X-TRA POLLS Round #2 | Which phase do you enjoy the most in X4: Foundations?

[birdtable]

Early game for me, once I start to feel the need for fleets I re-start the game. Starts to resemble a 3D board game... I enjoy the experience of outer space flying solo, protection and aggression... Looking forward to Lino's retro design ships ..

[Pearl_Canopus]

I love midgame most.

It's time for management and optimization of stations and supply chain.
At that time I own at least one optimized fighhting frigate or destroyer for exploration or to face an Xenon K or I and a huge fleet of haulers, secure haulers (frigates), miners, station/system guard squadrons and maybe some builders (drone carrier). The Midgame allows me to trade with all non-hostile-factions at a good or optimal standing (+10 to +20). My wallet would be around 10-50 million at that time.

Until now I never reached an endgame really. In most cases I stopped playing at any reason (mostly time issues). When I wanted to play further, a new x.0 versions was out and provided new/old issues with AI (again). When this was fixed some minor further I'd been aware, that new features to see requires a new game to start... I did that about 3 or 4 times yet. So I reached about 765h game time.

I play X4 like a management game usually. So I need a secure station soon, which is out of all heavy used systems in order to avoid in system disadvantages or issues (OOS menu-driven management).

[mr.WHO]

I guess I'll opt out of this one as X4 is a first game in the series, where I like all 3 phases equally.

Both early game and late game have fair share of things that I like and don't like, while Mid-game is...totally mid

[Tamina]

Maybe bad timing to start this poll, at the same time as the new update today with the endgame content.

[CulunTse]

Mid game for me! I feel that that phase has the most content (stories, research, discovery), and I like the rewarding feeling of "finally, all my efforts of early game are starting to come together".

I also enjoy late-game, where I think I am currently in a very unbalanced mid-late game. Any faction, even Scale Plate Pact (SCA/PGS), could take me out militaryly, since I have only a few scattered destroyers on gate duty.
however, economically I am dominating multiple factions to the point I have effectively saturated hull parts, weapon components, engine parts, claytronics and food+med over most of the galaxy.

I am (rapidly, thanks to aforementioned, self-produced saturation) expanding my military fleet at my PHQ shipyard+wharf+terraforming combo station.

I think I am dipping into terraforming a little bit early, since I still catch myself thinking "oof, that's a lot of hullparts / medical / whatever" when looking at those costs. Especially Ice for 18 Billion is proving a logistical challenge: I can't produce ice transports fast enough to do the "import waters" in any acceptable tempo, whereas I have an entire biosphere worth of energy + medical + food already stockpiled for when the humidity finally becomes right.

For me, mid-game really shines in so many aspects.
for end-game, the UI/UX and engine limits start to show up.

Empire management is hard with the toolset that shines for mid-game. Specifically setting up efficient trade routes with many ships, and/or doing limited self-organisation.
For example: giving a manager a handful of ships, but than restrict their autotrading: "these slow, cheap vultures are for the cheap bulk goods" , while these fast, expensive boas are for distributing the ship tech you produce".

X4 has great tooling to automate individual ships, but it starts creaking when it comes to scaling/copy-pasting such a single ship to multiples. (and yes, I know about sector-, activity-, and travel-blacklists; I am missing ware blacklists for assigned ships, and the ability to share configs between ship groups)

[carolinay]

I like the end game experience.

The issue for me is we still have to micromanage many aspects in the end game and could use some optimsations for stations.

I am not sure if station building is better now, but I'd like to have 3 stages for stations. I have several 6x6x6 station templates that come from a standard template (only added), and would like to upgrade from tier 1 to tier 2 or 3 without having to rebuild many modules. I had some success when 6.0 came but don't know if this is better now.

I also play stations with up to 50 modules for the same ware. Perhaps it's time to introduce modules with more capacity (e.g. 1x Hull Parts, 5x Hull Parts, 25x Hull Parts, 50x Hull Parts). Also maybe you could standardise the cycle times between modules of the same kind for a station to save CPU cycles (modules that produce more would do the job too). Frame rates are terrible when you approach a sector where I have production.

If I could stack modules such as Hull Parts horizontally, I wouldn't have to build one connector module for each production module, that would also save CPU cycles.

[Maze Morgenstern]

I votet for Early, but enjoy the Mid-Game as well.

As long as i can do stuff from my pilotseat i'm having fun. My interest usualy starts to fall off when the game gets dominatet by logistics and i feel more like the manager of a large company than a pilot who does some longterm investments on the side.

[Harrison_rus]

Early game. Even if I play most in mid game.
But I say one thing: Every game phace is enjoyable in its own way..

I love the beginning of the game, when you have nothing and you can fly anywhere and not worry about various events in the galaxy, you don’t need to look at the map and control your fleets.

I like to do all these initial story missions, find data storages, do various small tasks for my initial capital. But this stage passes rather quickly in my opinion.

I also love the midgame, although I don't think I've ever really gotten to the Real midgame. I have some manufacturing and a couple of fleets with capital ships, but they are not powerful enough to dominate the galaxy. You have to keep an eye on them from time to time, because... in the event of the loss of one large ship, this is a very big loss for my budget and my own morality
I also love the mid-game missions that shape the galaxy - new factions and all that.

I don't think I'll ever get to the real end game, because... this is not my style of play. I don’t like owning several sectors (maximum 1, and not always), I don’t like having mega-complexes that will earn me billions of credits per hour. I even built my own dock without much enthusiasm (although it’s a pretty useful thing). I haven't tried terraforming yet, although I want to try.

My reasons why I don't make it to endgame:
1) All games usually reach the middle of the game for me, and then a new DLC comes out and I start a new game (with the exception of terrans. I still play this save).
2) I don't like being omnipotent. I cannot accept the fact that some “private faction” can sweep away almost all factions and xenons, including from the face of the galaxy. This is despite the fact that the factions of the Commonwealth have entire Planets with population and resources.

So I prefer to be a support faction that can influence the course of events, but not so much that it dominates the galaxy.

[Zloth2]

No vote from me, I like all the phases. I've never gotten a military up to the point of being able to take on a faction - I don't know if I'll ever even trigger the Crises, but I like doing one or two terraforming missions before stopping.

...This for me has always been the best part of the game and I'm very sorry that on X4 it has been greatly reduced compared to its predecessor X3.
For this reason, when it was possible to create the custom game, my first test was to make the initial phase longer than normal, creating the hardcore game....

I'm lost, why can't you make custom games anymore? You're making the game harder, so budgeted should work really well.

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

No vote from me, I like all the phases. I've never gotten a military up to the point of being able to take on a faction - I don't know if I'll ever even trigger the Crises, but I like doing one or two terraforming missions before stopping.

...This for me has always been the best part of the game and I'm very sorry that on X4 it has been greatly reduced compared to its predecessor X3.
For this reason, when it was possible to create the custom game, my first test was to make the initial phase longer than normal, creating the hardcore game....

I'm lost, why can't you make custom games anymore? You're making the game harder, so budgeted should work really well.

It's not just a budget issue. I can earn millions of credits in no time, that doesn't make the game harder or longer. What makes it difficult, however, is having all the factions against you, and not having the ability to cross space so easily.
This forces you to fly in limited spaces for a long time, gain reputation one faction at a time, use advanced settings to set your ships so they don't get killed and this makes the initial phase much more technical, strategic and, of course, long.

Certainly the game becomes more tedious than usual, but the resulting gameplay is amazing.

[Tamina]

I really like the Free Families Split Start, where you are forced to use civilian ships because the occupying Zyarch family attacks all military ships.

Makes an interesting early game scenario! However, it is too easy fleeing to any other faction which sees you as neutral or friendly. And the reputation system is way too easily outplayed - but in a tedious way, by shooting down criminal ships. There is no deeply-strategic gameplay attached to it, except for coming up with the idea to equip a miner like a fighter and deceive Zyarch patrols that way.

Early game, and esepcially this scenario, could profit a lot by extending "hacking" or other underground activities. Would be nice to gain a temporary landing permit for hostile stations that way and/or making them force to trade with you once. Stuff like that.

[Zloth2]

It's not just a budget issue. I can earn millions of credits in no time, that doesn't make the game harder or longer. What makes it difficult, however, is having all the factions against you, and not having the ability to cross space so easily.
This forces you to fly in limited spaces for a long time, gain reputation one faction at a time, use advanced settings to set your ships so they don't get killed and this makes the initial phase much more technical, strategic and, of course, long.

Huh? No, there are two options for making custom starts. One just lets you do anything you want but marks it as modified. The 'budgeted' option puts limits on you according to what you've done in the past, so people who have played a lot can skip over stuff they've seen before.

I'm just saying that, because you're trying to make the game harder instead of easier, you might be able to do the budgeted start and avoid the 'modified' tag.

You can do all sorts of stuff in those starts. You can make every faction dislike you. You can give yourself the HQ right at the start but move it over near the Xenon gate in Turquoise Sea. Or use the non-budgeted start to make a big defense station near the Yaki station - would you be able to support it before the Xenon wore it down?

[MaybeNot]

I wonder how ego will interpret this.
If peoples will vote for early/mid will it mean that EGO will put more workhours in end-game? I hope not
Scared to vote - but ok.

Early with transition to mid gives me most fun - first missions (why mission pool is so low btw?), first small miners fleet - up to ~12DD later and few bases.
From now it's like "ok, I should play oos more" and it's 'meh' for me.

[Ormac]

I enjoy the mid-game portion.

I essential opperate loads of free traders and after a few hundred million saved and several factories.
I gather a few offensive and defensive fleets and move them around abit.

But I generally find it difficult to transition into the defined end game of Terraforming and Shipyard Ownership.
At which point it's a restart.

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

It's not just a budget issue. I can earn millions of credits in no time, that doesn't make the game harder or longer. What makes it difficult, however, is having all the factions against you, and not having the ability to cross space so easily.
This forces you to fly in limited spaces for a long time, gain reputation one faction at a time, use advanced settings to set your ships so they don't get killed and this makes the initial phase much more technical, strategic and, of course, long.

Huh? No, there are two options for making custom starts. One just lets you do anything you want but marks it as modified. The 'budgeted' option puts limits on you according to what you've done in the past, so people who have played a lot can skip over stuff they've seen before.

I'm just saying that, because you're trying to make the game harder instead of easier, you might be able to do the budgeted start and avoid the 'modified' tag.

You can do all sorts of stuff in those starts. You can make every faction dislike you. You can give yourself the HQ right at the start but move it over near the Xenon gate in Turquoise Sea. Or use the non-budgeted start to make a big defense station near the Yaki station - would you be able to support it before the Xenon wore it down?

Forgive me, I confused the custom game "budget" with the word budget referring to available credits. English is not my language and I don't speak it much, that's why I use the translator.

Anyway yes, the "budget" option you talk about is the same one I used to create my "super hard mode" game, without getting the game modded.
I just set all reputations to -30 (except one to -9 to be able to dock), set credits to 0, removed all module blueprints and removed the ship.

[jojorne]

All the stages are fun, but the first phase doesn't really fit into a 4X game, imo. I expect this in a game like STAR WARS. Flying a single ship, part of a small squadron with story, adventure and everything.

What I want from a 4X game is to have my empire, make trades, influence the universe politically like in Stellaris. Or idk... like the emotion of building your own city in Cities Skylines.

Feeling the thrill of seeing the results of my hard actions. The population reacting to all the policies. And much more, like the simulation and survival of a real empire.

Edit: So, I vote for the end game. I love to see massive battles for territory and political reasons. Nothing like a capital carrier launching hundreds of ships into battle and the firework show that follows.

[Nanook]

This is not a 4X game in the traditional sense. Yes, you can play it that way if you wish, but don't assume everyone else does, too. I play it mainly for the flight sim and combat side of things. You should check out the poll to see how many others enjoy those aspects of the game. The game has many facets and that's what draws so many different players to it. You've obviously never played the early games.

[jojorne]

This is not a 4X game in the traditional sense. Yes, you can play it that way if you wish, but don't assume everyone else does, too. I play it mainly for the flight sim and combat side of things. You should check out the poll to see how many others enjoy those aspects of the game. The game has many facets and that's what draws so many different players to it. You've obviously never played the early games.

This is where you are mistaken. Yes, you can play the game however you want but this forum is full of complaints such as lack of story, lack of exploration, etc. Flying and fighting gets boring over time and that's normal. X Rebirth was forgotten for that particular reason. But the game offers other activities as well. Although none are in-depth. In reviews of the game, especially in comparison with others, X4 only shines in the trade simulation aspect. So, yes, you can play the game as you please and mods like VRO and STAR WARS are there to fill the other aspects.

Edit: Yes, I have a controversial opinion. I like X Rebirth more. The maps are pretty in a fantasy way. The layout, the distribution of the sectors is interesting. The game has a long story and manages to introduce the X universe well. The ships design are amazing too with strong characterization. Oh! Yes, in the beginning, who didn't want to have an Arawn in X4? Best looking ship ever. lol And X3: Farnham's Legacy is a beast on its own too! First with dynamic diplomacy.

[Nanook]

This is not a 4X game in the traditional sense. Yes, you can play it that way if you wish, but don't assume everyone else does, too. I play it mainly for the flight sim and combat side of things. You should check out the poll to see how many others enjoy those aspects of the game. The game has many facets and that's what draws so many different players to it. You've obviously never played the early games.

This is where you are mistaken. ...

Sorry, but nope. Show me where Egosoft has ever advertised their game as a 4X. Bet you can't. Steam advertises it as a sandbox space sim.

[jojorne]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Avd7Eipd9F0

Sandbox with all the 4x elements to be precisely, yes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... 20dynamics..