serious focus nonetheless. Now you imply that four ingame days is an eternity, especially if one just wants to "fly around", i.e. "very late in the game". Sounds plausible, if one plays a whole (real life) week before next restart. Overall, is X4 the right game, if you want it all and want it now?

[Admiral Sausage]

Does Zera Poler wear ToA fashion? Born with it?

She would have been part of a bulk purchase of marines from one of the ToA factions, I don't remember which. So she came with her one outfit that she lives in, including the convenient carrying handle on the side.

In other words, her career has not taken many months in real life, since ToA has not been out long.

I didn't say or try to imply that it took months. ToA has bee out for a couple of months now. I've been playing it for a bit over one month, which is more time on just ToA than I spend on most games in their entirety.

[dtpsprt]

.................

You went on tangent that terraforming tools that allow training crews are for "late game" and "too late" for players that (apparently) want automated income as by "late game" there is no longer need.

GCU claimed (and proved) that one can get those training facilities "early" and without serious focus nonetheless. Now you imply that four ingame days is an eternity, especially if one just wants to "fly around", i.e. "very late in the game". Sounds plausible, if one plays a whole (real life) week before next restart. Overall, is X4 the right game, if you want it all and want it now?

Now I think that you are mistaking automated income with billions like income. People who love exploring, flying and fighting their own ship don't care about billions (or even millions for that matter), as long as they can do what they like most (definition of sandbox). Just enough money to buy a better ship when things go tough, equip it and maintain it. That's about what an M Autotrader would bring in, something less than a million per hour. To do that you need a 4* Captain (!!!) how can you get him/her? With the exception of the Fires of Defeat gamestart it's practically impossible, unless you stop doing what you like and start puting enough fighters in the meatgrinder, observe them closely to replenish their losses (btw you'll have to do this keeping an eye on what's happening to them and any other moneymaking activity you engage to do just that) and keep praying that there is one survivor from the beginning of this futile excersise. Time (real days) passes and you are still at it... what are you playing for?

Of course this is not everyone's cup of tea but neither is the opposite that is happening ever since V3.00...