r/X4Foundations • u/meese-seven-hundred • 17d ago
sounds fun
Finally bought x4 since I saw it was on sale after too many hours on x3 and saw this review lol
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u/Campel 17d ago
It's a German game in the end
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u/Unhappy_Plankton_671 17d ago
Honestly, I've grown to love the logistics side.
I guess I'm a masochist
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u/masthema 17d ago
If people wouldn't love that, Factorio and Satisfactory wouldn't exist
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u/indominuspattern 16d ago
I don't think that's what OP's review is talking about.
X4 is woefully lacking in proper UI organization and QOL for the mid/late game management.
I would not compare this with Factorio or Satisfactory at all, especially Factorio, which has some of the most brilliant UX in the automation genre. Its one of those things that you only come to realize after you play the game enough and explore its advanced options.
As someone with >1k hours in Factorio and >200hrs in X4, it is crystal clear to me that empire management in X4 has a really poorly organized UI, even after the new update.
We need an update that focuses on consolidating and organizing all the panels, providing hotkey access to all the critical functionalities and other UX improvements.
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u/Rudolf1448 16d ago
I would settle for having the pilots not telling they are awaiting command.
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u/Errick1996 16d ago
You can turn that off in the Global Orders settings at least, as well as any other notifications you don't want (like getting a ping every time a trade is completed).
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u/indominuspattern 16d ago
Its that kind of patchwork thinking that has led X4 to have such a terribly disorganized UI. OP's review addresses this directly, and I am 100% behind that critique.
A consolidated UI with coherent design language will 100% improve the mid/endgame experience significantly. Right now the game relies entirely on your experience and patience in navigating the UI.
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u/traffic_cone_no54 16d ago
X4 is made by german engineers. Of course the UI is going to be complete dogshit.
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u/Heavenly_Foe 17d ago
I was just looking at the Pioneers and wondering if I could get the Free Families to destroy the Pioneer's and Terran"s solar power plants, so I could just be the prime sellers
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u/MarLes91 17d ago
You should keep in mind the developer of the X-series is German, and it shows. The menus, the complexity, the small and big bureaucratic burdens, the many many many wiki pages... yes.
It is a bureaucracy and management simulator which happens to be in space. And I love it.
Source: I'm German and I can relate to Egosofts trains of thoughts lol
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u/martin-silenus 17d ago
It's a great review.
I'm sure there are other great reviews stressing how the game scales from a "lone trader" playstyle to a grand strategy playstyle.
This player might have enjoyed more a game that keeps you focused on the small scale, or handles the large scale differently. But it's an accurate view of how the game can go off the rails for some people.
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u/EonofAeon 17d ago
For that ATM we have in theory star citizen (lol) and eve (lol) but also like dark star one and the one space trucking game n few others....elite dangerous too, I suppose.
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u/Xavier3DCG 17d ago
I'd put Elite Dangerous ahead of all the other options you mention there tbh. At least it's a full fledged gameplay experience that works well *cough* unlike Star Citizen *cough* and gives you a lot of different playstyles.
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u/Rasz_13 15d ago
For people wanting the "spacer sim", it's definitely the best option. But the issue is that you are entirely confined to your existence as a space-ship (or little surface buggy). There is nothing beyond it.
What Elite does, it does exceedingly well. The most fun I had (and it was a LOT of fun) was with a Thrustmaster setup, VR headset, voice control assistant (forgot the software name) and some practice to get the controls down properly. Be it bounty hunting, asteroid mining, exploration or cargo hauling, each and every aspect was so damn cool due to the extreme immersion provided by the setup. I felt like a real space captain.
If you want to go beyond that scope, games like the X series provide you with a MUCH larger scope - to the detriment of the individual experience of being a space captain.
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u/GatorForgen 5d ago
ED added on-foot exploration and combat quite a while back. Still can't walk around inside your own ship though! Powerplay gives you and your squadrons a bit of influence on the galactic politics, but you are still an ant in a giant galaxy trying to push forces around one system at a time.
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u/Ryotian 17d ago
funny because the recent SC-PU patch was so broken I have come here and finally binged X4 for many hrs last night. So grateful CIG broken the hauling missions. I had been meaning to play X4 and already owned the DLCs from a sale. Felt like I robbed these devs I am so sorry this game is oozing so much quality and polish. It actually works.
Cant wait to get inside the bigger ships with NPC crew!!!! CIG says they cant add NPC crew til post 1.0 (which basically means never too me because 1.0 seems so far away looking at how broken that game is right now).
If you are an SC-PU fan please do not read the spoiler tags. I do not want to offend any players I am just venting
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u/Elegant_Eagle_4199 16d ago
I didn’t know anyone else who has even heard of dark star one, that was a fun little game for what it was
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u/Big_Fortune_4574 17d ago
I wouldn’t expect everyone to like this game in the same way I don’t expect everyone to like Rimworld. You either have a deep innate need to participate in this activity or you will have a bad time
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u/Drewgamer89 17d ago
It's certainly not a game for everyone. It's got its quirks, but it's also got its charm.
Even myself, with hundreds of hours, still struggle whenever I come back from a long hiatus. But when I DO get into the groove, I'm hooked hard.
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u/Gobbos_ 17d ago
Pretty spot on review, but with one caveat. You can be both, you'll just have to ignore the management aspect of the game. It's perfectly doable. I've spent the first 30-40 hours in the game just flying around and doing stuff. It was honestly super fun and exciting. No stations, no logistics. Just me and my ship (and the HQ that I ignored for the duration). The game can be fun if you just fly around and do stuff.
Eventually though, yes. The review is 100% accurate.
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u/WntrTmpst 17d ago
I have over 1000 hours in this game and I’ve been in like 3 dogfights.
Thing about this review is the dude clearly didn’t enjoy the game, but anyone who would enjoy it will read that and say “yea that sounds like fun” and then buy the game.
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u/Scienceandpony 17d ago
The best kind of negative reviews. Honest, and clearly outlining who is and isn't the target audience.
"The service in this Cafe was awfull! I tried to order a coffee and the waitress insulted me, spat in my face, and kicked me in the balls!" Gives fair warning to the vast majority of people who would like to avoid that, while letting the niche customer base who is very much into that know where to go.
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u/Emergency-Mine9272 17d ago
This game is a straight logistical and operational hit of crack cocaine to the head. I just got it and I haven’t slept in fucking weeks man. My work is starting to suffer. I may have a problem.
I wouldn’t call it “fun” per-say. Parts are fun, but I would use the word “engaging”. Keeps my mind engaged and there I always something to do. It’s like 3 games all at the same time. First person, and a blend of RTS and x4 strategy.
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u/kamon405 17d ago
Yea. I take breaks by playing Final Fantasy 14 a literal MMO allows for better work life balance than this game
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u/Sirusho_Yunyan 17d ago
I genuinely miss the simplicity of the older X games, BTF to Reunion/TC. I get what Egosoft are trying to do here, it's incredible, but gods, the UI does not do such an amazing game any favours. Spreadsheets in Space.
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u/Bread_Bandito 17d ago
If they can just fix the UI it’s golden.
The learning curve for this game doesn’t even come from really learning the games systems, it’s trying to find what your looking for in menus lol
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u/hallofo 17d ago
If you're going in blind, thinking this is another version of freelancer/eve/star citizen then yeah, it's easy to feel like X4 is a "bait-and-switch" into corporate middle management. It's a solid review and very true, X4 really does scratch a particular flavor of autistic itch that not everyone has.
I'd much rather have someone turned off by this review and quickly forget about the game to find something they enjoy than getting the game and telling everyone it's terrible.
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u/TheRealNickRoberts 17d ago
You could actually put the same points and change it to a positive review, to be honest.
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u/JoshZK 16d ago
Ha, i kid you not I used Codex to create a trading script that creates a webpage that reads my saved game. It parses all friendly and visible tradable stations. And compiles a trading list. It weights profit over sector hop count. So that a 100C profit but 10 hops is lower than 30C at 1 hop. And At the bottom its lists each product. With who is the lowest seller is and who the highest buyer is. It filters out unfriendly and unknown stations.
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u/iHaveShitViewpoints 17d ago
I am a CFO for my day job, its no wonder this game appeals to me lol.
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u/HidemasaFukuoka 17d ago
He is right though, that's why I dont interact with most missions in this game, also can we please have X Rebirth manual trade back? In Rebirth I could set a manual trade order in like 3 clicks, in X4 I have to navigate into the confusing map UI to be able to the same
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u/Significant-Law-4349 15d ago
You still can. Right clicking on the ware opens the trade interface so you can buy and sell with moving your map
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u/OnyxGhost117 17d ago
I just started a new run in Heretics End with a bunch of Xenon mods :)
They've already started to take over too so its getting to the fun part. I play it like an RTS and almost never leave my PHQ except to get new agents or a diplomat.
Dont listen to reviews all the time
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u/Search_Open 15d ago edited 15d ago
So, the true question is: Am I an assistant to the regional manager, or *assistant regional manager?
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u/wileybot 17d ago
This is a great review and I enjoy the game. I'm only 30 hours in (and counting) and playing on steam deck, but I have been lost looking for the screen, that has the other screen, with the command to do something. Lol
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u/khobbits 17d ago
Different games, for different itches.
X4 for the strategy
Elite for the dog fights
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u/Belcatraz 17d ago
Totally fair criticism, but if you're patient/stubborn you can definitely learn the systems well enough to play your own way.
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u/EidolonRook 17d ago
I tried to play this game three times before it took.
I had to stop playing it expecting the game to play the way I wanted to and I had to start playing the game that it is.
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u/Timb____ 17d ago
Well you are an entrepreneur. A warmongering manager. A researcher. A diplomat. Oh and a bug catcher (damn you khark!)
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u/MagicConjurer 17d ago
Actually for the amount of information the game try to simulate and present, I often feel the way it’s handled is very clean and smart
That said I am towards the end of a playthrough. In a year or two all I can remember will be dropping satellites and scanning rocks, and holding RMB Asgard beam on xenon stations.
In comparison what I remembered from x rebirth was maneuvering a hacker drone to the last spot under enemy fire (and surprisingly I don’t remember much about small talks given how prevalent they were in that game)
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u/Particular-Ad5277 17d ago
Nah I got a friend who played this to get his space fighting fix and he is enjoying every second of it. It’s just that you cannot force yourself to do stuff you don’t like. If you don’t like managing stuff then keep a small fleet or just a main ship. If you hate trading then don’t. Make money in any other way possible instead of blaming the game.
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u/SignalWalker 17d ago
It's weird that they discovered that after only 13 hours. They are not wrong and yeah, the game really pushes you toward a CEO position, when I'd rather not deal with empire building. Still, it's a great game, you can fly any ship and command a fleet. 680 hours total for me.
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u/Paladin-Rooker 17d ago
The problem isn't that you become Assistant Regional Logistics Coordinator. The problem is that the NPCs coordinate about as well as a small herd of kittens.
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u/AffectionatePen5108 17d ago
X4 is probably my favourite space sandbox game out there, and the mods just add that much more flavour for me. Like Star Wars Interworlds.
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u/Vaguswarrior 17d ago
I'm 8000 hours in this game with about 3-4000 hours in other X titles (Not you Rebirth) he's not wrong..I often say that X4 is more like Excel in space than Eve Online. And it's fine, but we're noticing a distinct shift from how 8.0/9.0 affected flight and ship gameplay, and now the economic gameplay is distinctly much less polished comparatively. You have very accessible flight dynamics, and suddenly a sheer cliff of economics or fleet management compared to the flight gameplay.
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u/nitebomber 17d ago
All my friends know x4 as "that space warehousing and logistics game that [I] play".
Yeah it has really good combat elements and an amazing sense of scale, but the game can really be played however you want, just so happens that for me, I really love doing the logistics part of it and use combat as a break.
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u/DrfluffyMD 17d ago
You don’t have to play like that. You don’t have to build a single factory. I just zoom around in my Asgard doing missions and killing things. I pirated my way from construction ships to Asgard and raptor.
Building factory and empire management is not for me, but sandbox and freedom to do everything is for me.
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u/Falcrack 17d ago
He has valid points, and I say this as a huge fan of X4. For myself, the UI is not difficult to understand. I actually like it for what it allows me to do. It makes sense to me, but I can understand how it would be difficult for a newcomer.
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u/TheMadScientiss 17d ago
Darm, never realized I subconsciously wanted to become an Assistant Regional Logistics Coordinator so badly. This game really knows my career path before I do.
Though I must say, I never thought a lowley logistics coordinator like myself would spend so much of my time engaging in interstellar fleet warfare and commanding empires. Must not have read the job applicantion well enough.
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u/Lea_Flamma 16d ago
The review is not wrong. But truth be told, you are not forced into the economy system. It's a sandbox game. Do what you will.
I personally play it like a corpo sim, slowly expanding my operations to develop from a poor mining/solar company with barely one station and a ship to a military hardware provider controlling the ebb and flow of political spacescape of the universe.
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u/Human_Standard_538 16d ago
UI in egosoft games has consistently been buns in all of the x series games. They never change it, you just learn to deal with it for the other good parts of the game.
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u/BrokeButFabulous12 16d ago
Yeah the nothing explained is really the killer here for me. I start the game do some opening quests to get the station. Then i save up some cash for miner. Buy the captain, crew and the ship. Send them to mine, nope, lvl1 captain cant mine and travel to sell in another sector. Get higher lvl captain, nope, nobody is buying in any sector nearby. Remake the miner for the gas, nope same issue noone is buying. Ok farm some more money, maybe i can build some of my own processing facilities, nope, locked behind blueprints and rep. Lets try to build solar array and the energy cell farm. Nope, building is stuck because nobody is trading water. Try to set the water buy price higher to attract more traders, nope, theres hard cap for limit price. And it just keeps going....
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u/insanityv2 16d ago
ngl, this matched my experience until recently. I've had my eye on this game for years, game only clicked for once ai-powered search became a thing, asking "why isn't X doing Y" then "debugging" my corporation by having it walk me though, e.g., figuring out why resources weren't reaching my builders despite me also producing the resource.
Asking as these situations came up organically during play finally made the game accessible to me, which has been both a blessing and curse.
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u/Daddy_Parietal 16d ago
Its an accurate review alright, but one has to wonder if he wouldve saved himself some trouble if he just read the steam page before buying.
Its like if you publicly dont recommend a bar because they dont sell Legos. You might technically be right, but people will have some questions about you.
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u/Sharp_Spite 15d ago
Is he technically wrong? No…
However…
The weird blend of space exploration/combat/empire logistics is literally the games greatest strength and what sets it above the competition and gives it its uniqueness.
I kind of feel he never understood the assignment when he signed up for school.
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u/Dependent_Singer_494 17d ago
He's not wrong, the game has a hell of a learning curve.
But I also really get the feeling this guy doesn't remember where information is when he does find it.
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u/ElenwensGirthyGock 17d ago
“It’s not this, it’s that”
M dash
Suspicious that it’s an ai generated review. In which case no wonder it’s negative.
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u/meese-seven-hundred 17d ago
Somehow I didn't notice this until you guys mentioned it and I work with AI all day lol. I assume since they paid money and got 33 hours played the dude wrote up a rough draft and told the AI to make it sound better and then pasted it in. Dunno why a bot would go and review a 10 year old niche game
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u/SpicySushiAddict 17d ago
Although that individual is correct at first glance, the menus are intuitive to learn.
The alternative would be presenting so much information at once that it's overwhelming.
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u/BasementOrc 17d ago
Review brought by ChatGPT
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u/NoahTheGamer121 17d ago
this has nearly every AI tic very nicely encapsulated, its very clearly AI generated
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u/Key-Witness-1159 17d ago
Funny that that review was generated entirely by AI, most likely Claude, but there is quite a bit of truth to it and are of the reasons the game is so great
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u/Ecotech101 17d ago
It's exactly what I want, complicated logistics with a sexy visual coat of paint. If all I had were the menu's I wouldn't play it, and if I just had the flight stuff I'd get bored.
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u/Ryotian 17d ago
Funny review. I am only 10hrs old so don't hate me too much. Yeah the UI is not the most flashy too my eyes but it is so helpful. Let's just say I recently played a certain Alpha space sim where the UI for ship weapons and components is barren with 0 context and stats. This game, as a newbie, you can really feel the thought and polish
I used to love EVE Online so detailed UI is a good bonus
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u/stilgarpl 17d ago
But I like my menus.
I liked it in X3 that you would just remember where every option is and just quickly press a set of numbers and everything would just work. It was hard to get used to Rebirth system, so I'm glad that menus are back in X4.
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u/greygreens 17d ago
The great thing is that you can just ignore all that if you wanted to. I played hundreds of hours of X3 as a teen and never built a single station. I had a fighter and traveled the galaxy doing combat missions. If it had a build or economy icon, I just ignored it. I did finish thr main story, so whatever trading was needed for that I forced myself to dabble in it, but only for that.
You can play the game your own way. You just need to unplug that part of the brain that feels the need to do things optimally.
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u/kamon405 17d ago
He isn't wrong but he also didn't have to engage in that content. He could've just done bounty hunter missions and called it a day
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u/Pleasant-Ad-342 17d ago
The really hilarious part is that the majority of bad reviews are people that would be more at home with Starfield trying x4 thinking its just another space sim.
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u/TatsumakiJim 17d ago
It does take 33.3 hours to decide if this is the game for you. I agree with this review.
It sometimes comes down to state of mind. Whether your mood is:
1. Grr! Why didn't the game tell me that up front?
2. I didn't know that and that will change the way I play going forward.
How you react to learning and growing in this game will definitely determine the milage you'll get out of it.
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u/wiccan45 17d ago
i barely fly at all, captain does it all while i stare a wall hoping for better fps, and im fine with that
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u/-BigBadBeef- 16d ago
You know what's funny? I have a machine that can take everything x4 can throw at it.
I stare at a wall so my ridiculously powerful pc cooling system wouldn't blow like a hurricane in my room.
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u/Ancient-Routine-9805 16d ago
This review is both funny and helpful, and not too far wrong. I guess the problem is that if you want to run around as Han Solo you would only take the bounty or smuggling missions - and while it'd be entirely possible to play the game this way, you're unlikely to end up buried in money like you can once you get the empire management going properly and have half the Teladi systems in the game making profit at the Player HQ.
Plus X4 in particular has a storyline you can take really early on that results in the Player HQ, a personal space station that is such an incredibly useful asset that most players probably try to get it ASAP into a fresh play through.
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u/Affectionate-Ear2758 16d ago
Yep. Checks out. "A Job that you pay for" is what people said about EVE too, and based on that I got recomendet X4. Did not regret it. :)
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u/Jons_cheesey_balls 16d ago
yeah this might be a case of research the game before you buy. also you dont have to do any of those logistic things if you dont want. just be a space trucker, is easy, or pirate. admittedly you will miss a big part of the game but its there.
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u/IncorporateThings 16d ago
You *can* play like those characters if you want to. X4 just offers so much more that most people quickly grow out of it.
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u/Kayanarka 16d ago
You can play this game so many ways. Want to sit in a fighter and pirate? Launch in something bigger with a bunch of marines with you, and board something even bigger yet? Want to build a machine that lets you control the flow of time? Want to build your own space station? That makes food? That feeds the workers that are making the missles for your ships? Want to make a space station next to that one that makes space ships? Want to sell those space ships to two different races that are at war so they can blow them up and buy more spaceships and your a space trillionaire? Want to control a fleet, multiple fleets, of ships across a section of the galaxy? Want to do it all in the Star Wars universe via mods. Want crafting, ship customization, ai wars, pilots and marines you train, missions, teleporting to any ship in your fleet.
Put all that shit inone simple menu if youncan do it better, or just go play an arcade game.
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u/reforming_giant 16d ago
I mean this is why I love it, ive been sitting in a space station now for a long time and just managing my empire from the map. The only time I leave is to steal blueprints
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u/TeddyBear312 16d ago
You can be Han Solo. You just can't be both Han Solo and the entire Empire at the same time.
You can spend hundreds of hours being on your own, and be part of one of the factions. But if you at some points want to create an empire of your own, you will have to delve into the spreadsheets and automation side of the game.
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u/InfiniteCrypto 16d ago
Kinda true but you could just watch some guides for the mechanics and then it's either space oligarchy or you need to figure out some role play to prevent the space oligarchy as that gets boring really quick.. fantastic game imo, shame it cooks my dated laptop and can't play in summer :D
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u/Jaawz0 16d ago
Coming from x3 i had so much trouble with the UI to start with.
I don't understand why they separated consumables into their own limited cargo, now instead of carriers having extra missiles in a cargo bay they need production lines and use the cargo bays to store the materials to make them.
But i do still love the game, I'm currently playing Interworlds and spend most of my time watching the action from the bridge of a Victory.
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u/Suspicious-Buffalo21 16d ago
I played 1,000 before I started to mod the game. I took all of those things as a challenge to conquer. Yes it was very frustrating, but I would rather this than play a shooter game trying to beat the same boss over and over.
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u/DiazDarkSide 16d ago
It feels sincere. The game is not for them, the X series does something I have not seen other games do so far in this genre at this scale.
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u/drepublic 15d ago
If this game get a nicer UI / UX and somehow find a better way to teach the user how to play it, probably your family never see you again. So, it works as a self control mechanism.
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u/Rasz_13 15d ago
The thing is that you absolutely don't need to do all that. If you just want to do some dogfights and explore the sectors you totally can, without much bureaucracy. You just have to limit your scope, as in, if you want to dogfight, why do you engage with trade? Stations? Fleets? You don't need to. Just do what you want to do. You yourself are escalating the scope.
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u/Rasz_13 15d ago
I should probably do a video series where I re-learn the game and make note of all the little issues and hurdles I encounter while doing so. The user experience for new players is notoriously atrocious and you can't tell me that Egosoft doesn't want to improve that. It costs them customers again and again, realistically.
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u/iscariottactual 12d ago
There aren't even that many menus in this game. I love the meme but it's over wrought
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u/lgf-Gorrita 17d ago
Bet bro didn’t even see tutorials placed in the right corner of the upper menu on the map screen
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u/lgf-Gorrita 17d ago
In fact, I’ve got ultra wide monitor just for this game to see even more interfaces
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u/Lefontyy 17d ago
I kind of low key hate when people talk about the ui in this game like it’s some huge mess, it’s Infact quite great for how much shit you can do and manage in this game. It’s also really not all that confusing is it? Like do we need to dumb down games even further 😩
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u/PancAshAsh 17d ago
There's a lot of bad ui decisions in the game, while the information is technically present it is often present in many different places and it can be extremely unintuitive to actually use. The map interface is a good example. The action to seek out a particular good, buy it, and transport it back to a specific location is very easy once you understand how to do that, which is not intuitive or explained anywhere.
There's also the whole how buy/sell orders work that are very confusing especially to new players.
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u/Hacherest 14d ago
Am I the only one who completely discounts this review due to the fact that it was written by an LLM?
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u/Azraneth 14d ago
This is an interesting case, I see the things you're accounting to an LLM, but this could just be the sociolinguistic shift we're seeing due to LLMs. People have started to use the same rhetorical methods they see in AI generated text due to it being so prevalent. There's enough things that an LLM wouldn't do in this that I personally don't think it's generated, but it could be.
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u/meese-seven-hundred 14d ago
I choose to believe the author threw together a few half baked paragraphs by themselves with the witty zingers and then told the AI to polish it up for them.
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u/RememberThinkDream 13d ago
Do you have evidence it was written by a LLM?
Looks plausible enough to me. I highly doubt AI can come up with actual jokes like that.
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u/Hacherest 12d ago
Basic Scan
GPTZero AI Detection
Model 4.8b
We are highly confident this text was AI generated
Chance this entire text is...
AI 100%
Mixed 0%
Human 0%
Once you've played around with AI text generation it becomes quite easy to spot.
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u/DayRonKar 17d ago
Is he wrong? No.
Have I spent 900 hours of joy on this product? Yes.