Hello Artur

I share your opinion about this game.
I really have mixed feelings about it, though this is the game I've been playing the most according to Steam.
I have been through different emotions from frustation to mere satisfaction sometimes.
I want to stress the fact that this game has been my introduction to X games and Egosoft.
What I hated the most was what you described above : the incoming messages/cinematics while your ship is being attacked by enemies. It is terrible timing! Couldn't they pause the game during all of this?! I hated the whole campaign.
Some really annoying bugs such as the game freezing when you dock and walk to the station. Besides, how slow are your CVs are moving and completing tasks making any initiative you take a real pain. Exploration (according to my standards) is overrated : it only consists in scanning for lootboxes, no anomalies (so far I've been playing to this game without the DLCs I must add). The endless minigames making everything mechanical. I surprised myself not feeling anything and being like a robot. And there is also the fact that I could not find many references to the "lore". That's why I believe that exploration (I mean the concept of exploration I have in mind) is not rewarding. The list goes on...
On the other hand, I too really enjoy the graphics. I mean the level of details about life and activities at stations is truly impressive! Some systems like Omicron Lyrae are amazing. Credits aren't difficult to earn. Dogfights are quite enjoyable and facing CVs can be intense. I, for once like the idea of flying only one ship, i see it as an adventure. Besides harboring crewmembers is nice too. Interaction between NPCs. Last but not least, the total freedom of doing whatever you want. I guess I have a love-hate relationship to this game but it is still addictive for me (more than 600 hours playing this game). Though, I'm still reluctant about purchasing "Home of Light" and the "Teladi Outpost". I'll conclude this by saying that this game has not been a "great" ambassador for the X games series IMO.

Thanks again for sharing

I can understand the feelings of both of you regarding the game, but i have a different opinion. My first introduction to the x-games was with X2 The Threat, since then i played all following x games. I bought X Rebirth at the release date and was very dissappointed about the state of the game, but saw the potential it had. Since then Egosoft has patched a ton of bugs and issues to improve the game. Still there are bugs today, that should be fixed but havent been. Nonetheless for me it is the most immersive and enjoyable x game i ever played. If you have problems with bugs, maybe you find a mod here in the workshop or on nexusmods to fix that. The community has done a lot of work to improve the game. By the way, anomalies are in the second DLC and can be found in the Toride system. I can wholeheartedly recommend both DLCs, they are great and add much needed content to the game.

Hello John Colman,

I thank you for sharing your opinion as a veteran player in the X series (I appreciate your post as an experienced player) and I might give a try to the extensions. It may help me have a greater view and grasp at the whole game. For now and in addition to what I posted earlier I'd consider X rebirth as a good economics sim in space and decent fights. Would you recommend me X4 foundations if I was seeking for more exploration and enjoyable missions without the whole management side? I'm still looking for the great combo between space sim with cockpit view, dynamic fights, good storytelling and lore present and meaningful, total immersion and rewarding exploration (not only scanning the 'i's for the stations). I've played so far to Elite Dangerous, No Man's sky, Starpoint Gemini Warlords and other space related games.

I thank you again for sharing

Hey,

sadly i cant recommend X4. I had high hopes for this game and my expectations werent met, still today i cant enjoy this game. The reason is, this game is pretty shallow regading its gameworld, the lore, missions and so on. The graphics are really bad for a game this new. I compared screenshots from X4 with ones from XR and X3. X4 looks always worse than XR and even in most cases than X3. Spacestations are tiny and look more than outposts than factorys and tradestations were thousands are living and working. Spaceships have also bad designs, not all of them, but most. Egosoft recently overhauled the paranid ships, which was very much needed, but there is a lot more to do. From what i experienced ingame aswell as read and saw in videos, X4 has a very bad AI too, the series always lacked truly good AI, but in X4 its definitly a big step backwards.

If you are looking for "the great combo between space sim with cockpit view, dynamic fights, good storytelling and lore present and meaningful, total immersion and rewarding exploration" then X Rebirth might be your best bet in the X-series. It has its issues, its options on trading and building are pretty stiff and limited but exploration and fighting are the best of all x-games. I am still surprised how good XRs AI behaves, its much better then in other x-games.

There are great mods, that change X Rebirth a lot for the better, you can look here to find many mods listed on their compatibility:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=129&t=370788

And also here many other mods:
https://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/?

Maybe you find the mods i made on nexusmods usefull, i implemented many new starsystems into X Rebirth, some are from X3 and others are made up by me, sometimes using lore from the books and encyclopedia about starsystems that werent in the games so far.

Hello John Colman,

I couldn't ask for a better insight about X4. I'm not ready to buy it any time soon.
I'll stick to XR. Thank you so much for all the info about the mods! I'll probably use some of them once I acquire the extensions. Well, I won't stick with Egosoft if their next games are worse than the old ones.

Thanks again :)

Can only confirm what John said.
X4 even worse then XR.
I have both games with all expansions, but graphic, economy, general immersion is really bad in x4.
Only what is better in x4 that you can dock on ships, can fly all ships and there is carriers.
That's it.

I'm still looking for space sim with good economy system, so if you'll find one - let me know🙂

I enjoyed and still enjoy X Rebirth more than X4.

We want X Rebirth 2 (especially me)

I sincerely hope that the next game will have all the strenghts of X Rebirth but i highly doubt it. If Egosoft continues on the path they have chosen with X4, i will never again buy an X game. The only thing we can actually hope for, is the community being able to fix all the issues in X Rebirth.

Or maybe another studio brave enough to create a space simulation adventure like XR.
I'm playing Starpoint Gemini 3, and it has some good vibes in it.
If LGM(the Devs) could recover from their bad misfortune, they could steer their game in that direction...

Both X:R and X4 have their strengths and weaknesses. X:R is graphically superior, has more interesting world, better looking sectors.
X4 goes back to old roots and it has quite a few improvements over X:R, like you are able to fly any ship, it has pretty nice ship customization (easy to see and navigate menu for ship construction where you choose modules that you want to install when constructing or upgrading the ship), most of the old races are back (Terrans, Teladi, Split, Paranid), economy is vastly superior, but it was maybe easier to manage it in X:R, Xenon are a bit more interesting and they are more present, fleet management is better, you can mod any ship to improve it beyond initial stats (weapons, hull, shields etc..), station building is better etc.
The big downside of X4 for me is performance, which is the reason I don't play the game.

Other than that, it's the X game with most potential. But, I still enjoy X:R as well and I'm still playing it.

Origineel geplaatst door Blackheart:

X4 goes back to old roots and it has quite a few improvements over X:R, economy is vastly superior

Sorry, have to disagree.
What you mean "vastly superior economy?
X4 has none.
What is economy? It's flaw of money.
There is no such thing in x4. All factions have unlimited money) no flaw)
In XR there was at least interior economy. You could balance between your stations. In x4 all trade between your stations is free....
Sort of communism)
In XR different factions produced different resources, so you could balance between prices, their attitude toward each other.
In X4 all factions build everything they need. 🤷
Prices is unbalanced.
If in XR you could make money just buying raw materials from npc and selling end product, in x4 you barely will make money if you'll produce everything on your station, but food.
Like, I built claytronic complex. Only thing I needed to import was food.
It ate all money I gave, and stopped, because they couldn't afford to buy food anymore) despite trade was flourishing.
There is few resources that will bring you a lot of income, but mostly it's more profitable to produce basic resources.
Many complaining about shipyard make player too much money.
How they fix it?
By lowering prices beyond economic reason.
Now unless you producing all resources locally, selling ships will throw you into debt.
Same about mining and everything.
I wish Egosoft would hire someone who would make nice economy model for this game.
It's not that difficult, balance prices, increase price range, make specialsed factions, maybe introduce some mining licenses, stock market, etc. Many other games have it. they just doesn't want to bother

Origineel geplaatst door Blackheart:

fleet management is better,

I guess it's personal preferences.
For me it's better in XR, because I could talk to any captain and give him direct orders, instead of going to startegic map, looking for particular ship.
I have to pause the game every time I need to give an order, because to find one ship among couple of houndreds... During battle. It's a bit of a headache
And game itself if more friendly, on my opinion.
At least there is dialogs. Not just "yes, can I help?")))

Origineel geplaatst door Artur:

Sorry, have to disagree.
What you mean "vastly superior economy?
X4 has none.
What is economy? It's flaw of money.
There is no such thing in x4. All factions have unlimited money) no flaw)
In XR there was at least interior economy. You could balance between your stations. In x4 all trade between your stations is free....
Sort of communism)
In XR different factions produced different resources, so you could balance between prices, their attitude toward each other.
In X4 all factions build everything they need. 🤷
Prices is unbalanced.
If in XR you could make money just buying raw materials from npc and selling end product, in x4 you barely will make money if you'll produce everything on your station, but food.
Like, I built claytronic complex. Only thing I needed to import was food.
It ate all money I gave, and stopped, because they couldn't afford to buy food anymore) despite trade was flourishing.
There is few resources that will bring you a lot of income, but mostly it's more profitable to produce basic resources.
Many complaining about shipyard make player too much money.
How they fix it?
By lowering prices beyond economic reason.
Now unless you producing all resources locally, selling ships will throw you into debt.
Same about mining and everything.
I wish Egosoft would hire someone who would make nice economy model for this game.
It's not that difficult, balance prices, increase price range, make specialsed factions, maybe introduce some mining licenses, stock market, etc. Many other games have it. they just doesn't want to bother

Well, they have unlimited money for balancing reasons. It's hard to make AI that would be aware of all possible conditions and various factors that play into how to wisely spend money. I haven't played any game where AI would be smart enough to realize they are wasting money by constantly throwing new forces at you until they starve themselves of food or money.
Afaik, X4 started with AI having limited money and having to earn it, but that turned problematic and game was dead in 30 hours. So they "fixed" that.

They definitely don't have unlimited resources, though. I had encountered many instances where I ordered a capital ship or even smaller ships and they couldn't be built, because shipyard was missing resources and I had problem locating those resources, because production was barely existent. They require resources to build ships and stations. And ships don't just spawn out of nowhere, like in X4 (except Kha'ak probably). They have to be built with resources.

It also depends on how your universe pans out. Somtimes Xenon are major threat, other times they aren't. A major faction that faces no big threat is obviously going to have a lot of money and probably be self sufficient. That makes sense. And it would be silly that a single guy (player) would be able to easily disrupt that, except in late game with big fleet.
Prices also change based on supply and demand.

Trading is definitely possible and profitable, but I'd agree, it was easier in X:Rebirth.

Origineel geplaatst door Artur:

I guess it's personal preferences.
For me it's better in XR, because I could talk to any captain and give him direct orders, instead of going to startegic map, looking for particular ship.
I have to pause the game every time I need to give an order, because to find one ship among couple of houndreds... During battle. It's a bit of a headache
And game itself if more friendly, on my opinion.
At least there is dialogs. Not just "yes, can I help?")))

I'm pretty sure you can talk to them directly in X4 as well, but it's been a while, so I'm not 100%. But the reason I said it has better fleet management is because there is simply way more option to manage it, more features and I find UI better. In X:3 you had to do everything through dialogue and the wheel and options were just so messy and many commands were just not available. Also, you needed to have ships in your squad in order to give them commands, which was stupid.

Origineel geplaatst door Blackheart:

I'm pretty sure you can talk to them directly in X4 as well, but it's been a while, so I'm not 100%.

No, you can't.
The only "order" you can give them it's "you fired" and " give me your inventory".
Done.

Origineel geplaatst door Blackheart:

Afaik, X4 started with AI having limited money and having to earn it, but that turned problematic and game was dead in 30 hours. So they "fixed" that.

Yeah, they always "fixit" it in the easiest way.
Hard to make nice codding for competition?
Make unlimited money) done)
Mining too profitable?
Remove half of recourses from universe) done)

Despite it's possible to do so. There is plenty of games who can)

Anno series, Capitalism Lab, Guild series...Like all games I ever played.
Yes, for Buggysoft it's hard. But it's not impossible, obviously)
And that's what makes it actually "economy", not resource management.
It's different)
Competition , what make it a game, not just flying around)
It's not competition, if you can't win against your opponent, because he will build stations endless, simply because his money nerve ends and his relationship with other factions will never change

Origineel geplaatst door Artur:

Yeah, they always "fixit" it in the easiest way.
Hard to make nice codding for competition?
Make unlimited money) done)
Mining too profitable?
Remove half of recourses from universe) done)

Despite it's possible to do so. There is plenty of games who can)

Anno series, Capitalism Lab, Guild series...Like all games I ever played.
Yes, for Buggysoft it's hard. But it's not impossible, obviously)
And that's what makes it actually "economy", not resource management.
It's different)
Competition , what make it a game, not just flying around)
It's not competition, if you can't win against your opponent, because he will build stations endless, simply because his money nerve ends and his relationship with other factions will never change

Well, you can't do a complete rework of something like that once you release the game and people expect quick fix. It's not a simple matter of just "make them use money". You would need to make them a lot more complex, so they can properly react and adapt to all the decisions and actions that others in universe are making. Game is already super heavy on performance, if you would add a lot more complex AI and economy, your CPU would melt down.
Egosoft is tiny company, 20 people or so. And these games are still amongst the top of the genre.
Looks like you played all the right games then. Idk, I haven't played any of those, but I played quite a few others and AI was never anywhere near perfect or better than this.
I kinda doubt those game you listed are really that better. They are probably a lot less complex on the whole, so it's easier to balance. I've played quite a few strategy games and even the top rated ones are a joke, once you figure out AI. AI doesn't know how to adapt. When you figure out their moves, it's game over. Ever played total war games? OR even starcraft and the likes? AI has so many cheats there it's hard to list them all in one post. I can't think of any single player game that has truly impressive economy and AI that doesn't need cheats to be competitive. AI having money is the least problem and absurd way to make them competitive. When you see them straight up ignoring game mechanics, when they ignore physics, when they spawn fores out of air, when they have grossly raised stats, when they 100% precision, when they see you through walls and much, much more - that's when you should start to worry and complain.

Origineel geplaatst door Blackheart:

I can't think of any single player game that has truly impressive economy and AI that doesn't need cheats to be competitive.

Try Capitalism Lab))
There is actually tons of good games with good economy.
Those you listed is not about economy at all, those are about war. TW never ment to be about economy, but at least they have diplomacy. And units on battlefield not as dumb as in X. AI that trying to use your mistakes for personal advantage, not just sending suicide ships one after another on your stations.
Like, take for example Sins of Solar Empire. I`m not saying its better game then X games. Its different.
But in that game, if enemy see that your fleet is stronger, they will try to escape, regroup and attack you where you least expecting.
Same in Anno 1404. If AI ships see that they are in trouble, theyll try to escape. Except for ships that on the route and pirates, those are bold guys and in most cases will fight to the last. But other AI will try to get somewhere safe.
This is a little "humanish" behavior. Maybe not smartest but some feeling that you are fighting against opponent, not just simple script is present.
What will happen in X4? Well, youll have a lot of scrap for processing)
All games have cheats for AI, and ANNO is not an exemption, but still you can start blockade of enemy, and sooner or latter his money will runoff, and he will have to surrender or die)
I understand that those games are of different genres.
X games have something from all genres. Unfortunately didnt master any of it)))